New Nor Cal Wreck Diving Club Start Up? Interested?

[coronerwyatt]

Im thinking of trying to start up a Northern Cal Wreck Diving Club. Meetings probably in Sacramento. Purpose of club would be to simply allow for wreck diving enthusiast to get together and conduct North coast wreck research, local training dives to keep active in diving and build our proficiency and safety, plan wreck trips along the Ca coast and beyond. Meet once a month for pizza and discuss wreck diving. I would like to model the club after the Southern Ca based Ca Wreck Divers Association. Ultimate goal is to build a club (officer, bylaws, goals, etc) that would be registered as a non-profit. One idea I have is to get a few folks together to plan a Northern Florida trip and take a cavern diving, intro to cave and maybe basic cave diving course as a overhead environment training tool. We could also plan a yearly wreck diving trip somewhere, etc, etc Anyone interested in helping me get this started in the Sacramento area?

 

[Peter_C]

Got a few wrecks worth diving in Northern California? Most intact wrecks are beyond recreational depths, or in shipping channels. Ships To Reefs could use support if you want a ship to dive, sunk off the coast.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Got a few wrecks worth diving in Northern California? Most intact wrecks are beyond recreational depths, or in shipping channels. Ships To Reefs could use support if you want a ship to dive, sunk off the coast.

What Peter said. The SoCal folks have more wrecks than we do by a bunch. Our coast is much more exposed than the SoCal coast (no protection from the channel islands) and the wrecks tend to be scattered rubble here. There are a few exceptions: The Barge, The DeMonte Sailboat, The DelMonte Amtrack, the Mating Amtracks, the Jacob Lukenbach, and some beyond recreational depths.

The Lukenbach is the only one I'd call a big intact wreck, but it's smack dab in the middle of the inbound lane to SF for container ship traffic, and the vis makes Monterey look great. I've located it on my depth finder, but there's no way I'd dive it.


Chuck

 

[TracysaCADiver]

I've heard that there was one up at Fort Ross ( I believe), but I don't know the exact location of it. My instructor was talking about his DM going there one time and he gave them the directions to get there. Is that one still intact?

Might have my location wong, but I thought this one (from his description) was a steamship or something like that.

 

[3D diver]

Sacramento is a bit far for me...but I'm subscribed now and will keep an eye on this.

If you want to make a field trip back east, go to North Carolina---there's some great wreck diving there.

I moved away from San Diego right before they started sinking ships there---it would be fun to head back down there & do some wreck diving.

 

[Peter_C]

There are a few ship wrecks on the North Coast, but they are all smashed to pieces.

The Pomona is at Fort Ross, and is just bits and pieces scattered about as it was a navigational hazard so they blew it to smithereens. The buoy is gone but I can pretty much drop right on top of it every time. Much of the wreck is in less than 30 ft of water, so it can be surgy.
Marine Digest: Wreck of SS Pomona

The Norlina is at South Gerstle. At low tide the mast sticks out of the water. It is a 300ft long ship and extends downward in pieces, and is probably the most intact wreck on the North Coast accessible to most divers. Only to be done on the calmest of days though since entry is over knee high boulders.

The Frolic is just around the corner from Caspar, but only accessible by boat, and again in shallow water of 15-20ft, so it requires a calm day.

There are literally hundreds of other ship wrecks along the North Coast, but many are kept secret (If someone knows of one and wants to go sign me up, I do have a boat.). Most though are in treacherous waters (Read ripping current and sharks), or too deep for recreational divers.

 

[coronerwyatt]

"worth diving" is all subjective my friend. I also stated that trips outside CA would be planned.

---------- Post Merged at 01:04 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:59 PM ----------

There are a few ship wrecks on the North Coast, but they are all smashed to pieces.

The Pomona is at Fort Ross, and is just bits and pieces scattered about as it was a navigational hazard so they blew it to smithereens. The buoy is gone but I can pretty much drop right on top of it every time. Much of the wreck is in less than 30 ft of water, so it can be surgy.
Marine Digest: Wreck of SS Pomona

The Norlina is at South Gerstle. At low tide the mast sticks out of the water. It is a 300ft long ship and extends downward in pieces, and is probably the most intact wreck on the North Coast accessible to most divers. Only to be done on the calmest of days though since entry is over knee high boulders.

The Frolic is just around the corner from Caspar, but only accessible by boat, and again in shallow water of 15-20ft, so it requires a calm day.

There are literally hundreds of other ship wrecks along the North Coast, but many are kept secret (If someone knows of one and wants to go sign me up, I do have a boat.). Most though are in treacherous waters (Read ripping current and sharks), or too deep for recreational divers.

Just a reminder that the Northern California part of the proposed club name only references the location of the group not the focus of the actual wreck diving activity. Thanks for all that have posted. I really appreciate your post and your knowledge.

---------- Post Merged at 01:06 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:59 PM ----------