Dive Trip Report to: , Key Largo
Purpose: To Dive 4 Wrecks with 6 DEEP Dives. I've wanted for years to dive on the Bibb I've already dove the Eagle and Duane several times. Both are awesome dives. And, while were down there, we might as well dive on the Spiegle Grove . So, a club dive was suggested where we dive the Deep Wreck Dives of Key Largo:

The Bibb is a Coast Guard Cutter sitting on it's side in 145 feet of water
The Duane is a Sister Ship, a Coast Guard Cutter, sitting upright in 120 feet of water.
The Eagle is a freighter on it's side, split in half in 110 feet of water
The recently sunk Spiegle Grove is a large Navy ship, on it's side in 135 feet of water.

Arrangements were made to dive with Conch Republic . We've dove with them for years and have always had a great diving experience. Conch made arrangements for us to stay at Ocean Point. The results of this memorable experience is given in another WILL NEVER GO TO OCEAN POINT AGAIN report!

The dive, arrangements, dive boat, Capt and mate, air and NITROX fills were all made with Conch Republic . All of the arrangements were better then GREAT! . We were able to switch from doing several trips on the 6-Pak to using the Big Boat. We were able to stay at the wrecks for both dives. Our tanks were filled and ready for us. Conch and Art went out of their way to make this a memorable trip. We've already reserved the 1st weekend after the holiday next year (Sept 5, 6 and 7, 2003). I'm planning on doing 2 dives on the Bibb on Saturday morning, one dive on the Duane and one on the Spiegel Grove on Saturday afternoon and 2 dives on the Eagle for Sunday morning. We'll be looking for another place to stay though!

Club Pictures: Pic 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10

Pictures by Jeri: Sponge , - Parrot Fish , - Jeri , - Spade Fish , - ?? Fish , - The Irishman Swimthrough Eagle , - Trumpet Fish , - The Eagle! , - The Eagle! , - Bob Hanging , - Bob on a Beam , - Cuda on the Eagle , - The Irishman on the Eagle

Dive Reports:

Friday Night Arrival: With a 10 PM arrival in Key Largo, there wasn't much time to do anything else but unpack! But, we did have a spare few hours to have some of the Irishman's Slushy Maragartas !! It left a few headaches the next morning - but they were GOOD!!

Dive #1: . My Dive #407
A. Dive Boat / Location: Conch Republic / Key Largo - The Bibb! - Saturday Morning, 07-Sept-2002
B. Conditions:
Visibility: 50 - 60 ft. It was very good visibility. From about 20 feet below the surface, we could see the Bibb sitting there on her side.
Seas: 2 to 4 ft (Several Divers Fed the fish)
Water Temp: a nice low 80's deg! (Skin and Shortie)
Skies: Sunny, Clear Blue Sky's - Typical of Florida!!
Air Temp: high 80's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time: Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 118 feet for 30 min (27% NITROX), PO2 1.23, 24 min bottom time, 5 min hang stop.
Air consumption: Me: (80 cu ft), 3000 lb to 500 lb
Current: Mild
Description: After jumping in from the stern of the dive boat, we had to swim forward to the buoy-to-ship-line. For some, it was a strenuous swim. Later dives had a rope from the buoy to the back of the boat to pull ourselves up. While starting down, you could see the Bibb. I've wanted to see this wreck for many years. At first I had heard that the Bibb was on an angle - sort of like a 45 degree tilt! Well, the Bibb is totally on her side! We came down at the stern. I went over to the prop and took a few pictures, then motioned for my dive partner to wonder over the side to the cabin area. We worked our way up the side, staying at the top rail and top of the cabin area. While we were working our way up the side, one of our group saw a big Nurse Shark on the bottom. We all watched this 8 ft shark swimming around on the bottom - 40 feet below us! We worked our way towards the stern. The ship was weird being on it's side as compared to diving her sister ship the Duane which is upright! We stayed at the top rail and top cabin level. We all were kind of overwhelmed by this wreck. No one even had the desire to bury their depth gauges in the sand. It's 145 feet to the sand and we really didn't understand the consequences of using 27% NITROX at that depth except for what our computer would say.

Well, after working our way up towards the cabin areas, we decided to head back to the stern line when our computer's indicated 5 minutes of bottom time remaining. I didn't want to push any limits on our first of six dives of the weekend. We ended up with about 24 minutes of bottom time. I decided to do 5 minute hangs at 20 to 15 feet for all of the weekend dives as we were planning on doing repetitive dives to over 100 feet. Back on board, we all were really amazed at the sight of this ship at it's depth, still intact and on it's side. We will dive this again next year!

Dive #2: . My Dive #408
A. Dive Boat / Location: Conch Republic / Key Largo - The Duane! - Saturday Morning, 07-Sept-2002
B. Conditions:
Visibility: 100 ft horiz and about 80 feet vertical . One of our divers commented that he's never seen such vis underwater in Florida. From the ship's bridge, you could clearly see the bow.
Seas: - Same - strong to some, mild to others! Several continued to feed the fish. This was suppose to be a Wreck Dive Weekend and not a Feed The Tropicals!!
Water Temp:
Skies: Sunny, Clear Blue Sky's - Typical of Florida!!
Air Temp: high 80's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time: Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 109 feet for 32 min, 30% NITROX, 20 min bottom time, PO2 1.28
Air consumption: Me: (80 cu ft), 3200 - 750 lbs
Current: Mild
Description: The deal on the Duane was to go down the bow line and up the stern line. With the current going from bow to stern, this would relieve us of fighting the current to get back to the up line. We could do the entire ship in one sweep. The bow down line really ties off about 30 feet back of the bow. So, we went out on the Bow to see the anchor chain. There was a 2 foot turtle hiding in the anchor chain on the deck. Hopefully, Jeri got a few good pictures of it and we'll put them up when she get's them back. I like to stand on the bow and look at the sand in front of the ship - many feet below. You can see the impression of the anchor chain in the sand in front of the bow. We went down the port side staying at the main deck level. I've been to the prop and the sand before and did not have a need to do it again on this dive. We worked our way back and did the 3 swim throughs and then went up to the bridge. There was at least 100 ft of vis horizontal on the boat! We stayed at the bridge level and worked our way to the rearmost cabin area. Then, starting to run low on computer time, we let the current take us to the stern line. We all pulled ourselves up the lines (on all of the dives) very slowly. I would take about a 6 inch pull up at at time. At 20 - 15 feet we again did a 5 minute hang. The current was not as strong as it has been on previous dives. I've seen it so strong that it would take your face mask off if you turned your head sidewise. It was strong enough to stand us all out horizontal to the line.

Lunch: With less than an hour between the boat arrival and departure, the Down Under Dive Club decided to buy lunch for all the club divers! Two Publix round subs fed the crowd and had some left over! It was nice to relax under the awning instead of running around to eat and get back fast. We also had to wait for a few NITROX tanks to get refilled (our 100 cu ft Air Hog)!!

Dive #3: . My Dive #409
A. Dive Boat / Location: Conch Republic / Key Largo - The Spiegel Grove! - Saturday Afternoon 07-Sept-2002
B. Conditions:
Visibility: Very Poor - maybe 30 ft on the average!
Seas: 2 - 4 feet (strong to some, mild to others)
Water Temp:
Skies: Sunny, Clear Blue Sky's - Typical of Florida!!
Air Temp: high 80's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time: Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 128 feet for 42 min, PO2 1.46
Air consumption: Me: (120 cu ft), 3900 lbs to 1300 lbs, 30% NITROX,
Current: Medium
Description: Our first Spiegel Grove dive was on her Stern. We went down and saw the prop - it was BIG! We did a flip over the side to the deck level and worked our way towards midship from the stern. It was dark, poor vis, not many fish and kind of eerie with the bigness of the ship and low vis. Lot's of small fish, a few grouper. Went to the sand to bury the depth gauges and the computer bottom time went from 50 min at 60 feet to 2 min then one min at 128 feet!!! It was very interesting to watch the computer during the dive to the sand. We were using 30% NITROX. At the 50 - 60 ft level we were at, we had hours of bottom time on the computer. We did a head's first swim towards the bottom. At around 100 ft, the computer very rapidly backed off to 10 minutes. On the bottom at 128 feet, it went to 2 minutes then to one minute. I buried the gauge in the sand and gave a pushoff back up. The computer stayed at 1 minute for an awful long time. I signaled my other deep dive friend to look at his computer also - he came back up also. Again, it was minutes at 60 feet before I was getting any bottom time back. I saw this several times during the weekend dives. Get below 100 feet and your NITROX computer goes from hours of bottom time to a few minutes very fast. I did not get a close look at the gauge to see if it was due to Nitrogen or Oxygen that we lost our bottom time, I'd bet it was due to Oxygen toxicity!!
There was a large hold below us. You probably could have lost a house in it. I went down and tried to look aroound it, but with the poor vis, you'd shine your light in and just see blackness. I really did not want to into that hold where you couldn't see what was in it!!!

Dive #4: . My Dive #410
A. Dive Boat / Location: Conch Republic / Key Largo - The Spiegel Grove! - Saturday Afternoon 07-Sept-2002
B. Conditions:
Visibility: Same - poor at 30 feet
Seas: Same
Water Temp: Same
Skies: Sunny, Clear Blue Sky's - Typical of Florida!!
Air Temp: high 80's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time: Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 86 feet for 48 min, PO2 1.07, 30% NITROX
Air consumption: Me: (120 cu ft), 3900 lbs to 1500 lbs
Current:
Description: The second Spiegel Grove was at the midships line. This line is at the forward most part of the superstructure. Again, down we went. This led us to a large flat side filled with 10' x 10' openings. In some of them, you could see a yellow rope leading towards the stern. I assume this is for those that want to penetrate her. We did not go in except towards the end of the dive, I ventured down some of the openings, but not into the hallways. For the most, we stayed on the shallowest level of the ship's side working our way towards the stern. At one point there was a gun emplacement - it had some really monstrous recoil springs (1 ft across and 2 ft long). During the trip towards the stern, I decided to do another plant the computer in the sand. At 86 feet, I stopped descending - the computer already was down to 5 minutes, I'd never had made the bottom!!

Overnight : With the late morning departure, extra wait time over lunch and the 2 dives on the Grove, we arrived back at the dock late and at the motel around 8:00 PM! Some went out to eat, some stayed in to crash!

Dive #5: . My Dive #411
A. Dive Boat / Location: Conch Republic / Key Largo - The Eagle ! - Sunday Morning, 08-Sept-2002
B. Conditions:
Visibility: at least 80 feet horiz and vertical.
Seas: flat to 1 foot - great diving weather.
Water Temp: low 80's - 82!
Skies: Sunny, Clear Blue Sky's - Typical of Florida!!
Air Temp: high 80's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time: Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 113 feet for 40 min, PO2 1.32, 31 minutes of bottom time.
Air consumption: Me: (120 cu ft), 3500 lbs to 1100 lbs, 29% NITROX
Current: Nill
Description: We moored to the Eagle's stern buoy line. We were to be here a while doing two dives! It was the infamous "Double Eagle's". There was no one else here. Going down the stern line, the Eagle came into view at 30 feet. It's an awesome view! We went down, looked over the prop. The stern section of the Eagle is broken off from the main portion of the ship - maybe 50 feet apart. From the prop area, we went around the stern deck section. I've never really went around this part. There's a walkway around the stern area, we followed this walkway at the sand level forward. We entered the bridge section from the entryway closest the sand and exited the farthest from the sand. It's really cool to stand at where the steering wheel would be and pretend to be steering the ship. Besides being on it's side, this part of the ship is tilted down an extra 10 - 20 degrees and this gives a weird feeling. We exited the shallowest bridge entry point and worked our way back down towards the sand and the back of the front part of the ship. There's one swim through at the broken in half part of the bow section that get's you into a big hold. Again, staying on the sand, we went to the bow. Here, running low on computer bottom time, we went up to the shallowest part of the deck and worked or way back to the broken off stern section. Then worked our way up some of the masks to shallower depths to save bottom time. Finally running out of bottom time, we slowly pulled ourselves up the stern buoy line and again did a 5 minute hang! This is really a beautiful and awesome dive!

Dive #6: . My Dive #412
A. Dive Boat / Location: Conch Republic / Key Largo - The Eagle! - Sunday Morning, 08-Sept-2002
B. Conditions:
Visibility: Not quite as good. There were several other dive boats during our up time and those dives probably stirred things up some. We had maybe 60 feet of vis. You could see the white floating sand in the water at the ship split.
Seas: Again, almost flat.
Water Temp: Low 80's
Skies: Sunny, Clear Blue Sky's - Typical of Florida!!
Air Temp: high 80's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time: Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - Got to look it up!
Air consumption: Me: (120 cu ft), - 3500 lbs to ?, 31% NITROX.
Current: Slight
Description: Similar to the first dive. This time we went forward on the upper portion of the ship. There's a swimthrough where a bridge structure crosses the ship in the middle of this foward section. On the return to the stern part, we spotted a large school of spade fish swimming on the bottom between the ship split. There also one one big (2 - 3 feet long) fish going back and forth through this split. We couldn't id what kind of a fish it was!

Last Updated: 17-Sept-2002

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