My first wreck dive
My first dive in the Gulf of Mexico is going to be a wreck dive on the Black Bart off of the coast of Panama City. I am both anxious and excited to be diving on a wreck dive the likes of the Black Bart.
Our dive master, during the briefing, has advised us that the Black Bart was a 185 foot oil field supply ship. The ship is sitting upright in about 75 feet of water.
This is going to be the deepest dive I've made to date!
My buddy and I enter the water and decend the anchor line looking forward to the prize at the end of the rope. As we approach the dive we begin to see the ship appear as a shadow in the haze below us.
Not quite able to make out the ship yet, we see teams of fish swimming around us as if we belonged there. We see Spadefish, Amberjack, Sheepshead, Flounder, and much more.
Very quickly the ship becomes visible and to us, quite amazing. Here is a large ship laying underwater just waiting for us to explore all that she is. Named after Captain Charles "Black Bart" Bartholomew, who died during a dive in Panama City, FL, in November 1990, is intact and the bridge is clearly visible. The visibility has to be at least 40 feet...our lucky day.
We begin by exploring the bridge, which is in about 40 feet of water. We see arrow crabs, sea urchins, and many other sea creatures in abundance all over the ship.
As we amble our way around we spot the cargo holds which are wide open for our exploration. Not too much to see in there, other than the Spadefish swimming around every where.
Of course, we have to make a trip down to the surface to hit the max depth of 73 feet...just for the fun of saying, we've been to 73 feet. Flounder! I've seen my first flounder in the sand. What a strange looking fish.
Its been 42 minutes and we decide its time to surface. We begin our ascent to the surface of the boat, and to the point where the anchor line is tied to the ship. We verify that it is in fact our boat's anchor line and begin our ascent.
What a great dive!
We've been down close to 35 minutes so we decide to ascend.