Diving The Oriskany - How To?

[Zeke XA3]

Hey guys,

So on my mega adventure trip im planning i will be in South Florida and looking at doing Speigel groove and Vandenberg if i can and a hop over to the Bahamas BUT....

I have had the Oriskany on my list for a while, just something about an aircraft carrier,

Problem is, it doesnt seem cheap to get to!

Return flights from south Florida (Miam or FLL) running at around $300 USD, i did consider greyhound but although only $130 USD return, at 15-18hrs each way seems a looonngggg journey, any other routes/special you know of?

How easy is it to get a dive there, looking at the websites they dont seem to run regular dives but have to charter and bring own tanks/weights too? Ill be traveling with my own gear but not tank and weights.

And is it worth it? Factor in accom/flights/dives, id be looking at $500+ for 2 dives or $700 for 4 dives.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

When it was sunk the concerns were that it was located too far off shore, and that it wasn't in a great location for dive charters. It would have been a much more accessible wreck in south Florida where it could have been put on the bottom only a couple miles off shore, and where dive boat operators abound.

As it is it's 27 miles off shore, in an area not known for stellar diving, it was placed deeper than it needed to be on a bottom, and on a bottom where it's likely to get even deeper before it's done settling. The only thing they did right was sink it upright.

Once you figure out how to get to the pan handle cost efficiently, there are at least 3 boats I am aware of that advertise day charters to the CV-34, but I'm not sure how many they actually run, and I don't think most of them will mix tech and rec divers on the boat.

You can contact them:

USS Oriskany

H2O Below - Oriskany Dive Charters

Niuhi Dive Charters - USS Oriskany Charters in Pensacola

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In terms of the dive itself, the island starts at about 85 ft. and extends to the flight deck at about 146-150 ft.

It's interesting but recreational dives will be short, and get shorter the deeper you go.

The flight deck was at 145 when I last dove it, but the CV-34 is I suspect in the process of settling to it's old waterline given the composition of the bottom, so I expect it to keep getting deeper. The flight deck is quite interesting, but it's a technical dive, and the hanger deck is where the wreck really starts to get interesting and it's at 180 ft.

If they had sunk the boat in water 30 ft shallower, it would still be 55' to the top of the island but the flight deck would be at 115' and the hanger deck would only be 150', making much more of the wreck readily accessible to recreational divers as well as allowing longer run times with less deco for normoxic trimix technical divers.

The Spree used to do live aboard charters to the CV-34 and that is by far the best bang for the buck on a cost per dive basis, but I don't think they have any plans to do so any time soon.

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Unfortunately, it appears we are not likely to ever get another carrier sunk as an artificial reef, given that the Forrestal, Saratoga and Constellation were scrapped in 2014 and 2015, the Ranger has been sold for scrap and is on its way to Brownsville to be scrapped, the Independence has been sold for scrap.

The America was a conventional carrier but was laid down as an Enterprise class CVN and it sunk as a target in 2005, in part due to the similarity of the hull to newer carriers, and in part due to conners that the while the Navy could learn a lot about the hull design by sinking, so could foreign powers if it were artificially reefed at dividable depths. As result it now rests 250 miles off Cape Hatteras in 17,000 ft of water. The Navy seems to be incredibly paranoid about the hull design of their nuclear carriers - which I suspect would pose even more clean up concerns anyway - and I'm guessing they'l all be scrapped or sunk in deep water as targets long before any consideration would ever be given to donating them for an artificial reef program.

That leaves the JFK, which is on hold for donation, and the Kitty Hawk, which is still in reserve, so those are the only two possible options and they are both long shots given the EPA clean up requirements and related costs.

 

[Jax]

Drive yourself. It is about 8 -10 hours one way. It is the cheapest and most expedient method.

 

[boulderjohn]

Once you figure out how to get to the pan handle cost efficiently, there are at least 3 boats I am aware of that advertise day charters to the CV-34, but I'm not sure how many they actually run,

The hardest part of getting to the Oriskany is not getting yourself to the shore area itself, it is getting to the shore area on a day when one of the operators there is actually going to run a dive to it. I have no idea how to do that. I have never been successful.

I have canceled trips to the area a few times because the dive operators assured me the weather would not be good enough. I have had my body in the area ready to go on a moments notice a total of 11 days over a number of years--no luck. Now, when I do this, I am coming from Colorado (and on one long trip returning to Colorado from South Florida), so this is no small trip. One week of those 7 days was a vacation with my wife and some friends in March a few years ago. The dive operation boats were mostly out of the water for annual maintenance. "Who dives this time of the year?" they said. "The water's too cold."

So who knows? Someday the constellations may come into a favorable alignment and I might give it another go. For now, I have thrown such thoughts aside.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I have had similar experiences.

One the first attempt I was called the day before I was supposed to depart as the boat blew an engine.

On the next attempt the same thing happened with a cancelation call a couple days in advance as the boat hit a submerged shipping container and had to be hauled out to repair the damage.

On the third attempt I was mixing gas on the boat (a different boat) as part of the shop's staff (but it still cost me $500 in airfare to get there.
Yay! The boat actually left the dock!
Yay! Day 1 - Divers actually got to dive and I had time between mixing gas to get in one dive, but was limited by an insta buddy to 150'. So a short, shallow dive.
Day 2, the instructor who chartered the trip with 3 AN/DP students aboard noted that with the wind blowing in opposition to the current there was about a quarter knot under current into the stern of the boat decided it was too dangerous to dive and closed the pool for the rest of the trip.

I didn't get that, at least for the experienced divers on the trip. So you time wrong and you're going under the stern, descend and make another approach....I did not see the big deal. Given my mid Atlantic experiences, it was literally some of the best diving conditions I've ever seen and no one could get in the water. If I had been a paying customer I'd have pitched a fit. As it was I spent three boring days on the boat, rocking in a light swell, burned $500 in airfare and $1600 worth of annual leave for a single dive to the flight deck. It's the single most expensive dive of my career.

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I love the wreck, I love it's history and I love the IDEA of diving it. But quite frankly it's just not worth the aggravation. It was a really, really poor choice to put it there.

 

[boulderjohn]

It's the single most expensive dive of my career.

It could have been worse.

I drove from Colorado to Pensacola with a friend, driving a van full of tanks. The rest of the divers in our group flew to Pensacola. When we all got together and were ready to dive, there was not a cloud in the sky, and not a whisper of wind. Sorry, no diving. It may have been beautiful on shore, but it was apparently too rough out on the wreck. We had driven/flown all that way for nothing.

But we still had out gear and our tanks, so we went to nearby Morrison Springs and dived there. Our doubles were all filled with very high levels of expensive helium, because we had planned to dive deep on the Oriskany. So we took those expensive doubles to Morrison Springs, sometimes diving in 11 feet of water. It was then that I discovered SWHIN--Shallow Water Helium Induced Narcosis. That occurs when you can't concentrate on your diving because your mind is clouded by images of dollar signs flying away.

 

[Zeke XA3]

When.....

Awesome post mate, full of info thanks!

Drive yourself. It is about 8 -10 hours one way. It is the cheapest and most expedient method.

The bus isnt overall much longer, and at $50 for an average car a day its almost as much to fly there and back anyway. But ill keep the idea in mind and have a scout around for cheap car rentals, if i could drive there and get the dive it would be cheap but i think id have to give myself 3 days or so in the area.

It could.....

Thanks, nice to hear of actual expierences.

This kinda fits with what i found with looking at getting there (ie international airport with no international flights), boats with very little info on websites and the thing that set my alarm bells going was, being a scuba instructor and never having heard of the area, not saying i know every place but you tend to know about the easy to get to places of which i think "the pan handle" isnt one!

Its gonna be near the end of my trip so i can always see how my trip is going budget wise, but it think i may have to skip it on this occasion, if i was visiting some nearer places or places that connect a little cheaper to the local airport it could be worth it but just not this time :-(

 

[BertStevens]

I suggest contacting MBT divers in Pensacola. Theyve been in business a long time in Pensacola. (25+ years that I've been vacationing there). I'd imagine they can help you get on a trip to see the Mighty O.

 

[teknitroxdiver]

We've used Gary's Gulf Diver. Nice guy with a nice boat. www.gulfdiver.net

 

[Zeke XA3]

Cheers guys, a few months before im over that way so ill leave this on the back burner for now but i didn find some very cheap car rental companies that could make this a possibility, just got to see if i can cope with USA traffic! Ill be driving my first ever rental car in Hawaii next month!