PENSACOLA, Florida (16 Nov 2006) -- Eat your heart out, South Florida. For all our great diving sites, we do not have what has been dubbed ''The Great Carrier Reef'' -- the USS Oriskany, the world's largest ship deliberately sunk to create a haven for fish and divers. The 911-foot-long, retired U.S. Navy aircraft carrier belongs to the Florida Panhandle, sitting 212 feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico, 22 ½ nautical miles southeast of Pensacola and 33 miles southwest of Destin. It was sunk May 17, taking 37 minutes to hit the bottom after a combination of shaped charges, drilled holes and flooded compartments were set off inside it. The ship came to rest upright with the top of the 151-foot superstructure at 70 feet deep. You could almost fit two of Key Largo's sunken Spiegel Groves inside it. Several years back, dive promoters in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties tried very hard to secure the Oriskany for deployment in local waters. But their ardent bid to the Navy and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was trumped by the Pensacola naval community, many of whose current and former residents served aboard the carrier during the Korean and Vietnam wars. As someone with a front-row seat during the frantic contest to secure the ship, I was terribly curious to dive the Oriskany. I finally made it there last month and dived with former Miami resident captain Dave Mucci, now a Pensacola dive boat operator. Mucci said visibility on the wreck had been 100 feet-plus all summer long. But the weather immediately prior to our dive had been windy, which reduced visibility to about 50 feet -- the norm for Miami. But seas were calm for the 1 ¼-hour ride aboard Mucci's 29-foot cat. Mucci, who has dived the Oriskany numerous times -- both on scuba and holding his breath -- said the ship cannot be fully explored in one dive, or even a dozen. ''It'll take 20 dives to get a good familiarization,'' he said. ``It's a monster.'' MARVEL TO BEHOLD Arriving at the dive site, Mucci idled over to a mooring he installed that is marked with an American flag and tied up the boat. Unlike the Spiegel Grove, the Oriskany has no publicly-maintained moorings. Other dive operators must send a divemaster down with the anchor to secure it to the top of the superstructure. Our group of four divers suited up, made a final inspection of our Nitrox tanks and rolled over the side. Buddying with former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot Scott Suazo, now an Air Force major who flies C-5s, I descended to the flight control station more than 100 feet deep. We swam across the deck through the missing windows and I marvelled at the 1950s linoleum beginning to peel off the floor. We decided not to blow our bottom time by touching the flight deck at 138 feet, opting instead to hover over the radar dome and latticed smokestack. The Oriskany has already attracted plenty of marine life, with a thin coating of algae on the hull and sea creatures circulating in and around it. | | USS Oriskany dubbed the 'Great Carrier Reef' The biggest fish we encountered were about a dozen four-foot-long barracuda, which look mean with their sharp teeth but do little more than swim around, eyeing smaller fish. The compartments are lined with minnows, misshapen trumpetfish and arrow crabs. A PATINA OF LIFE Mucci said he recently speared a 25-pound wahoo while freediving the wreck. And Robert Turpin, Escambia County's marine resources manager, said he has observed sharks, dolphins and other species. ''I understand there's a Goliath grouper on it,'' Turpin said. ``As we enter our winter season, the large jacks -- 75 to 100 pounds -- should be on it. I don't know what's down by the propellers. It wouldn't surprise me to see Goliaths, Warsaw grouper and some 50-to-60-pound Cubera snapper.'' As Suazo and I swam around the stacks, we were slightly startled to see Mucci diving down -- sans tanks -- and waving at us. We slowly surfaced, taking a five-minute safety stop, and got back on the boat. For our second dive, Suazo expressed a desire to visit the bridge -- the helm station from which the Oriskany was navigated. After an hour's surface interval, we dived down and took a look at the remains of electronics and control panels and then went over to the radar antenna base. Someone had hung the Stars & Stripes from a yardarm recently enough that the colors were still fairly vibrant amid a patina of marine growth. I watched, moved, as Suazo gently unfurled the banner and shook it out, liberating several small grunts. He wiped the flag clean with his gloved hand, gave me the thumbs-up, and began to ascend. Like many military service members, Suazo is glad that the old carrier serves as a living memorial to those who served aboard her -- rather than being scrapped. Turpin, who helped coordinate the sinking with the Navy and the state, sees the project as the culmination of his life's work. And he has a personal connection to the ship -- his stepfather served as a clerk on board, narrowly escaping a 1966 fire that killed 44 sailors. ''It exceeds any dive I've ever done,'' Turpin said. ``Something that large and that spectacular, it's orders of magnitude above any other Navy vessel that's an artificial reef. I lost a lot of sleep and a lot of hair over it. I really wanted to do it right.'' |
