Diving the Spiegel Grove

[IncreaseMyT]

Ok all my friends are out of town this weekend so no spearfishing at home, the wife and kids are going to a concert so I took this opportunity to book a trip with horizon divers. I wanted to do the Duane and the Spiegel Grove but the Duane is full Saturday, I could get lucky and get moved over if a spot free's up so we will see.

Anyways I have seen some video of the Spiegel Grove and read about it, just wondering if anyone who has dove it had some tips for me as far as what part to see and also what nitrox mix people run there. From what I can gather 29% would work good?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Mouth Breather]

You won't have a lot of choice of what to see...but it's all good! It's a popular spot and you will have the luck of the draw as far as what buoy the boat ties into. I think there are 6-7 buoys permanently tied to the SG, it's a massive boat that will take several dives to cover. For a 1st dive I'd try to dive with someone that had been there before. Looking at my dive log, I've been on it 6 times and have used anywhere from 28 to 32%. 29% is a fine choice.

 

[IncreaseMyT]

The Duane is almost 200' long, there's plenty of room for a whole bunch of divers, I've been on it when there are at least 15 other divers and there was plenty of room to spread out. And how can you know it's full if you aren't actually diving the wreck at the time you said it was "full"?

Now if you mean Horizon Diver's SCHEDULE to the Duane is full- There are plenty of other Dive Ops that go to the Duane and I bet they have some room.

Well I only wanted to do one night at a hotel so I was going to leave in the morning Saturday, its about a 3 hour drive for me. Horizon had a Duane trip leaving at 1:30 PM and I am having trouble finding another charter that goes to the Duane in the afternoon, but yea I am all for it, I am not really interested in doing reef dives. I will just to get more time under water, so thats what I was planning but if I can find a Saturday afternoon Duane trip I would be all over it.

Thanks for the other pointers, great tips.

 

[ystrout]

I did the Spiegal a few weeks ago while in the Keys on vacation. I used Sailfish Scuba charters.

I used Nitrox 33. It was an absolutely wicked dive. I did not like it one bit. I would have loved it with the right conditions because the boat was massive, beautiful and covered with enormous fish. But the current was super super super super super super strong. So strong that I couldn't swim against it. This kind of freaked me out dropping down the line, and once I got to 100 feet I felt narced (traveled day before, was exhausted, and it was the first dive of the trip, probably dehydrated too) which made my stress turn into anxiety. I signaled to the dive master that I wasn't feeling well and went up to around 80' where I felt much better and waited about 5 minutes for everyone to finish their dive. Everyone came back at that point because they used their air so fast fighting the current and being stressed.

Around 70 feet or so, one guy in the group ran out of air. The DM turned on his pony and gave it to him. We did a deep safety stop around 60 feet and another one at 15 feet. The current had us hanging onto the rope horizontally.

Everyone got back on the boat and was shook. One guy didn't do the second dive, I almost didn't do the second dive but got a second wind after seeing how peaceful the Benwood Wreck was, and everyone's eyes were bulging out of their head.

The two dive masters at Sailfish did an amazing job at damage control. They handled it as well as anyone could have and I was really impressed. The first dive master came up with me and my fiancé about 15-20 feet when I signaled I wasn't feeling well at depth, they handled an out of air situation great, and kept everyone grouped with such a stressful current. In all honestly, they probably made a bad decision having us dive in those conditions. We probably should have just held onto the rope the entire dive and used our air sight seeing from one location. But what can you do? Hindsight is 20-20. They did an amazing job once things went wrong and I will go with them again a second time. Hopefully the conditions are better because I really want to see more of the SG.

Anyways, good luck! Really watch those currents. If you're not comfortable in them like me, hold onto the rope and just look around!

 

[scubadada]

So....leave at 4 am or so, drive down to Rainbow Reef, do the Spiegel and the Duane off the Tropical Destiny in the morning and the Spiegel and Captain's Choice in the afternoon on the Tropical Explorer. That would make for a good day

 

[ystrout]

I see the problem. You immediately descended to 100' and attempted to swim against an impossible current. Most divers are going to get winded and burn through their gas in no time under those conditions. There is no need to drop to 100' unless you're towards the rear of the wreck and there's no protection from the current and you're looking to find a calm protected area.

I do wonder what mooring line you came down? If you're in a situation where you're on a wreck facing heavy current you really have no choice but to stay in the general area of the mooring line and in most cases there's nothing wrong with grabbing a hold of something (hopefully you've got gloves!) and catching your breath and even using part of the wreck to pull yourself along. The Duane is like that, current tends to run from the bow to the stern and quite often you're on the stern mooring line and if you swim to the superstructure half your dive is over before you get there so pulling yourself hand over hand along the gunwale is a real energy and gas saver and once you get to the superstructure the current typically drops way off.

Here's my dive profile from when I did the SG a few months ago. Average depth was about 80', deeper when we penetrated into the lower corridor and a bit shallower on the way back. I did hit 115' but only towards the end since I had the gas and wanted to check out the part of the wreck where the landing bay was buried in the sand- which turned out to be a waste anyway there's nothing there. According to my dive log I was on EAN32.

Yaa I was wearing gloves. I had to pull myself to around the ship to get to a sheltered area since I couldn't swim against it.

I just had no idea that kind of wreck get's such strong currents. It was crazy.

 

[Jackie Treehorn]

I've done the SG 15 times. On deco dives it was 28% for backgas. Single tank nostop dives it was between 30-32. Basically whatever the dive op jammed in my tank.

 

[IncreaseMyT]

What an awesome dive. I did 2 dives today on the Spiegel. Very little current and the water was really clear. We got to see a ton our DM was great. We went inside the the wreck a lot, especially on the second dive and that was a little humbling. Right when you think you got your buoyancy perfected you realize there is still some room for improvement.

Saw so many fish, huge hog fish, some of the biggest yellow tail snapper I have ever seen, gag grouper, goliath grouper, an african pompano, mutton snapper and down in one of the hatches a large moray eel. I will def be heading back down to do the duane soon and probably another on the speigel.

Ok now the bad news, I just got the new paralenz camera, I was going to get footage and make my first video and of course the camera flooded on the first dive. I double checked the seal, I def didn't cross thread and the O rings were fine. Not sure what happened but totally bummed.

 

[IncreaseMyT]

So I was able to salvage some video. It looks like it was fine until we dropped down to 100 ft right before we were going to penetrate. At the end of the second video you can see the camera start to slow down right before it cuts out and thats the last thing it recorded. Its a little shaky it looks like my bubbles were hitting the camera, should have worn it on the other side instead of my snorkel. Also this thing was supposed to have the depth gauge on screen, anyone know if I was suppose to turn that on?

Can't figure out how to add music to the whole video or cut it yet, its a work in progress

 

[Jackie Treehorn]

More growth on the Duane. You will enjoy it!