Hay Everyone,
WOW what a dive we had. I've always loved diving Tenneco so when I heard that H2O doing a night dive on it I just had to go, I knew it was going to be good. I've had the oppertunity to dive Tenneco during the day many time but never at night and the contrast between night and day on the wreck is indescribable. For those that don't know the wreck it is an old off shore oil drilling platform that belonged to the Tenneco Oil Company. When it had outlived it's usefullness it was donated to South Floridas artifical reef program, cut into sections, towed from the Gulf of Mexico and sunk off the cost of South Florida. There were originally 3 sections sitting next to each other in 100 to 115 feet of water but hurricane Andrew destroyed the center section and severly damaged one of the remaining two. We dived on the undamaged section last night.
Things started out rather hectic, Mike ran into a bit of traffic on his was down to the shop and the crew was in a bit of a rush because the winds seemed to be picking up. They graciously told Mike to meet us at a location along the Intercostal that was easier to get to from the direction he was traveling then trying to get to the shop. Mike was waiting on the dock when we pulled up so everything was looking good.
The seas were a bit rough, 4 to 6 foot with a strong wind out of the east. It was about a 30 minute roller coaster ride to the site but we all survived the pounding. It didn't take long to tie off and we were in the water quickly (Thank God). The vis was about 50 feet, not bad but still a little messed up from all the fun
we've had lately here in Florida with the hurricanes. As the top of the wreck came into view at about 70 feet we were met with some of the most spectacular colors I've ever seen, pinks, yellows, oranges and purples so vivid that it made your eyes hurt. The wreck has been down for many years so the growth is quite impressive, many soft corals, sea fans and hard coarls. The marine life is sometimes overwelming too. Schools of fish so thick it's like swimming into a solid wall, Aerocrabs, Slugs, Grunts, Barracuda and many more. We slipped over the side of the platform and headed for the bottom. We hit the sand at 101 feet and headed underneath. The maze of wreckage under the platform makes for an incredable view bathed in the glow of our dive lights with many hiding places for the marine life. Mike and I spent about 10 to 15 minutes explorering this area, with almost no current it was like floating in space, it was so peaceful and serene (God I needed that) I could have stayed for hours but at this depth we were pushing it as it was. Because of the rather large size of the towers it makes for a great milti-level dive so ascending slowely back up the side from the sand gave us back some bottom time. We spent the remainder of the dive exploreing the upper most deck peering back into the darkness of the deep through the many access holes, some large enough to easily accommodate a diver. As we neared the 30 minute mark I noticed we were the only two lights still visible on the wreck and desided that it was time to start our ascent. We made our way to the line and started up stopping at 50 feet for a 1 minute stop and then doing another stop at 20 feet for 5 minutes no deco was required on this dive but I always like to make a couple of stops just to be sure. We were back on board at 45 minutes total time with a max depth of 101' an avarage water temp of 80. What a beautiful dive, the only thing that would have made it more enjoyable would have been calm seas (A few of us were feeling a little green) but as Mic once said "You can't always get what you want" so I'll settle for what I can get.
I'm not much for the shallow reef diving so I'm going to skip the second dive report and let Mikes recap handle that. Sorry Mike but I don't remember the name if it either, I think it's called something like the Pipe or the Trench for the big pipe running through the trench cut out in the bottom but I'm not sure.
We had a great time and sure wish more of the SB members could have made it. H2O does night dives every Wednesday so if anyone is interested in getting together in the future let me know and maybe we can set something up.
TTFN
