Errol Kalayci
Contributor
Today John and I solved the mystery surrounding that missile in California that may have been fired earlier in the week. Apparently, it hit the Lowrance. No, not really but holy smokes, the mid section (where the engine room is located) totally collapsed. I have been diving this wreck since the very early 1990s and have seen some damage recently but I was not prepared for what happened. Wish I brought my video camera today! Back to that in a minute.
Our adventure began with driving down to Brownies South Port yesterday to fill18/45 in our Double 80s with Al 40 of O2 and a 70 bottle. Why them? The fill shop I have been using in Pompano never ever gets the mix right to start with. I also purchased a few new Scuba Pro G250v as my trusty Apex are long in the tooth and do not breathe as nicely as the new Scuba Pros. Ok, now I have 14 regulators again and need them all (except the 2 apex I replaced, anyone want them for a deal?). Seems like I am slowly getting back into progressively more complex dives again, back to WKPP?
Anyway, we got lucky again today with a window of weather and loaded Avid Diver at 8:30am. Seas 3 or so, wind not too bad, a bit choppy but much better than on the Miller last week. I brought Beauty and Beast (H14 & 16 dpv) and we planned to dive the Lowrance then cruise north to the Renegade and spend another 10 minute or so on that wreck then run for the reef. Unfortunately, we were dropped a bit farther North than needed with the low current but we did get to check out some very interesting deep reef on the run into the Lowrance. It took nearly 5 minutes from hitting the water to tie off of the torpedo float on the wreck. I was glad for the 45% Helium as I approached the Lowrance I was stunned, did I find a new wreck? It is clearly too big to be the Renegade nor does it look like it all but where is the mid section, it is totally collapsed! We decided to scooter to a structurally sound looking place to tie off and drop the bottles and then approached the collapse. The mid section is collapsed along the north side extending to the south up to about 15 from the South edge. All 3 levels are pancaked down. I scootered up and lit the inside with my Halcyon LED and John with his HID and we looked around but I was not venturing inside as some of the wreck looked like it was precariously supported and more would fall at any time. What was once a fun area to explore, and which I had a few weeks ago, is gone. Is it worth exploring inside now? Yes, but not until things settle and the level of difficulty of penetration just increased exponentially. I did see a toilet laying in the middle of an area inside where it looks like it blew or rolled over to. Moving on, we decided to check out the rest of the wreck, we scootered to the stern, went through some areas, observed very large amber jacks and other fish then flew along the south side. Just as we passed the mid section it looked like a huge rust cloud was hanging in the water immediately to the east of the mid section and extending probably 75 long and 40 high which made it look like looking through a watered down cup of coffee. The collapse must have happened yesterday or the day before with the storm swells for the cloud to still be hovering.
Continuing on to the bow, we dipped down and flew through all the compartments circled back to the mid ship, up through the cargo hold and along the deck for another lap and look at things. This time I came back to the deeper former entrance to the mid section to have another look through the rust water and decided not to hang out around there, maybe self preservation? Using the wet notes, I asked John if he wanted to stay on the Lowrance or head to the Renegade. He elected for us to proceed to the Renegade. We exited the cargo hold, flew around the north side of the wreck, passed the collapse again and scooped up and clipped on the 2 bottles and headed out for the Renegade. In route, we discovered several very large spools (maybe 12 or so in diameter) and checked them out. Possibly they were part of the submarine netting system? Anyway, we continued on our compass heading with me to the East of John just a bit. Unfortunately, as time ran out on us, we had just missed the wreck by less than 200 to the east when we called it. I had a feeling we had blown a bit too far inside and plan to line the 2 wrecks sometime soon. Anyway, we began our ascent and deco by taking a west heading and putting the hammer down again.
Scootering full speed west while doing our deco is a lot of fun, we came up at the prescribed rate to our first stop, leveled off and scootered at that depth for a minute before repeating the process through all of our stops to 70. At 70, we let go of the trigger checked our buoyancy and went through the gas switching procedure. To wit, while maintaining horizontal trim and neutral buoyancy, I unclip the bottom clip of my 70 bottle and rotate it out so John can see that it is the 70 bottle, turn on the gas, pull out the regulator, purge and place around my neck and breath. Clip bottom clip back on and hold long hose while John repeats while I observe, then I clip off the long hose and reel in a bunch of the scope on the torpedo line. During this we become surrounded by Blue Runners and I see a hungry sailfish darting through them and catching brunch. I clip off the reel with torpedo float to my rear dring behind my butt and off we go again. Soon after we see my favorite reef in 105 and have fun watching the reef as we scooter above it towards shore. While passing the next reef a school of Yellow Tail joins us for a few minutes and we spy an abandoned lobster trap, I look at John and telepathically tell him not even to think about it. At 30 we both get some sea lice in the face. Yuck! A passing motor boat goes right over our heads 30 above even with Oliver trying to warn them.
We continue until 20 where we basically repeat the procedure and switch to 02. We pass the next reef as well and start to get cold after about 10 minutes on oxygen. 70 minutes of time has passed and it is time to make a gradual rise to the surface. We come up to see Oliver waiting for us with his boat drifting in 60 of water and much closer to the inlet. Hand up the float, scooter, 2 bottles and climb aboard. John follows behind me and we put on the warm clothes for the quick trip back in. It was a great dive, while John got his swim in this morning I had a rest day as my final triathlon of the season is this Sunday. Call Oliver and check out the Lowrance and see the collapse for yourself before it is old news.
Errol Kalayci
Our adventure began with driving down to Brownies South Port yesterday to fill18/45 in our Double 80s with Al 40 of O2 and a 70 bottle. Why them? The fill shop I have been using in Pompano never ever gets the mix right to start with. I also purchased a few new Scuba Pro G250v as my trusty Apex are long in the tooth and do not breathe as nicely as the new Scuba Pros. Ok, now I have 14 regulators again and need them all (except the 2 apex I replaced, anyone want them for a deal?). Seems like I am slowly getting back into progressively more complex dives again, back to WKPP?
Anyway, we got lucky again today with a window of weather and loaded Avid Diver at 8:30am. Seas 3 or so, wind not too bad, a bit choppy but much better than on the Miller last week. I brought Beauty and Beast (H14 & 16 dpv) and we planned to dive the Lowrance then cruise north to the Renegade and spend another 10 minute or so on that wreck then run for the reef. Unfortunately, we were dropped a bit farther North than needed with the low current but we did get to check out some very interesting deep reef on the run into the Lowrance. It took nearly 5 minutes from hitting the water to tie off of the torpedo float on the wreck. I was glad for the 45% Helium as I approached the Lowrance I was stunned, did I find a new wreck? It is clearly too big to be the Renegade nor does it look like it all but where is the mid section, it is totally collapsed! We decided to scooter to a structurally sound looking place to tie off and drop the bottles and then approached the collapse. The mid section is collapsed along the north side extending to the south up to about 15 from the South edge. All 3 levels are pancaked down. I scootered up and lit the inside with my Halcyon LED and John with his HID and we looked around but I was not venturing inside as some of the wreck looked like it was precariously supported and more would fall at any time. What was once a fun area to explore, and which I had a few weeks ago, is gone. Is it worth exploring inside now? Yes, but not until things settle and the level of difficulty of penetration just increased exponentially. I did see a toilet laying in the middle of an area inside where it looks like it blew or rolled over to. Moving on, we decided to check out the rest of the wreck, we scootered to the stern, went through some areas, observed very large amber jacks and other fish then flew along the south side. Just as we passed the mid section it looked like a huge rust cloud was hanging in the water immediately to the east of the mid section and extending probably 75 long and 40 high which made it look like looking through a watered down cup of coffee. The collapse must have happened yesterday or the day before with the storm swells for the cloud to still be hovering.
Continuing on to the bow, we dipped down and flew through all the compartments circled back to the mid ship, up through the cargo hold and along the deck for another lap and look at things. This time I came back to the deeper former entrance to the mid section to have another look through the rust water and decided not to hang out around there, maybe self preservation? Using the wet notes, I asked John if he wanted to stay on the Lowrance or head to the Renegade. He elected for us to proceed to the Renegade. We exited the cargo hold, flew around the north side of the wreck, passed the collapse again and scooped up and clipped on the 2 bottles and headed out for the Renegade. In route, we discovered several very large spools (maybe 12 or so in diameter) and checked them out. Possibly they were part of the submarine netting system? Anyway, we continued on our compass heading with me to the East of John just a bit. Unfortunately, as time ran out on us, we had just missed the wreck by less than 200 to the east when we called it. I had a feeling we had blown a bit too far inside and plan to line the 2 wrecks sometime soon. Anyway, we began our ascent and deco by taking a west heading and putting the hammer down again.
Scootering full speed west while doing our deco is a lot of fun, we came up at the prescribed rate to our first stop, leveled off and scootered at that depth for a minute before repeating the process through all of our stops to 70. At 70, we let go of the trigger checked our buoyancy and went through the gas switching procedure. To wit, while maintaining horizontal trim and neutral buoyancy, I unclip the bottom clip of my 70 bottle and rotate it out so John can see that it is the 70 bottle, turn on the gas, pull out the regulator, purge and place around my neck and breath. Clip bottom clip back on and hold long hose while John repeats while I observe, then I clip off the long hose and reel in a bunch of the scope on the torpedo line. During this we become surrounded by Blue Runners and I see a hungry sailfish darting through them and catching brunch. I clip off the reel with torpedo float to my rear dring behind my butt and off we go again. Soon after we see my favorite reef in 105 and have fun watching the reef as we scooter above it towards shore. While passing the next reef a school of Yellow Tail joins us for a few minutes and we spy an abandoned lobster trap, I look at John and telepathically tell him not even to think about it. At 30 we both get some sea lice in the face. Yuck! A passing motor boat goes right over our heads 30 above even with Oliver trying to warn them.
We continue until 20 where we basically repeat the procedure and switch to 02. We pass the next reef as well and start to get cold after about 10 minutes on oxygen. 70 minutes of time has passed and it is time to make a gradual rise to the surface. We come up to see Oliver waiting for us with his boat drifting in 60 of water and much closer to the inlet. Hand up the float, scooter, 2 bottles and climb aboard. John follows behind me and we put on the warm clothes for the quick trip back in. It was a great dive, while John got his swim in this morning I had a rest day as my final triathlon of the season is this Sunday. Call Oliver and check out the Lowrance and see the collapse for yourself before it is old news.
Errol Kalayci
