Built in 1933 and lauched in 1934, the 165 foot long vessel Nemesis was a U. S. Coast Guard vessel originally earmarked to chase "rum runners" during the years of legal prohibition against alcoholic beverage sales in the United States. She never actually saw any "action" in this arena since, by the time she was launched, the Prohibition was over.
Following her Coast Guard commision, she changed owners a number of times. In 1979, she was remodeled and turned into a floating restaurant called Livingston's Landing. In 1981, she was sold and then renamed the Ancient Mariner. She continued to operate as a restaurant until the late 1980s, when a case of food poisoning led to the demise of this restuarant business.
1991, she was purchased by the South Florida Divers and the Create-A-Reef Foundation, and she was donted to Broward County to create a local artificial reef. She was laid to rest in 71 feet of water off of Deerfield Beach Florida, where she is a local attraction for divers.
On this day, I am diving with MannyDib and his friend, Bob, who are both unfortunate bubblemaker souls. We are diving with South Florida Diving Headquarters aboard the Safari Diver, http://www.southflor...afari_diver.htm. The boat is full, and it offers no protection from the sun when seated on the dive bench seats. I am not happy to find out about this as I am diving dry, as I always do.
By the time the divemaster ties off the boat to the site, I am more than toasty in my drysuit. Fortunately, I am the first off of the boat, and I am thankful to be in the cooler water. The water color looks good on the surface, and there is only a slight current.
My buddy jumps in the water behind me. As we are about to descend, I realize that I forgot to connect my drysuit hose! I was so hot that I didn't complete my full pre-dive check for anything except the CCR (since that is my newest piece of equipment). Will I ever learn? Manny helps me find the hose, and I connect it to the drysuit inlet valve.
We start down the line. Since there is almost no current, I let go of the line about half way down, doing a free descent, and fixing up my sidemount bailout bottle, a newer configuration that I am still working on, along the way.
At the bottom, I look behind me. Nobody's there though I can see shadows up near the surface. So, I wait on the top deck of the wreck, just below where the anchor line has been tied in by the divemaster. PPO2 looks good (I set my Hammerhead computer to 1.0 but fly manually between 1.1 and 1.2), and I feel comfortable in my rig. I feel around for my bailout regulator and other devices. The water temperature is 75 degrees, and I am now cooled off from baking in the sun prior to the dive. Everything is set.
I must have waited almost five minutes before I saw Bob arriving, giving me the ear problem signal. Manny was taking a while to get down to the wreck. Finally, he gets there.
The three of us explore the wreck for about 60 minutes or so, and we complete our dive by making a slow ascent with stops at 40 feet for one minute, 30 feet for one minute, and then we spend five minutes at 20 feet. I bump up the PP02 to about 1.4 for the ascent. Total run time is 70 minutes.
Overall, we had fun on the dive. However, there was a lot of particulate in the water, making overall visibility about 50 feet or just under that.
Attached Images
Edited by ScubaDadMiami, 05 April 2006 - 08:45 AM.
