Why dive wrecks?

[ClevelandDiver]

The wrecks that I dive are often over 100 years old and fairly intact. That's pretty interesting to me. Of course I don't get to see much big marine life without travelling 500+ miles. Got take what's available. At least the water is cold!

My favorite charter:

http://www.osprey-dive.com/shipwreck.cfm

 

[battles2a5]

Man, I love everything about wrecks. I love the history, I love the juxtaposition of nature and a huge man-made structure and how the lines between the two blur as time goes on. I enjoy the thrill of penetrating wrecks and the ability to explore the ship in all dimensions. And in north carolina, the thing I enjoy enjoy is the 2-3 hour boat ride to get there . I'll take a wreck over reef any day of the week.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I love looking at the wooden wrecks. The craftsmanship amazes me, the size of the boards is impressive and seeing how it's all put together is fascinating. Great Lakes wrecks are better if you take the time to get a basic understanding of boat construction. There's something sexy about boat knees It may be a pile of lumber to some but if you look closely you can often find traces of the paint and caulking that were on that boat 100 years ago when she went down. OK, I'm a dork but wrecks are time capsules especially in the cold waters of the Great Lakes.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[nereas]

Wrecks attract fishes, really big fishes, as well as many small to medium fishes, and as such they are an ideal destination for scuba diving.

The biggest nurse shark I ever saw was 10 ft, which underwater looks like 12 ft, and was reposing in the midst of the debris from a metal shipwreck near Marquesas Key in Florida (west of Key West). There were schools of other fish, larger than you would normally see on the reefs themselves, and more numerous, within the crags and crannies of the twisted metal of the wreck. Florida wrecks also attract numerous barracuda as well. These are curious looking fishes that keep their gaze fixed upon you at all times. If you swim towards them then they scramble away, but then they ultimately return again to fix their gazes again upon you some more. I am not sure of what they are thinking?

It is as if the wreck is the high rent district of the sea floor, and this is where the larger and more numerous fishes congregate and defend their turf. Thus I have learned that wrecks are the very best destinations for scuba.

I have not yet been to see the Carolina U-Boat wrecks. But that will be my next trip. These have historical value, as well. Most Americans have no idea that the Atlantic Coast was once marauded by Nazi U-Boats back in the 1940s. When you live in Fortress America you have no idea how vulnerable the island continent really is, and used to be. And in that case, the wreck of historical value becomes a revelation to you.

Wrecks also teach how vulnerable vessles and fleets are upon the sea surface. The sea floor becomes their grave yards, and the sea itself is still master of them all. From it you learn respect for the Earth, because the sea is mightier than we are. All the wrecks that I have dived so far have been sunk by violent seas, and the profound impression from the debris field is of the power of nature.

Natural reefs are a quite beautiful as well. They speak of a healthy ocean environment with its colorful and plethoric filter feeders. Shipwrecks tell a quite different story however.

 

[RJP]

If I wanna dive a lot - which I do - it means diving locally, which means it's wrecks or it's a quarry.

I'll take the wrecks, please.



Besides that, there's all the life (including edibles) on the wreck.

 

[scarefaceDM]

I like the werck diving in the Saint Lawrence river. Freshwater means well preserved history. Some are very intacted and others are falling apart. I do wreck penetrations. But that has lost its appeal..I rather shoot photos of them with divers passing by or marine life...Drift diving is where the fun is...finding very old bottles and such, plus it is a way to salvage lost gear...finders keepers unless a name is on it...

 

[PlayaCountryBoy]

Man, I love everything about wrecks. I love the history, I love the juxtaposition of nature and a huge man-made structure and how the lines between the two blur as time goes on. I enjoy the thrill of penetrating wrecks and the ability to explore the ship in all dimensions.

Me too, I love shipwrecks. For years, I explored wrecks off Florida's Emerald Coast, usually diving out of Destin and also Orange Beach, Alabama. They're fun wrecks, but sunk for diving purposes. But in these years, it totatlly prepared me for the real adventure to come.

One year in Bali, Indonesia where I based my operation for sometime, I had a charter for 20 people out the the eastern Indonesia islands for diving and finding a particular shipwreck. The charter was from an American/Japanese diamond mine company based in Sumbawa, Indonesia. I hired this 136' wooden sail boat called the" Ombak Putih" for the charter. Me and 15 other crew set sail to find this shipwreck which one of the Japanese owners had said his father was on. He knew the exact cove it was in when the American fleet pounded it. So we headed there.

Once in the cove we anchored up and lowered the dingys. We headed straight for the little, and I mean little, village on shore. A path as a main road and villagers the size of elfs everywhere. I found the oldest guy in town and asked him and "the mayor" out onto the ship. Once they were well fed, we got into discussion about wartime 1940, and what he saw. He was here on the beach that day and had seen a ship with the flag of sun on fire and sinking. We got him and the mayor back into the digny and had him showw us exactly about where he saw it go down. We marked the spot and took them back to shore. Then the fun began.

Gary Bevin ,the other dive instructor on board, and our Indonesian divemaster, Lin helped me run search patterns over the bottom. We descended down into a currentless sea, with viz a murky 35'. And whatta know....JACKPOT!!! We ran into her after 20 minutes down. I pulled a 50cal bullet (still live) off the deck and came up. Once on the ship, we briefed the guests and told them to get ready, it obviously has never been salvaged or seen.

What we found were skeletons, munitions, machine guns, and alot of mud. A few fish and three frog fish. But just finding it and saying we were the first and probably will be the last to ever see a totally historical shipwreck completely as she was the day she sank in 1940 something.....Truly one of the BEST, MOST REWARDING experiences ever!

 

[nereas]

Man, I love everything about wrecks. I love the history, I love the juxtaposition of nature and a huge man-made structure and how the lines between the two blur as time goes on. I enjoy the thrill of penetrating wrecks and the ability to explore the ship in all dimensions. And in north carolina, the thing I enjoy enjoy is the 2-3 hour boat ride to get there . I'll take a wreck over reef any day of the week.

He is right.

 

[TSandM]

nereas, that was a very cool post.

I have to confess that, to date, wrecks have only interested me in terms of what comes to live on and around and inside of them. Diving the Chikuzen in the strait off Virgin Gorda was a great example -- The only relief on the bottom for miles in any direction, it attracts enormous schools of fish, and the predators that eat them.

But I have also dived only one or two wrecks that weren't deliberately scuttled, and that might make a difference.

As far as penetrating wrecks goes, why go inside a silty, rusting structure out to grab you, when you could go dive a cave?

 

[Rainer]

Gold. Don't all sunken ships have gold?