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DIVE CLUB Judy Minier, 941-979-7316, judyminier@earthlink.net, www.pgidiveclub.com

Several club members had a great outing to the Key Largo area for
some special wreck and reef diving. The twelve intrepid souls enjoyed
two sets of boat dives over a weekend in that wonderful part of the
world. We dove from the spacious surroundings on the large boat
provided by Conch Republic Divers out of Tavernier, FL. The weather
held, the
water was
warm, and we enjoyed wonderful dining experiences each
evening with the convivial dive club members!

The first day’s dives were in about 85 feet of water on the
Spiegel. Some background: the Spiegel Grove was
launched in 1956 and is 510 feet long, making her one of the
largest artificial reefs in the world. (The large school of large
barracuda gracing her sides bore testament to that fact.) Her
main military function was to carry a large contingent of US
Marines and beach assault vehicles that could be launched
in any war zone in the world. She also carried helicopters
with a large helipad that covered the huge well deck. She
carried four anti-aircraft batteries for protection. Several of
these features could still be seen as one descended on the
wreck (found at 60-100 feet below the surface) that was
sunk in 2001. Visibility was quite good at about 40 feet,
though the currents you felt going down the mooring line
were strong and not for the faint hearted. Besides our Dive
Club members diving the Spiegel, a group of young, super
skilled wreck divers were along for the adventure. This writer
has never seen the amount of gear, tanks, gadgets,
underwater propulsion devices, and equipment hanging from
them! They dove the interior of the ship at 100’ underwater,
then did stem to stern and back again on one dive. It was an
amazing experience just to see them get in and out of the
back of the boat with all their paraphernalia for their very
long dive.

The second day’s dives were quite shallow on some reef
and sand flat areas. We were treated to seeing a lot of good Key Largo Dive
sized lobsters, crabs (hermit and stone), nurse sharks,
moray and jeweled eels, pipe fish, lots of coral and some interesting artifacts such as a small Buddha, a small Greek
god, and other items left by humans for
future divers to enjoy. Thanks to Cathy Hunt
and her husband Jeff, we have proof of the
statues below. The water temperatures were
wonderful and the rains held off for most of
the dives.

At our monthly meeting, an experienced
member gave a recent dive report about his
visit to West Palm Beach, near the Blue
Heron Bridge which took place several
weeks ago. He and his son dove the area
under the bridge and saw an amazing
number of critters including very large, very
thick starfish, some octopi, conchs “walking”
along the bottom, lobsters, sea horses and
various rays. The next day they did a couple
of ocean drift dives (with Pura Vida Divers
out of Riviera Beach).The first dive was in
some strong currents over four wrecks, at
about 85 feet of depth, but given the water
conditions and fast moving water, the
Jeff & Buddha - Key Largo
visibility was only around 30 feet, not the
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