It had been at least half a year since I dived the Northern Light, and we had tried several times lately to get out there and been thwarted by weather.      Late last week four of us decided to get together and make the dive,    three of the four being members of the original video dive team.      The conditions for diving have been really great lately, and I had made a midweek dive a couple of days before  on the Hydro Atlantic that was just spectacular.     However once we had all the arrangements made, there loomed a nasty tropical storm on the horizon.    The storm was coming accross the state somewhat north of us around Tampa, but we were on the wet side of it and large bands of humongous rain showers were predicted.     On Friday I was anxiously talking to several friends  who have charter boats and  had been out that day,  to discover the conditions.   The NOAA forecast said 3-5ft which was a bit rough but not undiveable and the reports from the other boats  actually out there  came in at 2-3ft, so the plan was to forge ahead.   

I had to be at the boat by 8:00am on Saturday which meant getting up at about 5:30am.   I could hear the rain hammering on the roof, and wondered what on earth I was getting into.   As I peeked out of my bedroom window could not see any wind blowing the tops of the trees, so was feeling just a little better.    The rain seemed to come and go so I loaded the car by scurrying back and forth quickly between downpours, and set off for Key Largo.   Gradually as I drove south the rain became less, and it began to get light, even though the sun was shrouded in a heavy coat of grey cloud.    I could see the blackness in Miami behind me and it looked like something out of a stephen king movie. 

For once I was the last to arrive at the boat, and all four of us loaded the boat the same way I had loaded my car, between rain showers.    I had seen no white caps on the ocean on the way down and the captain was not expecting big waves since the wind was coming out of the SW.     The ocean was pretty flat for most of the trip out to the wreck, every once in a while the rain would come down really hard but then stop within the space of a few minutes.    As we crossed the reef line and headed out towards the Elbow light over deeper water the seas did pick up, and as predicted were a steady 3-5ft.     The good part was that I could see that deep crystal blue colour that meant good visibility.

We geared up and due to the conditions the captain dropped us directly over the wreck,  having ascertained that there was little to no current :-)... Wooohoooo.  Three of us had scooters, but my buddy didn't have one.     Tom and Pat dropped in first and headed down, then Howard and I dropped in.    Howard had not scootered before, so I instructed him on how to get towed down to the wreck.    He did really well and I could hardly tell he was behind me holding on.    I made a vertical plunge directly down, and started looking hard.    With the overcast skies I knew it would be tougher to see the wreck,   however visbility was on our side.   within a matter of 20 seconds  I saw the bubble trail from the first team, before I saw the wreck come into view.     There it was, laid out like a map below me, and I realized I could see about a hundred feet.    Wowee.. I grinned to myself and though "this is going to be a killer dive".     Taking my finger off the scooter trigger, I gently landed close to the penetration point we had planned.    Howard realized it was time to let go, and we made a very graceful arrival :-).     First thing was to check gas, then I clipped off my scooter and we headed under the upturned stern.    At first I was a bit disoriented and could not figure out why the sand pile was so high inside,   so I swam around and entered from the other side which is like a small triangular tunnel, with a hole at the end that you can pop through and come out right under the hull.    Once Inside things were much more familiar again and I could see the line that had been run in there.    We headed to the area behind the boiler, and caught up with Pat and Tom, who were exactly where they said they would be which was checking under the boiler.     I gave Howard the tour of the interior along the line,   I had forgotten to tell him the the wreck was protected and because of this are several very easily viewable port holes and he excitedly showed one to me as he came across it.    We popped out close to the sand from under the hull, just like popping out from under a turtle shell.   I was surprised to find 187 on my depth gauge, it seemed to be deeper than usual?    We started swimming towards the broken section in the direction of where the stern would be if it wasn't folded over.     I suddenly caught the shadow of something over my head and I looked up to see an enormous shark heading up over the top of the hull and away from me.    He was pretty big, at least 8ft, but from the underside I couldn't tell what kind of shark he was.    I gave Howard the shark signal but it was too late, he was gone.

As we returned to the point where my scooter was clipped off we met back up with Tom and Pat, who gave us the thumb signal.     I agreed it was time to leave and gave Howard the signal to get into towing position.  I did this so that we could begin our ascent but he would get a tour of the bow as I we started up.     After this Howard dropped off to send up a lift bag  and I stopped scootering.     Ever so slowly we began drifting up and away from the wreck, and I waved to it, hoping that I would be back again soon :-).     As we were  hanging around on deco it began to occur to me that the reason I was a bit disoriented and the sand pile inside seemed so big was NOT because there was more sand, but because the wreck is slowly sinking down and the difference was discernible!!!

Decompression was interesting to say the least,   We could hear heavy rain pounding on the ocean surface,  I was startled by the occasional  huge flashes of lightning and we could even hear the rumble of thunder,    I wasn't really very interested in breaking the surface at that point,  It looked pretty nasty up there and I was concerned about the boat crew.     After another few minutes we did surface, and the rain had stopped, but the wind seemed to have picked up.      I am always happy to see the boat when I come up and I hastily gave him an OK signal, then motioned Howard to get on board first since he had no scooter.    As the guys got back in one by one the wind seemed to pick up even more quite suddenly,  and Tom and I were left having to scooter flat out to keep up with the tag line.      This was interesting,   I dumped my wing to scooter faster, but the boat was blown by the wind much faster than we could scooter,   we figured it was a losing battle and waited to be picked up again.     The boat then circled and came back for us, so I sent Tom on ahead, and in the couple of minutes that I had while the tag line was close by , I clipped my deco bottles onto it thinking I could keep up with the boat better without them.     The result was that the boat still began to pull away from me and I had to let go to prevent myself from water skiing, and even with no extra gear, could not scooter fast enough to keep up.    Even though I was the last one in  I was feeling pretty confident that things would be OK since I had my HID light on, but the guys couldn't resist making jokes about just coming back to get me so that the could retrieve my scooter!!!   This particular boat had no ladder and after handing up scootie,  I prepared for the "Shamu Manouver"  getting in timing with a downward wave to get back on board, but  the guys were wasting NO time and before I was ready they grabbed my manifold and for a second I thought I was flying, as I popped right out onto the deck, What a ride !!! and I wasn't diving with Alumininum tanks today either!!

The seas remained a solid 4-5ft but the wind had kicked up to about 20 which was why the boat was drifting so quickly.     However the dive had been excellent, with no current and 100ft vis, the treat of seeing a shark, and a super tour of the inside.     I can't wait to get back there again.  and again, and again and again :-).

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