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cavegirl |
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Post subject: Divers-ity in the graveyard of the Atlantic
 Posted: Apr 02, 2007 - 11:04 AM
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Blenny
Joined: Dec 31, 1969
Posts: 29
Status: Offline
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The South Carolina Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) heads up a prolific artificial reef program.
“They’re dropping artificial reef balls here,” Jonathan Poore, co-owner of Express Water Sports in Myrtle Beach, explained. “The NYC subway cars have done really well. One of our sites called the BV25 has lots of turtles and grouper, and the (wreck of) the Vermillion has done really well.”
The relationship between the South Carolina DNR and local diving and fishing interests has resulted in great recreational experiences for both camps.
“We work with the South Carolina DNR acquiring vessels to put out there, some of the older derelict vessels,” said Poore. “This area has become so popular that some of the sites had gotten crowded with divers and fishermen trying to get to the same sites. The DNR has worked really hard out there to spread them out a bit.”
“We do the 11 mile tugboat and airplane for night diving. The tugboat is a 90 foot tugboat, the airplane is a Navy A-6 attack plane. They sit in 45 feet of water and there’s another new reef nearby.”
The area is littered with historic wrecks as well.
“I’d recommend the Sherman, a 120 foot post-Civil War vessel put down in 1867,” said Larry Hilliard, owner of Nu Horizons Dive & Travel in Myrtle Beach. “It lies at 53 feet and is a novice wreck dive.”
South Carolina got three new reefs this year: a 75 ft. shrimp trawler located in the same area as the tugboat and airplane; a 65 ft. headboat nearby, and a 40 foot tugboat inshore about five miles off the beach.
For penetration, there are two artificial reefs offshore that Hilliard recommends.
“The first wreck is the BP25, a 260-foot ship, and the other is called the Vermillion; it’s 460 feet long. They require advanced certification. The BP is 70 feet at the top, 95 feet at the bottom and it’s laying on its starboard side. On the Vermillion, the officer’s quarters are at 75 feet and it goes down to 130 at the sand. We tie directly into the wrecks themselves.”
The jewel of the South Carolina coast is the Grand Strand area that runs from North Myrtle Beach down to just above Murrells Inlet at Myrtle Beach State Park.
“There’s a lot to do here for the whole family,” Poore explained. “There are dinner shows, amusement parks, and aquariums. We’re one of the largest golf areas in the nation with over 120 golf courses. It’s the whole package.”
Dive conditions along the coast are largely dictated by geography and ruled by the weather.
“We sit in a bay called Long Bay and the way the South Carolina coast curves, we have a bit of beach erosion here,” Poore pointed out. “People think the visibility along the coast is bad because of the beach erosion, but once you get off the beach, visibility is really good.”
There are a lot of limestone rock ledges in the area, good for lobster hunting. There is a limit of 2 spiny lobster per day but no limit for slipper or shovelnose lobster. The carapace must exceed three inches for the spiny to be legal.
“The best time to dive is usually May or early spring all the way through the first part of the fall,” Poore advised. “Then we get into the typical tradewinds season. When we get into the height of the hurricane season, which is September, that’s when you have to keep your eye on the weather.”
Across the state line in Wilmington, NC, the wrecks of the Hyde and the Markham are recommended by Dustin Heath, co-manager of Aquatic Safaris.
“These are our two biggest wreck dives we normally visit. The Markham is lying on its side, and the Hyde is sitting straight up. The main attraction here is Sand Tiger sharks; both wrecks have tons of life on them, especially as far as sharks are concerned. The depths range from 65 feet to the deck, 80-85 feet to the sand. I wouldn’t do these as a first dive or as a beginner,” Heath cautioned, “but it’s great for anyone that has a few dives under their belt. It’s definitely an intermediate dive.”
“Our closest wreck is the 420-foot-long Alexander Ramsey. We do a lot of open water certification dives here. Being close to shore, the visibility is limited a lot of times, but when the water is clear it’s a great dive. The Ramsey has a lot of bait on it, at times during the year a few Sand Tigers on it too. The maximum depth to the sand is 55 feet on this Liberty ship.”
The general wisdom is that for people coming to dive the area, they need to remember that this is North Carolina diving, not the Caribbean or Florida. There are days when the visibility is 100+ foot, and others where 20-30 feet is considered great viz. Being weather dependent, the diving is generally better further out in the ocean.
“If you want to go a little bit deeper, you have the Cassimir and the Normania in 110-115 feet of water. These pristine wrecks are considered more advanced dives. Here you find lobster with lots of marine life,” Heath said. “With the deep wrecks you’re getting closer to the Gulf Stream, and you have a little more current out there.”
Aquatic Safaris has two boats and according to Heath, they can run one boat to a nearshore wreck and send the other to a wreck a little further out.
“Our diving is some of the best in the world. It’s a great place to go to see the bigger marine life like Amberjack and sharks.”
At Cape Fear Divers in Carolina Beach, Bill Carlson agrees with Heath.
“One of my favorite wrecks is the Hyde. It’s an old dredge from the Viet Nam war. It’s about 385 feet long, in 85 feet of water. It’s got all sorts of great marine life; all summer long we have big sand tiger sharks there. They’re about 10 feet long, 600 pounds, fearsome looking but real docile. People come from all over the country to dive with them.
“There’s also the 400-foot Gill, it was sunk by a WWII submarine and is a good historical wreck about 22 miles out,” explained Carlson, first mate of the dive boat Hawksbill.
“The City of Houston went down in the 1800s full of house supplies. Divers find all sorts of artifacts here: silverware, plates, pottery, typewriters, guns. It’s out past Frying Pan Tower, about 50 miles off shore. The water is beautiful, and fairly deep at around 100 feet. It’s unbelievable—you see tropical fish like you find in the Bahamas and the Caribbean, but twice as big.
“These are very large wrecks, it’s hard to see it all in one dive. The City of Houston is a three hour ride out and back; it’s a full day so we usually do a three tank dive. We recommend Nitrox because of the depth, to get more bottom time. Most of our customers on these dives use Nitrox.
“An interesting bonus is the historical aspect of these dives. We have 1800s wrecks, WWII wrecks, ships that were used in Viet Nam. There’s a great book called Shipwrecks: Diving the Graveyard of the Atlantic by Roderick M. Farb. It’s a compilation of all the wrecks with the histories, diagrams of the current layout and how it looks when you dive on it, and pictures of the original ships,” Carlson explained. “It all depends on what divers are looking for: artifacts, history, marine life. We can find a dive to fit their desires.”
Further north in Morehead City, NC, John Belisario, assistant manager at Olympus Diving, professes a dual draw for divers.
“The great thing about our area is that we’ve got history and we’ve also got marine life; then on certain wrecks you have both.”
That said, he jumps right in with one of the area’s premier dive attractions: the German sub U-352.
“It’s relatively close to shore. You know it’s a sub when you see it underwater: it’s not broken up and destroyed. It’s also covered with fish life.”
Belisario rates it a beautiful dive with 80-100 visibility in the summertime and warm bottom temperatures. There are remains inside that make it a war grave, so it’s a sobering dive experience.
“All our dives are relatively advanced; by that I mean depths 90-120 feet. We have certain minimum certifications for divers on our offshore charters because it is deep and we’re between 20 and 30 miles out in the ocean,” Belisario advised.
“I would definitely recommend The Papoose, a WWII casualty wreck. It’s about 440 ft. long and upside down. The wreck by itself is outstanding, but then you also have the chance of seeing between two and 40 Sand Tiger sharks,” he advised. “The Spar is a Coast Guard cutter put down in the summer of 2004. Upright, fully intact, easy swim throughs, and you can dive it as shallow at 75 feet. The Indra, a 330 ft. Navy repair ship, is also upright and as shallow as 40-60 feet.”
The artificial reef program started in 1988 and seven ships have been sunk in that time, the Spar being he most recent. Some are deep but many are located within 8-10 miles of the beach.
“We like to see people come with advanced experience or with at least 20 logged dives,” Belisario explained. “For those that don’t meet that certification we do offer instruction or a divemaster you can hire for a guided dive. That way the diver stays safe, has a good time and they can enjoy the important parts of the wreck. We strongly recommend Nitrox training,” he stressed. “It just about doubles your bottom time here.”
“We have over 30 wrecks that we dive,” said Amy Pieno of Outer Banks Diving in
Hatteras. “The most popular are the Dixie O and the Proteus. The Dixie O is very consistent as far as sea life and conditions. The depths range from 65 to 85 feet.”
Because of depths and sea conditions, Pieno advises caution.
“We accept open water divers but I usually recommend that novice divers inquire about a guide. For the more experienced, I would recommend the Proteus. It is a passenger freighter that went down in 1918. It’s about 120 foot with relief up to 110 feet. Sand Tigers are commonly seen on all the wrecks, including tropicals and pelagic fish.”
There is something for every interest and skill level along the North Carolina coastline.
“We see a lot of smaller tropicals--gobies, wrasses—the wrecks themselves are their own big coral reef and are great for underwater photography. In the fall we see manta rays migrating through.”
When talking about diving in North Carolina, history and variety are the catch- words.
“Historical highlights are the U-85, which is the first German U-boat sunk off the U.S. Coast. The whole pressure hull is intact at a maximum depth of around 100 feet,” said Bill McDermott, CEO and Dive Safety Officer with Outer Banks Dive Center in Nags Head. “The tanker and freighter the Benson and the York, were sunk by U-boats in WWII. There’s the green buoy wreck, which is the Mirlo, another tanker that was sunk by a mine in WWI.”
The Outer Banks shoreline is unique in that this area allows beach diving.
“We have wrecks right off the beach that you can swim to, about the only place on the whole east coast that has historical wrecks right off the beach,” McDermott explained. “One of the most popular beach wreck dives is the USS Huron. The sinking of the Huron in the late 1800s and the loss of most of its crew, created an outrage in Congress. The subsequent investigation is what started the Coast Guard.”
“The triangle wrecks, the Carl Gerhard and the Kyzickes, are a tanker and a freighter that went down just 100-150 yards off the beach.”
Speaking of the Coast Guard, two very important historic wrecks are the USCG cutters Bedloe and Jackson. Both 125 foot vessels went down in a hurricane in 1944 with crew losses on both boats. The Bedloe lies on her port side at 140 feet; the Jackson’s stern sits upright at 80 feet. The bow is sitting with a list to the starboard at 40 degrees.
“The offshore wrecks are the premier diving here. There are more wrecks here than anywhere else in the world. There are over 1300 known wrecks between the Virginia border and Cape Hatteras,” said McDermott. “There are a few artificial reefs, most of them are natural wrecks, like artificial reefs 140 and 145. 140 contains two wonderful Liberty ships, the Zane Gray and the Dionysus. Both upper decks start at about 60 feet, they’re 440 feet long covered in growth, a wonderful place to see juvenile and adult sand tigers. We probably have the most varied range of marine life of anywhere in the world. You can see everything from cold water giant tuna to tropical manta rays and anything in between.”
Training here is ideal because of the variety of wreck profiles and dive experiences, from certification dives on up to as technical as you want to go.
“Artificial reef 145 is the wreck of the Advance, which is a basic level wreck. We do certification dives on both the Zane Gray and Dionysus, as well as the wreck of the Advance,” McDermott explained.
“Conditions are variable, in that you get the best that the mid-Atlantic has to offer. Visibility off the beach averages 15 foot, offshore it averages 45 feet. We get a mixture of the Gulf Stream and the Laborador current.” said McDermott.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Express Water Sports
Myrtle Beach
(866) 566-9338
www.ExpressWaterSports.com
Nu Horizons Dive & Travel
Myrtle Beach
(800) 505-2080, (843) 839-1932
www.SouthCarolinaDive.com
NORTH CAROLINA
Aquatic Safaris
Wilmington
(910) 392-FUN
www.Aquaticsafaris.com
Cape Fear Divers
Carolina Beach
(910) 547-7620
www.CapeFearDivers.com
Olympus Dive Center
Moorehead City
(252) 726-9432
www.olympusdiving.com
Outer Banks Diving
Hatteras
(252) 986-1056
www.OuterBanksDiving.com
Outer Banks Dive Center
Nags Head
(252) 449-8349
www.OBXDive.com |
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