September 17 – 22, 2001: The Miller Lite, The Hydro Atlantic and The Lowrance Shipwrecks
The Miller Lite Wreck – Built in 1957, this 186-foot Freighter was a German refrigerator cargo vessel and was originally commissioned the Mini-Horn. She now sits in 164 feet of water in an upright position. The deck on this dive is at a depth of 140 feet. The top of the wheelhouse is at 110 feet. The dive conditions were less than normal (30 to 40 foot of visibility and a roaring 3 knot current) making our first dive of the week a miss! We jumped off the back of the Lady Go Diver about 200 yards up current from the wreck and made a rapid free decent to the ocean floor. Our decent took just under two minutes to reach 174 feet and when we saw sand we knew that we had missed the wreck! We drifted for about 10 minutes and then called the dive. I was using Deco Planner software for the first time and decided to modify my deco plan slightly for the short bottom time. I ran a deco plan for 160-feet/ 30-minute bottom time and had a total run time of 60 minutes. I was very clean upon surfacing after using 50% and 100% oxygen for my deco gasses. Back on the boat the Captain informed us that we had drifted over 3 miles during our drift-deco. Thank God for bright lift-bag's!! ...... (read more »)
May 19 – 24, 2002: The Miller Lite, The Hydro Atlantic, The Lowrance and The Castro Shipwrecks
The Miller Lite Wreck – The first dive of the week is always an adrenalin rush, even more so after taking the winter off. The morning started off well and the weather was great. Sun shine and blue sky's made the day look like a divers dream day. The group for this trip consisted of myself, Matt Harlan (group leader) who was my Trimix Instructor, John Mason, Rick Carlstrom, Alan Crew and Patrick. A good group of tech divers all of which I have dove with before. Because this was my first deep trimix dive I would be diving with Matt as my dive buddy. After getting geared up and doing equipment check Matt and I talked about our dive plan and decided to shorten our bottom time to 25 minutes. This would end up being a very good thing as the dive conditions were less than favorable as we found out as soon as we hit the water...... (read more »)
Gearing Up!
John Morris before the Lowrance wreck
John Morris on board the "Lady Go Diver"
Captain Rob and company at the dock
John, Mark and Dana before the Lowrance
Matt and Harry on board the Lady Go!
Matt Harlan
(photo: Alan Crew)
Dave and Me - The Hydro Atlantic Wreck (photo: Alan Crew)
(Photo: Alan Crew)
The Hydro Atlantic engine room - (photo: Alan Crew)
The Hydro Atlantic engine room - (photo: Alan Crew)
- WEST PALM BEACH _DIVE JOURNALS -
September 2001 & May 2002
[ Image Gallery Below ]
The Miller Lite Wreck – Built in 1957, this 186-foot Freighter was a German refrigerator cargo vessel and was originally commissioned the Mini-Horn. She now sits in 164 feet of water in an upright position. The deck on this dive is at a depth of 140 feet. The top of the wheelhouse is at 110 feet. The dive conditions were less than normal (30 to 40 foot of visibility and a roaring 3 knot current) making our first dive of the week a miss! We jumped off the back of the Lady Go Diver about 200 yards up current from the wreck and made a rapid free decent to the ocean floor. Our decent took just under two minutes to reach 174 feet and when we saw sand we knew that we had missed the wreck! We drifted for about 10 minutes and then called the dive. I was using Deco Planner software for the first time and decided to modify my deco plan slightly for the short bottom time. I ran a deco plan for 160-feet/ 30-minute bottom time and had a total run time of 60 minutes. I was very clean upon surfacing after using 50% and 100% oxygen for my deco gasses. Back on the boat the Captain informed us that we had drifted over 3 miles during our drift-deco. Thank God for bright lift-bag's!! ...... (read more »)
The Miller Lite Wreck – The first dive of the week is always an adrenalin rush, even more so after taking the winter off. The morning started off well and the weather was great. Sun shine and blue sky's made the day look like a divers dream day. The group for this trip consisted of myself, Matt Harlan (group leader) who was my Trimix Instructor, John Mason, Rick Carlstrom, Alan Crew and Patrick. A good group of tech divers all of which I have dove with before. Because this was my first deep trimix dive I would be diving with Matt as my dive buddy. After getting geared up and doing equipment check Matt and I talked about our dive plan and decided to shorten our bottom time to 25 minutes. This would end up being a very good thing as the dive conditions were less than favorable as we found out as soon as we hit the water...... (read more »)
Gearing Up!
John Morris before the Lowrance wreck
John Morris on board the "Lady Go Diver"
Captain Rob and company at the dock
John, Mark and Dana before the Lowrance
Matt and Harry on board the Lady Go!
Matt Harlan
(photo: Alan Crew)
Dave and Me - The Hydro Atlantic Wreck (photo: Alan Crew)
(Photo: Alan Crew)
The Hydro Atlantic engine room - (photo: Alan Crew)
The Hydro Atlantic engine room - (photo: Alan Crew)