Ghost Fleet November 2006

The Ghost Fleet of Key West conjures up images of Spanish galleons. In fact, it refers to a number of US WWII-vintage warships that were sunk for weapons testing. In early November a group of us visited it with Andrew Driver of Mad Dog Expeditions. Louis Barson, Tim Robinson, Fabrice Pilato, Chuck Wade and Andrew dove Megs, Simon Hutchins dove a Vision-equipped Classic Inspiration, Doug Rice dove an Evolution, and I had my Prism. Rounding out the bunch was Joe Zimmerman, OC Joe, who reminded us all why we dive rebreathers!

The RV Tiburon is an excellent platform for this kind of diving, with a fill station on board, plenty of space for 9 divers, and wireless internet access even when we were on the wrecks. Thanks to Jackie it also supplies the best food, hands down, I've ever had on a dive trip. A trained chef, each breakfast, lunch and dinner was a delight, with steak sandwiches, pork roasts with mango salsa, stuffed salmon, grilled chicken with yoghurt curry sauce, etc. Cracking good tucker. We all had our own rooms, so no one had to be offended by snoring (or worse - Jackie makes a killer bean salad), and with four outlets per room we were able to skip the musical-rechargers game.

For Day One we decided to make a shallower acclimation dive onto the USS Curb. Something was lost in translation though, and what several of us thought was going to be a 130' dive was actually 190' to the sand. No worries, we all had basically the same setup for the whole week, so with a little tweaking of the dive plan it was Game On. The Curb, a salvage vessel, is 214' long, intact and upright, with a history noteworthy to Northeast wreck divers: She was one of the first vessels to arrive when the Shalom struck the Stolt Dagali, and helped escort the Stolt's stricken bow portion back to port. Chuck, Joe and I were Team One, with Chuck splashing a couple of minutes early to secure the line. The seas were moderate when we rolled in, and it took a bit of work to pull down the line. A goliath grouper greeted us on the deck, and another visited me when I went down to the sand at the keel. I spent the week diving wet with no hood or gloves, though I had to re-learn not to touch things. I poked at one of the pink lichen-looking shells attached to the hull and got a nice slice in my finger. At that depth red colors were long since filtered out, so it looked like black ink spilling out of me. Kind of neat, I felt like a squid. There were plenty of places to penetrate, albeit with lots of monofilament, and it seemed like all of us were entangled at one point or another. The ascent got a little more exciting for me when my Prism went tits-up. I heard a {tink!} sound, then O2 started dumping out. Joe Z was right there, so he helped me unplug the line, then safeguarded a precious handful of manual-injector parts until I could get topside. First time I've had to do OC bailout, there's no drill like for real. For the rest of the dive I was running through calling SMI and having them overnight me parts, but when I got back onboard I found I could work it out. The circlip holding my injector snapped, but by lucky happenstance it matches exactly the one diverite uses for their reels, and better yet supplies in the kit for same.

Andrew Driver talks about how much he hates Day One on a trip, and I can see his point. Besides my cut finger, minor entanglement and exploding O2 injector, I also had a misfilled diluent bottle (66%!) and issues with my dive computer. After a midday nap I came onto the deck to see my Prism looking like an extra from a bondage porno film. While lurching from some wave action it had made a good-faith effort to slip under the bench and over the side! I can not even contemplate in the theoretical how I would respond if my rig had actually disappeared. Probably it would involve wailing, histrionics, maybe some smelling salts, the five stages of grief, sackcloth and ashes. You know, dignified stuff. Fortunately that was it for issues with me, and the rest of the week was smooth as silk.

It was a fun group on this trip. Some of the guys I had dived with before, others I knew by name, and a few were new to me. There was a nice vibe, and we had a good time kicking back on the Tiburon, telling stories and busting chops. We hadn't even left the dock before Fabrice's pale skin had him dubbed French Vanilla. By the end of day one I was GDR for Go Deep Rob, as I always like to see what is all the way down on the bottom. Not the worst thing I've been called, even if you use the more conventional take on the first two letters. Louis had a little flooding incident, but didn't seem too fond of it when I called him Louis Leakey. The black cowling on my Prism was too hard to see from above, so at Andrew's behest I put a large white X on it with duct tape. It made me feel like a target. I especially enjoyed Tim's tales of doing business in Japan, and Simon's stories about working on a billionaire's yacht were a window to a life I'd never thought about. Perhaps I should try this whole billionaire thing, it sounds like fun!

Dive Two was on the Wilkes Barre, the Lethal Lady. Built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in ‘44, she received 4 battle stars for service in the Pacific during World War Two. Numerous airmen owed their lives to her rescue operations after being shot down, and she also came to the assistance of the Bunker Hill after it was crippled and set ablaze by kamikaze aircraft. Off Iwo Jima she served in a ground support role, pounding shore defenses, and later turned back a determined counterattack on the ground. It took 7 minutes to descend the 210’ to the deck, due to the current and scope on the line. Chuck again did the tie in, setting up a mooring so we could easily return throughout the week. The ship, originally 608’ long with a 63’ beam, was blown in half during weapons testing in 1972, with the stern intact and upright. We set off down the deck, pulling ourselves up each of the massive 6” turrets (that would be the bore size, not the actual height of the turret!) They were amazing, you pull over the top of one and are looking right down the muzzles of the ones behind it. Each one was like a Joseph Cornell box, its own little still life of fish, crabs, shrimp, yellow and red sponges, and red oysters. Returning to the stern, I dropped down to 257' looking for the props, but they had been removed. Ascending the starboard stern was incredible, a 50’ wall of steel and life. Barracudas swirled all about us, including a 7' beast, and kept us company through our hour of decompression. In the spirit of Key West we all engaged in some frantic man-on-man action, at least until we brought jon lines and were able to spread out on the deco stops.

For Tuesday we returned to the Wilkes Barre. A scooter team was formed so Joe, Chuck and Andrew could cut loose, and for the rest of the week I buddied up with Simon and Louis. Conditions were much finer than the day before, and descent was a breeze down the much-more-vertical anchor line. Dive One I led off down the deck to the cut, then curled up and over the superstructure for the return. High on the port side is a rope that leads to the bow section, which lies on its starboard side 250 away. Nice time to have a scooter! For Dive Two I brought my camera along, and took some shots of the long gun barrels as we weaved in and out of them. Things got a little squirrelly later when we surfaced, as one of the divers exhibited symptoms of a type 1 decompression hit in the shoulder. He stayed on O2 for a while, but when symptoms didn’t improve it was time to go to the next level. Fortunately we were eminently well equipped to help him. One of the beautiful things about going on a trip with Mad Dog Expeditions is that Andrew brings a portable decompression chamber (Greg Norman's old one, for you golf fans.) Within about 30 minutes we had it rolled out and inflating, with the diver inside. Simon has been training on the same type of chamber for the yacht, so it was a perfect opportunity for him to do some hands-on work under Andrew’s watchful eyes. Joe too has chamber training, so he stayed inside to assist as a tender. Louis and I made ourselves useful by keeping the two sets of doubles in rotation, since the chamber uses standard tanks to pressurize. It was fascinating to watch, and fortunately all symptoms disappeared after a few hours in the pot.

The following day we headed out to the USS Kendrick, with F-18's doing overflights as we left the harbor. Commissioned in 1942, the Kendrick spent World War II serving in the Mediterranean. In 1968 she was destroyed in weapons testing, and came to rest in 320’ of water, intact and upright. 348’ long with a 36’ beam, she is long, sleek and mean. Captain Tim dropped a shot bag, and the scooter team splashed 30 minutes before the rest of us to tie it in. It had fallen only 60 or so feet from the wreck, and by the time we descended they had it tied in beautifully right by the stack. There was no current whatsoever. Louis, Simon and I dropped like parachutists straight down the line. Simon clipped a strobe and I led off, eager to see the propellers. They did not disappoint, with 60' long prop shafts, and a wicked pitch befitting a 35 knot vessel. The ship is cracked in half just abaft the main superstructure, and came to rest about 15' back and inline, like a giant cross-section. We were moving with a purpose, and managed to circumswim the ship. The Kendrick struck bow first, buckling the deck upwards at a 25 degree angle. I slipped over the bow just to see that knife-like keel pointed at me.

The next day we decided to take it easy, which in the context of the trip meant only doing one dive to 250', again on the Wilkes Barre. The scooter boys took the opportunity to follow the line out to the bow, and were given a tour by a friendly 6' reef shark. My group did a little penetrating, but it was mighty silty (all the more so when Louis pulled an old phone from the muck), not to mention full of wires and line. The hangar in the stern was especially interesting, with rails for shuttling and launching the planes. The lovely weather held up, and deco was spent on a dead-vertical line, with the boat aimlessly pirouetting atop it.

Andrew had brought along his LAR V oxygen rebreather, which used to belong to Will Smithers. He was kind of enough to set it up, so Joe and I spent some time playing around with the crabs and juvenile fish at the dock. It felt very strange to be on a chest-mounted rebreather with no PO2 monitor, but it sat fairly nicely on the body and was fun for a change.

For the last day we elected to return to the Kendrick. The seas had kicked up a bit, but were still reasonable. Oddly, I found myself fairly narc'd at first, though it went away after a few minutes. An enormous Roughtail Stingray lay placidly in the sand, easily the size of my dining room table. On deco I was the farthest back on the stern line, and started to get concerned when I realized Joe was missing. Not good, not good at all. I finally decided that if his buddies didn't seem too upset then he must be ok, and put morbid thoughts aside. Then I looked next to me where Fabrice had been a moment ago. He was nowhere to be seen. I looked up, down, each side - Holy Shit! No Fabrice! Finally I looked behind me, to see him 20' back and chugging into the current - apparently he had used both hands to get his jon line out, and was swept back a bit. After that I decided to put my head down and mind my own damn business, this den mother stuff is not good for the nerves.

After a week of moderate to excellent weather Mother Nature showed us the back of her hand, but it still only cost us the last day. It had its upside too: what cooler way to leave Key West than in a convertible in the rain, flying over the bridges and still dry with the top down?