One afternoon the previous
weekend I was just relaxing after some nice dives that day when the phone
rang. It was one of my dive buddies, namely the infamous DSG from
Brownies looking for a rescue team. Apparently one of the
groups chartering his boat
that day had left his favorite anchor out there in the deep blue
sea. As I was hearing very clearly while holding
the phone approximately 24 inches from my ear, I realized that the
situation was serious and volunteered to go find it for him the very next
weekend.
The anchor had been left out there somewhere close to the Tracor
Dry dock which is actually pretty close to the inlet. The ball
had been still attached when it was left, but although they had been
out to look for it the next day the ball was already gone, swiped by a
passing pirate. Along with the missing anchor was
some 10ft of chain AND brand new 250ft of line.. Crikey. Not only
this, it was a solid stainless steel hook!!! Infomation from the
boat captain was clear, on where it was dropped. but the actual depth was
ranging from 220 to 250 depending on where it actually fell since
the drop off is pretty steep at that point.
Saturday afternoon rolled around and by lucky happening Mike
was planning to be in Miami this weekend, so Mike, Joe and I
headed over to brownies ready to go on a retrieval mission, with of course
that added benefit of getting a nice dive on the dry dock as
well. As we were preparing for the dive I could already
smell the summer starting up. There was a light breeze and the sun
was shining, the temperature was well into the 80's. The whole scene
was beautiful as we motored down the coast line, and I looked at all the
distinctive buildings stretching in either direction as far as you can
see.
We decided the best plan was to splash
in and hit the wreck, then perform a search up to 300ft north of the wreck
in a line. Scooters are so useful for projects like
this. As we jumped the vis was a little bit grungy but
on nearing the bottom it opened up to be beautiful and I could see
the other two guys just slightly ahead of me, and then yes.. there it
was.. sitting there sparkling away, with bright white line all
around it.. A very pretty stainless anchor with a wreck attached
:-). No need to even search for it, Mike homed in
on it instantly.
There was a great deal of interesting
debris in the area and the line was wrapped allover it so we
scootered up and down gathering up all the line into a pile on the sand
and sent the whole lot up on two lift bags. Then after about
13 minutes returned to the business of enjoying our dive. The
debris field looked absolutely perfect for some deep water lobstering,
although I didn't see any. We zoomed all over the wreck
and checked out the barge that had fallen on top of it which was
interesting to look at. I noted some holes that might make an
interesting tour of the inside for another day :-). The spot
where we found the anchor was at about 222ft but the top of the wreck was
something like 190ft so in fact there was quite a relief. One
couldn't help smiling about the large number of fishing boats we had seen
out enjoying the weather, yet the rather striking lack of big fish
actually on the wreck itself.
After a further 10 minutes of dive time
we headed back up to the sunlight and I had some excitement popping up a
lift bag since we had used two already on the anchor. We had a fun
deco which is well described in Mike's dive report (click
here to see it). I did hear him describe Joe's appearance
at one point as something like one of those Chia
Pets. There is nothing like upsetting your buoyancy
control by laughing so hard you keep filling your mask up with water
:-). Especially when your dive buddy decides to clip off the lift
bag to the top of his head, and play hangman.
We were going to pretend we didn't find
it, to tease Dave but it was too late, the Capt. had already radioed
in the success of the mission. Which actually turned out to be a
good thing since there was a nice big cooler full of cold beverages
waiting for us when we arrived back at the dock.
We hung out for a while as the evening came on, and just had a really nice
relaxing evening celebrating the return of the stainless
lady. I did hear Joe mention that we should put put her
in the same bucket as the big huge AUE grapple overnight to see if any
little anchors would appear.
Yes summer is here and there is just a ton of great diving to do.
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