ChrisF
Contributor
Greg and I dove an artificial reef site in the Gulf of Mexico called Indian Shores Reef. We dropped anchor on the South end of the reef, which is home to a 200-foot World War II era Navy Landing Ship Module (LSM). The LSM sits in 45 feet of water. Much of the hull is broken up, but it has a profile of 15 to 20 feet in spots.
We were navigationally challenged today from the start. We couldn't find the wreck on the depth finder, but I KNEW it had to be close because I had numbers from last time we dove it back in November. How far could it go??
So we geared up and headed down. We figured we'd just swim a few radials from the anchor line until it appeared. No such luck. After the fourth radial in the general direction that the wreck should have been in, we still hadn't found it. It wasn't a total loss though because the reef has a hard bottom with lots of little stuff to look at (gobies, belted sandfish, starfish, sponges, etc.). We even came across a school of decent sized jacks and a southern stingray along the way.
Finally, when I had just about lost hope of ever finding the thing, it appeared as a dark shadow in the distance. I was down to about 1500 psi by this point, so it was going to have to be a quick exploration. When we arrived on the wreck we were "greeted" by a very annoyed Jewfi...Goliath Grouper. He had a hook in his mouth and thumped us a couple of times. Usually, they are very skittish fish, but this guy was UNHAPPY! For a few seconds I was a little concerned that he was going to charge us or something, but he finally left in a huff and allowed us to explore HIS wreck.
They should call this wreck Snapper Hotel because there were Grey and Red Snapper everywhere. Greg had a spear gun with him but didn't shoot anything. It's a new piece of equipment for him and the plan for this dive was to just swim with the gun and get used to carrying it and work out weight/trim issues.
At the end of the dive, I sent up a marker buoy so we could mark it with the GPS. Next time we drop anchor on this site, hopefully we'll be a little closer to the mark.
Dive Time: 59 minutes
Max Depth: 46 feet
Water Temp: 85 degrees
Vis: 30 feet
We were navigationally challenged today from the start. We couldn't find the wreck on the depth finder, but I KNEW it had to be close because I had numbers from last time we dove it back in November. How far could it go??
So we geared up and headed down. We figured we'd just swim a few radials from the anchor line until it appeared. No such luck. After the fourth radial in the general direction that the wreck should have been in, we still hadn't found it. It wasn't a total loss though because the reef has a hard bottom with lots of little stuff to look at (gobies, belted sandfish, starfish, sponges, etc.). We even came across a school of decent sized jacks and a southern stingray along the way.
Finally, when I had just about lost hope of ever finding the thing, it appeared as a dark shadow in the distance. I was down to about 1500 psi by this point, so it was going to have to be a quick exploration. When we arrived on the wreck we were "greeted" by a very annoyed Jewfi...Goliath Grouper. He had a hook in his mouth and thumped us a couple of times. Usually, they are very skittish fish, but this guy was UNHAPPY! For a few seconds I was a little concerned that he was going to charge us or something, but he finally left in a huff and allowed us to explore HIS wreck.
They should call this wreck Snapper Hotel because there were Grey and Red Snapper everywhere. Greg had a spear gun with him but didn't shoot anything. It's a new piece of equipment for him and the plan for this dive was to just swim with the gun and get used to carrying it and work out weight/trim issues.
At the end of the dive, I sent up a marker buoy so we could mark it with the GPS. Next time we drop anchor on this site, hopefully we'll be a little closer to the mark.
Dive Time: 59 minutes
Max Depth: 46 feet
Water Temp: 85 degrees
Vis: 30 feet
