Got to the dive shop early am after a good night's sleep. Ah! The first of precious few! What a DIFFERENCE a good night's sleep makes! I was hoppin' and boppin' around in the car, sippin' my coffee and listening to the Ricky Gervais XM radio show of olden times. Felt amazing. Cruising down the Overseas highway. Watching the sun come up.
The sun cracked open like a soft-boiled egg over the big clouds low over Key West. I rolled into town, right up to the dive shop like I owned the place. Parked, grabbed my camera, and strolled through the Hyatt, past the turtle tank, past the quiet parrot, and out onto the dock.
I saw some familiar faces from the day prior, both in the crew and the participants. Made fast friends with a british family not afraid of cold water, but sad their son with ear trouble couldn't join them on their dive. We chatted, and because there were an uneven number of us, I got tacked on to a buddy pair as the big ol' third wheel. But we all had cameras, so somehow it seemed right.
We hopped into the water and were immediately surrounded by jellyfish. Tons of them. The current was mild though, in spite of what we'd expected. Those of us not wearing wetsuits or exposure suits raced down the line as fast as we could, trying to escape the terrible tingling sting of the unknowing jellyfish. Before we could even get halfway down, the ship began to emerge from the blue, in all its massive splendor.
We settled down on the deck, and almost immediately, the current started up. We were on the wrong side of the boat for it to, in danger of being blown off the wreck altogether. I tried to duck behind the side of the ship to stay out of the wind. This thing was huge.
The craziest thing about the Vandenberg is that because it hasn't been down there very long, it's remarkably intact...and thus, really eerie. It feels like at any moment, someone's going to step out of a doorway and onto the deck, ready to do a days work at sea, oblivious to the fact that their ship has indeed sunk.
There are still ladders, doorways, flags, ropes, all things that belong above-water. It's very bizarre to see...somehow it's like it just doesn't belong...or you don't belong. Maybe you've slipped into the afterlife where all the world is flooded, and you were none the wiser. Maybe this is what it's like to be a ghost, floating lightly through the graveyard of a world that's moved on, leaving ships and human endeavour behind.
We also saw a barracuda on the hunt, hustling to stay still in the current, eyeing up a school of fish nearby.
And hilariously, a jellyfish, caught up in the current, got stuck on the side of a pole on the ship, like a newspaper on a telephone pole swept up in the wind.
It couldn't move...it was trapped in the heavy current, like a cartoon.
There were a number of elevator shafts that just went black after a few feet. Apparently most of them go right to the seafloor, at 150 feet. That's deeper than divers can go, until you get into the tech side of things.
This massive satellite dish is called the skeleton dish, and was the smaller of the two satellites on board. We didn't make it across the the second one, sadly.
It was an incredibly haunting experience, and I don't think i'll forget it as long as I live. It's very strange looking at these pictures and saying to myself "I was there...I was actually there."
The second dive of the day we were hoping for Vandenberg part 2, and the Captain of our boat said that's what he was hoping for, but some internal shop politics got in the way, and the shop radioed out to say that we had to go to Joe's Tug. Nobody was really happy about it...the captain says usually it's captain's call, but someone had booked the charter today, and it was Joe's Tug for sure. We were sad...I could've done 10 dives on the Vandenberg and not been bored. Truly, this was a dive deserving of the moniker "Awesome". It genuinely inspired awe.
Joe's tug was no Vandenberg, but it was no slouch either. The Captain told us this fantastic story of how it was sunk by a few Key West drunks in the middle of the night. It had been sitting, rotting in the harbour for ages, and the plan was to intentionally sink it (on the site the Vandenberg now sits), but it had been put off, put off, and put off. Finally, a number of the local boat captains, after a heavy night of drinking decided that now was the time. 3:30 am, the captain of our boat handed them a case of beer and set them off into the night. He opted not to go along. With the coast guard boat just across the harbour, these three maniacs towed Joe's Tug out into the bay, aiming for their targeted site. However, the ages it had spent rotting in the harbour meant it was taking on a lot more water than they'd expected. Eventually, there was nothing to do but cut the lines with hatchets and let it sink - they'd pulled it as far as they could. One of the guys threw on his scuba gear and rode it down to the bottom.
The next day, during a dive, one dive boat radioed the other, shouting "Hey! Come this way! Joe found a tug-boat!!!" And Joe's tug became a dive site from that moment on.
It's seen better days, Joe's tug. A few hurricanes have blown through Key West, and it's been broken up and strewn about liberally. But a number of big chunks are still in tact.
We came down right on the bow, careful to avoid the fire coral on the end of the descent line. It was quite a bit bigger than it had looked on the surface. The best part is, the whole wreck is surrounded by reef, so you can't lose. It's either tugboat debris, or excellent reef.
Big, filter-feeding barrel sponges soaked up the nutrients from what little current there was. We saw all sorts of little fish, darting in and around the coral.
The rear of Joe's tug is also more or less in tact, though partially buried in the sea bed. We found all sorts of bits and pieces. Ropes, gas tanks, coils of cable. Very cool.
Some fish took refuge in a crevice that had opened, to stay out of the current.
My dive buddy also spotted a puffer fish! It was tucked in a little crevice, but decided to come out for a swim. We had a look, and I followed him around a little bit for some footage. Just a little guy, but with the most incredible eyes. It looked like there was a whole universe in those eyes.
A mighty barracuda presides over his domain, in the gloom.
More fish take shelter from the wind, tucked behind the boat.
I'm not sure what kind of fish this was, but it was extraordinarily well camouflaged. My dive buddy spotted this one too...I don't know how people spot these things sometimes. It's slightly more visible from me altering the contrast, but to the naked eye it was nigh unseeable. It makes you wonder about all the things you don't see when diving...things your eyes have roamed over a hundred times.
The fuel tanks were particularly cool to see...very sobering, reminding you that this was a real ship that did real work, and not just a decoration for divers to enjoy. You can see the fire coral all over the prow of the ship...that I managed to avoid all the way to the end of the dive, until I was taking this photo above. Suddenly, the current surged and I was pushed into it, and came out with a nasty welt on my shoulder. Fire coral means business. Ow.
That was the last of the diving in Key West, and sadly, the last of the diving on this trip as well. Tomorrow it was off to meet my family up in Sarasota, to begin the rest & relaxation portion of the trip. It was a departure, but at the same time, I was excited to stop waking up early, driving for hours, and rushing about to pack in everything a day needs. I already missed diving though. I missed it so much. The idea of not getting underwater the next day made me genuinely sad. If I were to do this trip again, I think I would just dive the Vandenberg and the Spiegel over and over and over again. Those giant ships are just in a category of their own...it's too much to even comprehend, and you spend your whole dive in awe and disbelief. You are here, and this is real, regardless of how bizarre and unlikely it might feel. This ship had a life once, and the people on it had lives as real to them as your life is to you. It's a whole other world, and now, it's only experienced by the lucky few who have the chance to descend to its depths. I won't forget it.
Hopefully, next year, I'll return to do it again.
-Jeff
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