WreckDiveGuide.com

Scuba diving on shipwrecks has been around since people started diving beneath the sea. Shipwrecks offer a certain amount of mystery and lure and are invariably equated to sunken treasure. Diving on a sunken ship brings questions like: Where did the wreck come from? Did the people parish when this ship sank? What caused the wreck to sink? What’s inside the wreck? Whether the ship sank due to bad weather, navigational error, a wartime battle, or if it was sunk purposefully as an artificial reef, the lure of exploring a sunken ship is often intoxicating. Diving wrecks allows you to examine history and share an exhilarating experience with friends. Wrecks also are usually abundant with marine life of all kinds, and wrecks in cold, fresh water, such as the Great Lakes, are often well preserved.

This wreck guide provides information about wrecks in many different areas. Name of the wreck, depth, location, history, and size of the wreck are all types of information you can find for each wreck. The guide is broken up into locations, making it easy for you to find information about a wreck in your area or area you plan on visiting.

This is not a complete list of wreck dives, meaning that we will continually be adding more wrecks to the guide, so check back often for updated and new information.

by David Miner

The Thunderbolt, intentionally sunk on March 6, 1986, now lies upright on a sandy bottom in 120 feet of blue water approximately four miles south (offshore) of Marathon and Key Colony Beach in the Florida Keys. But she began and lived her life in a number of different ways, including having several different names.

Originally named the Major General Wallace F. Randolph and built under contract for the U.S. Army in 1942/43, the Thunderbolt began life as a Comanche-Class Auxiliary Minelayer. The ship was built, along with 15 sister ships, by the Marietta Manufacturing Company in West Virginia at a length of 188 feet with a 37-foot beam, displacing 1,300 gross tons. The ships were built to plant and tend defensive coastal minefields for the Army’s Coast Artillery Corps.

In 1951, that all changed when the defensive coastal minefield operations were transferred to the U.S. Navy along with the Randolph. Now with the Navy, the Randolph was designated as an auxiliary mine layer ACM-15, although she was never commissioned into the U.S. Navy fleet. The Randolph was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina and later moved to Green Cove Springs, Florida as a member of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. In 1955, prior to moving to Florida, she was re-designated as the MMA-15 and her name was changed to Nausett.

Read the rest of this entry »

by David Miner

The Eagle rests on a sandy bottom on her starboard side in 110 feet of water approximately three miles northeast of Alligator Reef’s light tower in Islamorada, Florida. It is one of the most requested deeper dives in the Florida Keys and was rated one of the top 10 wrecks in the world by Scuba Diving Magazine’s November 2004 issue. Diving the Eagle is considered an advanced dive due to its depth and Gulf Stream currents, which can kick up to two or more knots. In addition, it rests on its side making for a more confusing orientation while exploring.

The Raila Dan was the ship’s first name when she was built as a hull freighter in Werf-Gorinchem, Holland in 1962. She was built to a length of 269 feet with a 40-foot beam. She was primarily just a transport ship and went through several different owners and seven name changes. In 1985, while en route on a routine hauling mission from Miami to Venezuela, she caught fire damaging the vessel beyond repair. The Coast Guard responded to their distress call, but upon arrival, there was nothing they could do to save the ship’s superstructure.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Great Wreck Dive in the Southern Gulf of Mexico
by Steve May

Baja Stern - Photo: Steve May

In the warm depths of the Gulf of Mexico, 72.5 miles SW of Fort Myers Beach, Florida, lie the remains of the Honduran freighter Baja California. She sits on a sandy bottom in 114 feet of water, after being torpedoed by a German submarine in July 1942. The Baja California has become very nearly the perfect wreck dive. She offers a dive into history, encounters with marine life both large and small, a variety of photo opportunities, and artifacts.

The Baja California sank on a mid-July morning in 1942 after being hit by a torpedo fired from a Type VII B German submarine, the U-84. The torpedo struck just forward of amidships and the explosion tore the bow off the doomed freighter. The submarine commander, Captain Horst Uphoff, ordered the submarine to leave the area as quickly as possible after the attack. He and his crew did not want to wait around for a possible confrontation with an Allied warship or aircraft that could find and destroy their submarine on the flat sandy bottom of the Gulf. The U-84 and her crew went on to attack six other ships, sinking five, in her short career. The U-84 went down with all hands in the North Atlantic in August of 1943, after being hit by a MK 24 Homing Torpedo dropped from an American Liberator Aircraft.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Death of a Tough Lady

by Bert Wilcher

Courtesy of the U.S. Naval archives

Her death came on July 24, 1946 in a most glorious fashion for the time.  At 562 feet in length with a displacement of 27,243 tons, she had become “expendable”.  The third Arkansas (Battleship #33) succumbed to the destructive force of a 21 kiloton nuclear device code named “Baker”, an underwater test, in a pacific lagoon in the Bikini Atoll.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Steve May

It’s been quite a while since I had a chance to dive the Coast Guard Cutter Duane and the Military Transport Ship Spiegel Grove. So, when I got a chance in December 2005 to dive them again, I was enthusiastic to see what had changed.

For the folks who are not familiar with the wrecks, I’ll give you a short run down on them.

The Spiegel Grove is the newer of the two, originally sank, (a little ahead of schedule in May of 2002), before the prep team could complete their work on site. The 510 ft long ship ended upside down, with her bow sticking out of the water. After a lot of work, she was eventually turned onto her starboard side and settled on the sea floor. Thousands of divers have flocked to see the new wreck. The story doesn’t end there. In July of 2005, hurricane Dennis roared through the Florida Keys and stood the Spiegel Grove upright, thereby helping to do what the humans had been trying to do all along. Maybe the prayers of the folks who worked on the Spiegel Grove project were answered after all. If you had any doubt that hurricanes are powerful, think of the 510 feet long ship, weighing many, many tons, sitting on the bottom in 130 feet of water, getting shoved bolt upright by that storm!

The 327-foot long Duane began life as an artificial reef in November 1987, south of Molasses Reef, off Key Largo. She sits upright on the bottom in 120 feet of water. The Duane sits only a hundred yards from her sister ship, the Bibb that went down the day after the Duane.

Spiegel Grove photo locations

Read the rest of this entry »

Ship’s gone missing?  Erie isn’t it!

Text and Photos by Pete Nawrocky

It’s June 15, 2004, time 8 am, and the 48-foot “Southwind” completes the turn around the jetty. Capt Jim Herbert turns in our direction and flatly states, “You fella’s really lucked out! It’s been blowing and raining for days up until yesterday.” Most of the divers on board were breathing a sigh of relief as the conditions looked close to ideal. They traveled to Lake Erie from as far away as Florida to dive in Lake Erie. Except for the heavy fog that gave us the feeling of navigating through a wet marshmallow, conditions looked pretty good. Lake Erie is occasionally known to whistle up heavy seas and nasty conditions but today it looks like we’ll be fine.

Read the rest of this entry »

by David Miner

Thunderbolt wreck, Marathon, Florida

Recreational wreck diving is classified as diving the exterior of a wreck, meaning that you don’t penetrate or go inside the wreck. Recreational wreck diving is defined as any dive on a wreck or object that is at a maximum depth of 130 fsw and is conducted within the normal no-decompression diving limits.

Many newly certified divers or even divers who been certified for a while want to dive wrecks. Wreck dives are exciting and offer a much different experience than reef dives. Shipwreck dive sites may have been created artificially by purposely sinking the ship or they may have sunk accidentally from a storm or other problem. Either way, wreck diving is an important and very fun part of recreational diving. Many of the great diving destinations offer wreck dives within the standard sport diving limitations.

For this reason, it’s important for divers to understand that they are diving in a much different environment than a reef and that certain hazards exist. In addition, depending on the wreck dive, time of day you’re diving it, depth of the wreck, currents on the wreck, size of the wreck, etc. you may need special dive gear to dive the wreck safely and enjoyably. Also, some wrecks may still contain artifacts, and if you’re into salvaging artifacts, you will need special equipment to do it correctly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Steve May

by David Miner

Scuba diving on shipwrecks has been around since people started diving beneath the sea. Shipwrecks offer a certain amount of mystery and lure and are invariably equated to sunken treasure. Diving on a sunken ship brings questions like: Where did the wreck come from? Did the people parish when this ship sank? What caused the wreck to sink? What’s inside the wreck? Whether the ship sank due to bad weather, navigational error, a wartime battle, or if it was sunk purposefully as an artificial reef, the lure of exploring a sunken ship is often intoxicating. Diving wrecks allows you to examine history and share an exhilarating experience with friends. Wrecks also are usually abundant with marine life of all kinds, and wrecks in cold, fresh water, such as the Great Lakes, are often well preserved.

Wreck divers are inquisitive type people. Whether you’re a new diver or a veteran, diving a sunken wreck brings you together with a sense of wonder and intrigue. When swimming around the breakdown of a wreck, around the hull, or while entering a passageway, wreck divers anxiously shine their lights from place to place hoping to uncover something special. The drive to explore, discover, and uncover history are the reasons divers explore wrecks.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Andreas W. Matthes

Thinking about Cuba mostly tropical islands with lots of music and rhythm comes to my mind, the struggle of the lone Fidel Castro, Mojitos, fine cigars plus cave diving.

On previous trips to Cuba I did participate in the exploration of virgin caves in the bay of pigs area, helping with the training of close to a dozen cave divers in the year 2000 as a response to fatal cave diving accidents in the islands numerous caves, as the island consist of 80 % limestone and caves are almost everywhere.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Andreas W. Matthes

Acapulco located in the state of Jalisco, Mexico is a name everybody has heard before for it’s beaches, the big bay surrounded by hills and the famous cliff divers who jump off a 100 foot high cliff into the ocean. Hearing the name of Acapulco in connection with deep wreck diving is some what new and pulled my curiosity.

I learned that the Mexican government of Acapulco purchased the Canadian Destroyer “ HMCS Restigouche “ which was to be sunk in shallow water to provide an attraction for the local fish and diving population, hence creating an artificial reef. When the time came to have the obsolete warship sunk a hurricane came close and the sinking had to be done in a hurry, ending up with the ship at some 230 feet to the sand and 170 feet to the bridge in January 2001.

Read the rest of this entry »