Spar or Papoose/Hutton

[BabyDuck]

hint - take a small box or baggie for teeth. i found teeth & put them in my glove & couldn't find them again after the dive...

...until i put the glove on next time. unpleasant!

 

[DA Aquamaster]

The best dive I ever had in NC was on the Carribsea. Tons of tropicals, huge bait balls and lots of large sand tigers. I had a similarly excellent dive on the Atlas. Both were truly stunning - those particular days. I have also been on th Atlas with 8-10 ft viz, and in NC vizibility is extremely variable.

The Carribsea is fairly shallow so you can get a lot of bottom time, but very little pentration as everything except the bow has collapsed. The Atlas is deeper but has a lot of verticle relief so again long bottom times are possible.

The Spar can be very good, but in my experience the sharks tend to be a bit more skittish and you have to lie in wait for them to come back and if you are on a cattle boat with a total of 25-30 divers in the water, you probably won't see many.

As for the U-352, everyone should see it once, after that it is just a sewer pipe infested with Lionfish that have eaten most of the interesting tropicals. Once you've been there, news that the boat is going there is more or les a turnoff.

A 35mm film cannister works great for sharks teeth, but film and film cannisters are less common now.

 

[Sparhawk13401]

Well, just to update the thread. Unfortunatley our dives on May 27 were cancelled due to weather. There was a small craft advisory on the weather network the night before so we wern't too surprised but no less dissapointed.

On the upside the weather inland was quite nice so we toured around Beaufort and took a ferry out to one of the islands. My kids loved seeing the info on Queen Anne's Revenge at the Maritime Museum as we'd just driven up from Key West were we hit the Pirate Museum.

We shall return!!

 

[ScubaSam]

Well, just to update the thread. Unfortunatley our dives on May 27 were cancelled due to weather. There was a small craft advisory on the weather network the night before so we wern't too surprised but no less dissapointed.

On the upside the weather inland was quite nice so we toured around Beaufort and took a ferry out to one of the islands. My kids loved seeing the info on Queen Anne's Revenge at the Maritime Museum as we'd just driven up from Key West were we hit the Pirate Museum.

We shall return!!

Thanks for the update.

I was lucky to dive NC with Tortuga Charters three weeks ago. It was my first NC wreck trip and expected to be blown out at the very least one day because their weather is very unpredictable.

We booked to dive four days but ended up diving FIVE days!!!! Capt. James was great about getting us in and out before the weather and seas got snotty. We were treated to a breaching humpback whale during our fourth day of diving as we headed back to shore.

Capt James did a bad thing setting the bar so high for my first NC wreck trip. I'm definitely going back for more diving soon!!!

 

[iztok]

Well, just to update the thread. Unfortunatley our dives on May 27 were cancelled due to weather. There was a small craft advisory on the weather network the night before so we wern't too surprised but no less dissapointed.

On the upside the weather inland was quite nice so we toured around Beaufort and took a ferry out to one of the islands. My kids loved seeing the info on Queen Anne's Revenge at the Maritime Museum as we'd just driven up from Key West were we hit the Pirate Museum.

We shall return!!

What a shame. I feel sorry for you. Our party arrived on Friday (28th) and were diving 29th and 30th (U352, Spar, Schurz, and Indra). Warm waters and good viz on U352 and Schurz (40 and 50+) and decent (20-30) on Spar and Indra.

It was my first NC Wreck dive trip and I loved it! (Diving with Discovery Diving and Aquatic Pleasures.)

 

[Sparhawk13401]

What a shame. I feel sorry for you. Our party arrived on Friday (28th) and were diving 29th and 30th (U352, Spar, Schurz, and Indra). Warm waters and good viz on U352 and Schurz (40 and 50+) and decent (20-30) on Spar and Indra.

It was my first NC Wreck dive trip and I loved it! (Diving with Discovery Diving and Aquatic Pleasures.)

Rassa Frassin.....

We were told they'd likely be going out on the Friday (28th) too, but this was the tail end of a 2-1/2 week long road trip for us and we were out of time.

Glad you got out though!

 

[battles2a5]

Both of the dives are "sharky". If you are not used to swimming with sand tigers the Papoose/ Hutton will be a stunning dive, the Spar might be a bit overwhelming. The fish cover on the Spar is amazing, with larger fish than the typical NC bait ball. Here's vids of both, so you can judge for yourself. The Papoose video was taken with a much better camera system, but you can see the fish/shark ratio of the two pretty clearly:

Papoose:
NC Wreck Diving- Papoose/ Hutton May 2 2010 on Vimeo

Spar:
North Carolina Wreck Diving- U-352, Spar, Shurz on Vimeo

I don't think you can go wrong on either one. Despite being an artificial wreck, the Spar offers some spectacular wildlife.