I really like how Rainbow Reef runs their scuba business. Everything is top-notch and professional. The rental gear is always high-end and brand new. They make you do some of the work, but it helps you do things right. I really like them. They are why we came back to Key Largo. We were so impressed with the way they did things when we were here doing our Advanced Open Water certifications last year.
Morning came too early. We didn’t arrive in Key Largo until after midnight last night and didn’t get things setup and ready to go until about 1:30 am. First thing this morning we had to go sign in for the week, grab our rental gear, etc. before jumping on the boat at 8:30. I basically skipped breakfast. I took a few sips of some gatorade and some mango yogurt we picked up at Walmart last night, and then I was off. And I mean off. I felt very disoriented.
USS Spiegel Grove
The first dive was the wreck of the USS Spiegel Grove. With a length of 510 feet and a width greater than 80 feet wide, it is a huge ship. At the time it was the largest ship ever intentionally sunk to serve as an artificial reef. Even now, it’s still one of the largest ever scuttled for that purpose. It was brought to Key Largo to serve as the backbone of a new reef system. It is fairly famous for a few events. First, it unexpectedly sank itself less than a day before the planned sinking. Instead of a controlled descent, it rolled as it sank, winding up upside down. A month later they filled it with huge airbags and with the help of two tugboats, they managed to roll it just enough to expose the deck leaving it resting on its starboard side. But if you visit the USS Spiegel Grove today, you’ll see it is no longer laying on its side – it’s perfectly upright! In 2005, Hurricane Dennis just missed the Florida Keys, but the storm somehow managed to roll the ship to its originally intended upright position. Today the artificial reef it anchors helps protect the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary.
I have a new enclosure for my point-and-shoot camera. I’m hoping it will take better pictures than my old GoPro. The enclosure book advised me to take it down empty for the first dive, just in case. By the time we were on the water at the location, I was still fumbling around trying to figure out what I was doing. I wound up jumping in the water before putting my gloves on or strapping my camera to my hand.
A Rough Descent
The water was really rough – as rough as I’ve seen it in Key Largo. I’m sure it gets much worse in storms, but this was as rough as anything we’ve been in for scuba diving. So there I am, trying to hold on to the the granny line with one hand, put my gloves on before I drop them, figure out how to not drop the camera, and pull myself along to the drop point. And that’s the moment I realize I don’t have enough weight. I can’t drop down. My BCD is completely empty, but I can’t sink. This really sucks. It sucks because now I have to pull myself back to the boat, beg someone to carefully hand me some weights over the side of the boat, etc. But it also sucks because I already have 14 pounds of weight. That should have more than plenty. When I was here last year I only needed 12 pounds. Am I super gassy? I don’t feel like it. Have I gotten that fat? I guess so. So now I have my gloves, my camera, two five-pound lead weights, and the granny line in my hands. This is not a recipe for success. Luckily, Charmaine hadn’t descended very far and I was easily able to sink down to her with my new weights in my hands. She stuffed them into pockets in my BCD while I put on my gloves as we continued the descent.
On the way out from shore, we had discussed doing some swim-throughs of the superstructure and were reminded of the dangers of deep dives and particularly of penetration dives – at least 7 divers have died while diving here. Some of us planned to do the swim-throughs, while others would take an alternate route. But there were already too many boats moored at the helm when we arrived, so we were forced to moor at the stern. That meant there wouldn’t be any swim-throughs for any of us today. The stern rests almost 130 feet deep – quite a bit deeper than the helm, so this dive would be deeper and shorter than we originally planned. You can’t stay down that deep for very long. You burn through your air much more quickly and you can hit your no-decompression limit. Nobody wants to run out of air or be forced to do a decompression stop in addition to a safety stop while ascending, so we kept the dive fairly short. I haven’t downloaded my watch yet, but I think we were only down about 30 minutes.
The super powerful (and fairly expensive) video light was attached to the flexible tower screwed into the camera housing. The housing itself was empty, per manufacturer recommendation to dive without a camera the first time – just in case. But the old GoPro was also attached to the housing via the cold-shoe, directly above where the real camera would be. I was happy to see the enclosure didn’t leak. I took it deeper than 100 feet and it was fine. But I wasn’t very impressed with the new (expensive) video light. During the pre-dive tests we did at home it seemed amazingly powerful, smooth, and even, but at 85 feet deep I couldn’t tell if it was on or off as I pointed at things and aimed it around. I guess I will have to be a lot closer to my targets to see the benefits. It is a 100 degree angle, after all, so the dispersion factor has to be crazy high. But I’m really happy to have our new little spotting lights. The angle of their beam is very narrow and you can really see where they are aimed. It’s funny how blue I thought their light was at home and how pink/red it seems underwater.
It’s such a huge ship that we were only able to swim past about 1/3 of the outside of the ship during our dive. That’s crazy. It was pretty interesting and cool, but not amazing or spectacular. The visibility was only about 50 feet, which meant the ship extended into the distance far beyond what we could see. We couldn’t even see half the ship from above as we descended and less than 10% while diving alongside, but we were able to see some cool things. The first things we saw were some cool flags, still waving in the current. We saw a massive gun turret. We swam under the amphibious transport ramps, and enjoyed seeing all the coral that has attached itself to the ship. We also saw some nice jacks swimming in a circle around one of the posts. It made me remember the long shoal of jacks we saw in Cabo Pulmo and how we need to go back.
When we got up to 20 feet to do our safety stop we could already feel the crazy waves above us. I’m not sure it would have been as noticeable if we hadn’t been hanging on to the rope, but there was a slight current and we didn’t want anyone to get separated from the group. So we were all hanging on to the rope as it yanked us up and down with the wave action on the boat. Did I mention the water was rough? It was. As soon as I made my way to my spot on the boat I knew I wasn’t feeling well. I unclipped my BCD as fast as I could and ripped my mask off as I ran to the edge of the boat. I got there just in time to see mushrooms and peppers spew out of my mouth and into the sea below. I felt better immediately and got up and grabbed a cold bottle of water, rinsed my mouth, and took a few sips. I guess the Shake Shack burgers were too greasy to be eaten just a few hours before a rough day at sea. I wound up drinking the whole bottle of water on our way to French Reef.
French Reef
It’s not a long trip from the Spiegel to French Reef and the water wasn’t as rough at the reef as it had been out by the wreck. But still, the boat was being tossed and I felt worse after we were moored and just sitting there in the slightly rough waters. I knew I would feel better under water, but I didn’t think I would make it. Everyone got their equipment on for dive number two, and we all lined up, ready to jump off the back of the boat, but my turn wasn’t coming fast enough. I sat back down in my seat, took off my BCD, and once again took a trip to the side of the boat. This time I only sprayed clear water out – no doubt the water I drank as we cruised between dive sites – which felt pretty pathetic. By the time most of the other divers were in the water and I was still shamefully hanging my head over the side, the boat captain had mercy on me. She came down and told me to just put my fins and mask on and jump in – she would toss the rest of my gear into the water and I could put it on at the surface. That worked really well. I skipped the camera on this dive, even though I knew it would have been a good opportunity for photos – shallower, better light, more fish, etc. But I just didn’t want all that hassle. I needed some time to just relax and not worry about anything other than the experience.
It was a good dive. We saw a lot of cool stuff, including a nurse shark, a huge moray eel, some giant lobsters, hundreds of shrimp, a big beautiful french angelfish, a huge blue parrotfish, some hog fish, damsel fish, etc. It wasn’t completely packed with fish, but there were plenty to look at and enjoy. I used my spotting light to look down into the tube sponges and I always seemed to see something (usually a shrimp) in each one. I really like that light.
We stayed between 35 and 50 feet deep for about 50 minutes then did our safety stop and got ready to head back. I opted to hang back while everyone else got onboard. I wanted to minimize the amount of time I spent sitting up top, getting tossed around by the boat in the waves. Charmaine climbed up the ladder onto the boat and decided to take her own turn hanging over the side of the boat. She had already assumed the position by the time I climbed aboard. She told me she threw up through her regulator while diving. Wow. I had no idea. I’m glad she remembered her training and didn’t panic. I guess that explains why she switched to her octo part way through the dive. Being last to board the boat didn’t save me; it only postponed my fate. I joined Charmaine at the side of the boat after a few minutes, but this time I had nothing to spew out. I just heaved and made a lot of noise. It was equal parts embarrassing and comical. I grabbed another cold water and poured it on my head. I felt great after that, but Charmaine was still looking pretty green. She didn’t throw up again, but sat by the edge of the boat most of the way back to shore just in case.
We decided to skip the afternoon dives, take a nap, and just relax. That was the right decision.