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Hello forum.
I finally got to go diving yesterday (tuesday)
searching for that Egmont key sunken sub. We were susposed to go saturday but
the weather was bad. Myself,
Pete and Laren (male namedLaren) put in from the
Fort Desoto boat ramp tuesday morning about 9 a.m. Pete has a 24 ft boat with
dual
mercury 175's. She really hauls. We also had a good
depth finder and GPS as well as a magnetometer "fish" on board.
Pete had the coordinates for where the old channel
buoy used to be west of Egmont key from a chart he had dated 1969.
The nun buoy had been washed away in the no name
storm we had some years ago and had never been replaced. Pete recalled his 1970
dive on the sub was
about 1 mile east of the buoy. We started out the
channel at the north side of Egmont key heading west. We went right over the
coordinates for the civil war
tugboat named the Narcissus http://uwex.us/narcissusarticle.htm
which is sunk north west of Egmont key. We almost stopped and dived the
Narcissus but Pete decided instead to go on to the
location
about a mile east of the old missing buoy which he
had already calculated and put into the GPS. When we got close pete fired up the
magnometer and we lowered
the magnometer fish over the side. The "fish" looks
a bit like a missle and is about 4 ft long with fins. We had a 4 ft 4 inch pvc
pipe with end caps as a float for the "fish"
and had ropes connecting the two so the "fish"
would be about 6 ft down. We let it run behind the boat about 25 ft. Then we
started circling. We saw some interested spikes
on the depth finder and also got a strong metalic
"hit" from the magnetometer. We dropped anchor and suited up. I had just gotten
my new Sea doo scooter and was anxious
to try it out. The Scooter has a buoyancy chamber
in the nose that is adjustable for snorkeling or diving buoyancy. I filled it
with water so it would be negative for diving.
We backflipped off the boat and Pete hooked onto a
D ring on my BCD and we started circling, the sea doo pulling us both.
We went under the boat. North, south, east and west.
We covered the area for a good 100 yards. No sub.
The visibility was horrible. We could only see about 2 and 1/2 ft in any
direction. There was a lot of particulate matter in the water.
We just had a front move thru here several days ago
and the visibility had not had time to clear. That was very disappointing.
Pete remembered the sub being in 18 ft of water in
1970 when he dove on her. He said in 1970 she had the entire top blown off her
and was half filled with sand. That was 35 years ago and it may be
that
we were right over her and could not see her for
being buried in silt. I had looked up the morphology of Egmont key and as I
already knew the island is eroding badly to the south and west.
Dunes have formed on top of dunes the report said
to the west and south of the island from the erosion of the island itself.
Either we were over it and couldn't see it, or we were in the wrong
spot after all. When we surfaced after searching we
were about 100 yards from the boat. The Sea Doo VS supercharged scooter
performed flawlessly and it was no problem for it to take us
both back to the boat. We took a break, and
discussed possibilities. Pete decided to stay topside and I went in for another
dive solo. This time with only my weight on the scooter it really
showed me what it could do. It was much faster with
just me. It was a joy to fly along with it. I had rigged a line from the scooter
to a D ring on my bcd so as not to lose it. Next time I need to
make the strap a bit shorter so it will pull from
my bcd instead of my wrists who along with my elbows are REALLY sore
today! On this dive I surfaced twice with two large conch shells which
were vacant and passed them to Pete on the boat.
But no sub again. I searched long and hard. We plan to go again soon and bring
Pete's handheld underwater metal detector along so if we
get a good "hit" with the magnetometer on the boat
again we can search the bottom for the source of the metal. We didn't have that
with us yesterday. Pete doesn't want to give up and neither
do I. Next time we will look for more hits and dive
them. We may be on a wild goose chase for a sunken wreck submarine but it sure
is fun! We went very close to the shore at Egmont key and saw about 4
or 5
boats, one which was a large tour boat. We all
watched a manatee swimming blackly under the surface, you could just make out
this large dark blob underwater. He surfaced once. I went back
in for another dive while Pete stayed on the boat.
Laren doesn't dive yet. I explored some of the crumbling fortifications that are
now totally underwater from the erosion of the island. I saw
concrete
steps and part of a wall. We could see the shadow
of them from the surface and I just scootered over to them. I saw a school of
large sheephead too. Then I surfaced and we headed back. Even though we didn't
find the sub today,
as long as everyone is ok after the dive, there is
no such thing as a bad day diving! Tomorrow is another day, and we will
return there soon. I'll keep you informed.
Kindest Regards,
Bill
Akins.
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