Queen of Nassau (formerly known as Islamorada Wreck) 225fsw.
Islamorada- Florida Keys  
March 29th 2003

This dive was almost the anniversary of my first dive on this wreck back in February of 2002.     Since that time I have been lucky enough to make several dives on her.    This wreck is one of my most favorite local dives, despite the fact that it is always shrouded in poor visibility.

It was an afternoon dive, but I headed down early.  The water was like glass as I drove the 18 mile stretch to Key Largo.  As I looked out to sea I could see Card Sound Bridge very clearly in the distance, it was a perfect day for diving.

On arriving at Bud n' Marys I found several people already waiting,  some of whom I hadn't seen for quite a long time, so it was lots of hugs and hellos before I even got to start loading up my gear.

As we neared the wreck we spotted quite a few fishing vessels out there already.   Of course these guys are never happy to see a gang of divers show up but they have been fishing there for years and so we politely waited for them to move.    It was hot and very stressful as we waited in full gear on the dive platform while one fishing boat moved off the temporary mooring ball.   We waited and waited and waited and I almost decided to bail out when eventually after about 10 minutes the boat moved and we were able to splash!!!  No current and highly inviting 78degree water was a welcome relief from the weight of holding all my tanks up, I had picked that day to use my 104's :-(. 

I turned to my buddy, we Ok'd each other and then both hit our scooters for the trip down.   To my complete amazement I suddenly saw the deck of the wreck many feet  below me, and not just a part of it, but a huge section of the wreck could be seen at once.    I could not believe the visibility for this wreck, I could see more of it at one time than I have EVER seen before!!!  but    HOLY COW!! by the time I reached it I was freezing... the cold water cut right into me and my poor hands were getting all stiff and frozen.   After my gauge calmed down and stopped sequencing I saw that it was showing 54 degrees!!  No wonder I was cold.   Then I noticed that my light was no longer on!!! Uh Oh.. I know it was on at the surface, after trying to  make it work a couple of times I gave it a nasty hand signal and clipped it back off again.   Oh well at least it was not all that necessary because of the fantastic visibility.

It was Tom's first time on this wreck so I just said hey, you decide what  you want to do and I'll follow you.   We scootered around the bow  I knew already what was running through Tom's head, I have seen it happen to everyone who sees this wreck for the first time,  it is just such a perfect shipwreck and so intact, it is really special.   When Dean came up from his first dive on it  I don't think he stopped raving about it for an hour.

 Just as we reached the halfway point,  on the port side I began wishing I had my gloves with me, but then I remembered I had never removed them from my secret hiding place where they live,   and to Tom's amazement I popped off my fin and yes!!!! there they were, nice warm gloves just nestling inside.   I put them on eagerly.

Normally one has to be very careful about leaving the wreck and poking about in the debris field because it is so easy to lose sight of it,  but today there was no need, I could see the wreck from way way off.   I did find myself thinking that the great vis somehow detracted from the mystery of the wreck since it always appears so gloomy.     We scootered out to visit the huge props just laying out there half buried in the sand.   It is a really cool sight,  how many times have you ever seen a wreck where the props are still there!!!!  Not many I bet!

Then we went off to look at some more portholes and other artifacts,  and on returning to the wreck we checked the telegraph mount that is still laying there on the bridge.    By this time I see Joe and Barney waving bye bye, meaning they were going up.  I looked at my timer and saw 20 minutes..   Well by this point I was jolly cold and my buddy was diving in a wetsuit, so I tentatively asked if he wanted to go up.    I got a resounding thumb!!! Yeah we were both frozen.  I had planned to try a couple of buoyancy tests  out during the dive, like pretending my wing was ruptured and working with my drysuit, but it was far to cold to even think about playing around.    We left the bottom very quickly after the other guys.
It struck me as I was leaving the bottom that I had seen almost no significant fish on the wreck,  they must have been cold too.  I wonder where they all go to on days like this?   The other group managed the full thirty minutes bottom time, but then they all had C4 underwear on and nice argon bottles  :-).   

There is one thing that is wonderful about a dive like this,  the water always feels like a hot tub each time you move up to your next deco stop,  and I always get amazed by the temperature change when I reach into my pocket which is always still filled with cold bottom water!!!   The visibility was much worse during deco, but the warm water made up for it.    Not to much later we were back on deck, and at a normal temperature that human beings are supposed to live at :-).

One last comment:    Of course I went to check my light and I found a curious thing.  The test tube had split in half!  I believe that this happened because of the rapid temperature change and the fact that I had flipped it on while waiting on the dive platform all that time for the fishing boat to move, so that it was good and hot before I quickly plunged it to 54 degrees!!!!!  I had heard of this happening before, but from now on, when I hear it I will believe the story telller :-).

If you would like to see the AUE video of this wreck check here  and as always:  Remember this wreck is in a sanctuary and artifacts cannot be touched.