Key West Trip Report - USNS Vandenberg

[pickens_46929]

Finally managed to get myself unburied at work and post a trip report here on Scubaboard for my most recent trip -- the Vandenberg.

Trip Report

My trip started out on Tuesday the 8th of September even though we didn't leave until Wednesday morning. My good dive buddy Dan wasn't quite packed up and ready to go, so I helped gather up gear on Tuesday night.

Wednesday September 9th

Wednesday morning started out early, getting to the airport before 7am for an 8am flight. Unfortunately these days direct flights from Indianapolis anywhere is harder these days, this was no exception -- our flights went through Memphis to get to Fort Lauderdale.

Four of us were on the trip, and while we don't all live these days in Indy, we all left from Indy. My good buddies Dan, Dave W and Kent all gathered at the Northwest counter to check-in. Airport wasn't terribly busy but not dead like it was the previous week when I traveled.

Flights were uneventful, arriving in Fort Lauderdale in the afternoon. Picked up the rental car from EZ Rent-a-car. While I normally use Thrifty for dive trips, they wouldn't / couldn't come close to matching the rate EZ Rent-a-car provided me on a minivan. Was a little nervous since I hadn't used them before but was pleasantly surprise with a nice but not new Toyota minivan which ran great and had tons of space.

No problems getting on the Turnpike and we were off to Key West!

First stop of the day was a short one to grab bottled water, sun screen, and some other forgotten things at CVS in Florida City. Next stop was Subway in Key Largo for a quick bite of lunch.

While in Key Largo we stopped in at Silent World to grab 2 sets of doubles, deco bottles and a couple single AL80's. I had checked around Key West for rental tanks and they were sort of available. Not wanting to chance anything I got the tanks from my good buddy Chris at Silent World.

From Key Largo we drove on down to where we were staying, Cudjoe Key, about 20 miles from Key West. Original plans had called for staying in Key West but found a rental house that was much nicer that a hotel even if it was a little bit of drive each day.

We did stop at Winn-Dixie for supplies for the 4 days -- breakfast, lunch for the boat, and a couple of dinners.

We finally got to the house in Cudjoe Key about 7pm, started the unpacking process and decided to order pizza that night. We all prepped our gear for the next day while munching on some pretty good pizza and crashed about 11pm.

Air Travel by --> Northwest Airlines via Orbitz found on Cheap Flights, Airline Tickets, Hotels, Travel Deals - Search 1000's of Travel Sites at KAYAK
Rental Car by --> Cheap Flights, Airline Tickets, Hotels, Travel Deals - Search 1000's of Travel Sites at KAYAK + Retailmenot coupons
Tanks by --> Dive with Silent World voted #1 dive shop in Florida
Housing by --> HomeAway Vacation Rentals: Beach Houses, Condos, Cabins, Villas & Vacation Rental Homes
Pizza by --> A Slice of Paradise Pizza


Thursday

Storms moved in to the area late Wednesday night, right around the time we went to bed. Most of it had blown threw by the morning so it looked like a good day. Maybe not the sunniest but no major storms to interrupt things.

We met Captain Steve from Keys Mobile Diving over at one of the municipal boat launches to load gear.

On the drive from the house to Key West we discussed plans for the day. The decision was to do a nice short shallow reef dive to tune buoyancy and gear for those that hadn't been in the water lately. Although Dan had been in the water several times this year, he hadn't been in doubles for about a year. Dave W had been completely dry for over a year (the poor man) :headshake:

Capt Steve took us out to Marker 32 which is about 2 miles off shore and in line with the Vandenberg so we didn't really go off course much.

It was a good thing too. While Dave W was like a fish in water as usual, Dan had a couple issues with gear configuration and a bad o-ring. Dan cut his short dive even shorter and headed back to the boat to correct things, got back in for a short bubble check and was good to go.

Unfortunately, Dave W and Kent enjoyed the patch reef at Marker 32 so much they stayed in for over an hour. :v8: So much for getting out to the Vandenberg quickly. : No worries, I was on vacation.

Water temp was around 87 F, max depth on Marker 32 was a whopping 24 feet. I had a short 15 min dive poking around looking at the fish. Seas were about 3 to 4 foot with some white caps because the wind was probably a good 12 to 13 knts. Nothing that any of us couldn't handle although Kent said he was glad to have taken the Bonine.

Once Dave W and Kent got back to the boat, we headed the final 5 or 6 miles out to the Vandenberg. We ended up getting there just as the other morning charters were leaving. It wasn't all that busy given the fact it was a weekday either, so we had our pick of the 5 mooring balls on the wreck.

For our first tie in, we decided to tie up to the bow since there was little if any current on the wreck at the time. Most days the current runs from the stern to the bow. Capt Steve recommends doing the wreck as a drift dive -- drop you off up current of the stern, do your dive on the whole wreck, then drift off and put up your marker when you want picked up down current.

We all stuck together on this first dive, getting a feel for the front part of the wreck. We stayed pretty much on the port side of the ship at about 70 to 100 feet in depth, managing to get not quite 1/3 of the way down.

Since diving on air for these first few dives, along with the fact that Kent and Dave W were diving singles, our first dive on the V was 38 minutes with a max depth of 96 feet.

Max Depth = 96 feet
Runtime = 38 mins.

On the 2nd dive, rather than stay as a group of 4, we paired up -- Dan and I went our way with Kent and Dave W teaming up to go theirs.

Dan and I again went down the port side of the ship but our goal was to cover the antennae / dishes and come back up around starboard side of the ship.

Max depth = 100 ft.
Runtime = 54 mins

After getting back on the boat, we had a bite to eat. Drank a bunch of water or gatorade stuff and relax during the surface interval. Kent and Dave W checked gas supplies and decided they had enough in their one large set of singles to squeak out another short dive before we topped off and headed back in for gas fills. Think they were in poking around for about 30 mins or so.

About 2:30p we headed to Subtropic Dive Center for tank fills and do our long surface interval. The goal was to head back out once we had our fills, get in another dive before dark. Getting to Subtropic we found they had their Nitrox bank running again, so we could do continuous nitrox fills!

MMMMmmmm.... nitrox, yummy. Drained the last of the air out of all the single tanks and loaded them all up with EANx32. Dan and I though topped up with air to keep our mix a bit leaner since we were going deeper.

Fills were pretty good though not terribly full if you had HP tanks. They hadn't had enough time to recharge their Nitrox bank, so we managed a solid 3300 in all the tanks :evil_4:

We also availed ourselves of the facilities and got some cold pops to drink. Think we were back on the road... errr water about 3:30pm and on the V by about 4pm.

Again we had the wreck to ourselves, so we opted for the stern this time. Seas were slightly calmer as the wind was dying down a bit. Still 3 to 4 footers, just no white caps and more consistent. We could see a storm off in the distance towards the West but it was pretty far away. This time there was almost no current at all.

Dan and I decided this was going to be a deep dive down to the rudder, poke around the port side a bit, then come back on the port side rail to mooring line, doing our deco there.

Dropped down, immediately saw a decent sized (6 ft or larger) Nurse Shark off in the sand to the starboard side. Nice! Came down, passed through the thermocline which was noticeable but only a couple or three degrees, looked around the rudder (there is no prop -- it's gone in a museum somewhere), and poked around in the sand a bit. Found a nice dry top snorkel that was pretty much new and hadn't been down for but a day or two. SCORE! rofl

We spent about 5 mins on the bottom and worked our way up the side of the ship. There's lots of places cut out for the sinking so you can poke your head in and look around a bit. So Dan and I made our way up the side of the ship, level by level, poking our heads in these holes every 10 ft. or so until we got to the railing at 100 ft. We didn't quite make it all the way down to the dishes from this end of the ship but managed to cover about

We then made our way back to the mooring line at the very stern. Poked our head in the balloon hanger briefly during our first 2 minute deep stop. Then headed back up the mooring line, doing one more 2 minute deep stop at about 56 feet.

I made good use of the one extra rubber band on my deco bottle to keep my precious treasure safe.... lol

Max Depth = 146 ft
Runtime = 57 mins
Deepstops @ 96 ft and 56 ft
Deco = 10 mins (total) on O2 @ 20 ft & 10 ft

Warm water, almost no current -- it was ideal for hanging there. All 'cept for dodging the jellies. Moon jellies don't sting too bad unless you get a face full or something. Every now and then there would be one of them that would really have some potency to them.

We were out of the water just after 5:30p -- it was an awesome dive. Steve had us back to the municipal dock just after 6p. After discussing things with Capt Steve, we decided to leave tanks, wetsuits, booties and BCDs on the boat, taking just the "shiny" stuff since he parks on the Navy base at night. Can't ask for better security in my mind.

Everyone was tired but happy with the first day's results. We loaded up and headed back to the house for a steak dinner with baked potatoes and salad. Most of us were in bed around 10p and out like lights.

The plan for Friday was... well I'll leave that to the next post. :evil_4:

Rough video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heuniwmq9Vs

General Notes

Water temps remained warm and consistent throughout the several days we dove but we did hit a couple cold pockets and there was a small yet noticeable thermocline below 120 feet.

Visibility varied -- it was easily 50 feet most days and on one or two of the dives probably was closer to 80 feet.

Lots of moon jellies in the water. I had never seen so many! One dive in particular on Friday was so thick you had to move them out of the way to get to the ladder to get out of the water. Every couple of feet there was one it seemed like.

Dive Charter by --> Home
Fills and Forgotten Scuba Stuff Rescue by --> Subtropic Dive Center Key West

 

[pickens_46929]

... and so it continues

Friday - Our Second Day in the Water

Since we wanted to get in at least one night dive during the trip, we decided that Friday would be it. We decided that at the dock actually the night before, so we could even sleep in a little bit. So we did and met Steve at Subtropic around 11am.

Unfortunately I had forgotten my dive computers back at the house, so I had to make the long trek back to get them, picking up a couple spare dive lights for others while I was at it. Weather gave me an edge here since it was raining buckets and we were pretty much stuck at the shop anyways. I got back just about 5 mins after it cleared. {whew}

Previous gear issues behind us, this was the best day of diving for some in the group. For others, Saturday was the best. Weather was great with air temps being only slightly warmer than water temps which were 85 F. The rain cooled things down a bit, the wind died down and we got the 2 to 3 footers with no foam that they were predicting all along.

We ended up getting out to the Vandenberg right about 1pm and were in the water before 1:15p. Scha--weeet! We all decided that while the bow was interesting, there were a lot more things to see at the stern and tied once more into the wreck at the stern. Mild current but nothing major.

Since we were doing night dives and everyone had their dive lights, it made this a good day to do some of the more advanced swim throughs on the V. Once again Dan and I teamed up while Kent and Dave buddied up, though we were in the same general area as a group.

Dan and I decided to do some light deco on this dive, so we dropped our equipment line with deco bottles over the side to pickup on the way down. Splashed in right after Dan did. There was about a quarter knot current running not quite in line from the stern to the bow -- coming in from about 10 degrees off the starboard side. Grabbed my bottle, Dan and I did a quick bubble check and headed down to the wreck.

Our plan was to visit the shaft room first thing, then work our way back to the main deck, poking into some of the compartments and doing the couple more advanced swim throughs we had seen the day earlier.

The opening to the first deck above the shaft room is big enough you can pretty much just keep your trim and sink into it without worrying about touching. The next opening is a ladder and wasn't designed for scuba gear I can tell you. Getting vertical after focusing on horizontal trim feels weird but that's what was required. The shaft room is pretty large and open, it's just getting down to it that's interesting. Decided to go head first and use the rails on the ladder to maintain position. No problems even slinging a deco bottle. I then waited for Dan to follow me down. Which he did even though it was a tighter fit and he didn't really enjoy it as much as I did.

In the shaft room, there's the large hydraulic piston used to turn the rudder along with the propeller shaft case. Pretty neat. Dan and I poked around for a few minutes and then decided to head back up one level.

I figured since head first worked the first time, I'd go with the same general method upon exit. Yep, worked great. Then I turned and waited on Dan. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Was only about a minute before I decided to poke my head back in and see where he was at. No Dan. Dan decided to take the easy way out and went through one of the openings cut in the side for the sinking. To me they looked the same size as the opening I just went through, to Dan they looked larger.

So anyways, here I am looking for Dan when he comes up right behind me. Good thing I heard his exhaust and he flashed his light to grab my attention. I would have liked a bit better communication on his plan though before hand.

Once out of the shaft room, we meandered around the port side of the ship out of the current, exploring a couple of the open compartments. We came across a mechanical area that had a swim through although it wasn't a straight shot. Checked our gas and decided to go for it.

Once you got inside, you had to jog to your right around a ladder, then back to the left to get back out. You could see daylight the whole time but it just wasn't straight. Was very interesting coming out on the other side into the current though. You don't think a 1/4 to 1/2 knot is much until you go from 0 to 60 almost instantly.

We weren't but about 1/3 of the way down the ship, Dan and I then made our way back to the stern on the starboard side. Current wasn't too bad but we ducked out of it when we could. There were a couple more spots we found that looked interesting to explore for our next dive.

Dan and I got back to the line and made our nice slow ascent. Think my computer called for a 2 minute stop at 63 feet and then 5 mins of deco on EANx32 if I recall correctly. Dan's on the other hand didn't like this dive for some reason -- which is funny because my Suunto is usually way more conservative than his computer. This dive however was the exception to the rule and punished him hard deco wise. Initially it said 20 minutes but by the time we got 20 ft. and switched over to O2 it was down to something like 11 minutes. Slow ascents and deep will clear a lot of time usually it seems. I think by that time my computer was showing 7 mins on backgas which dropped to 3 or 4 minutes on O2.

I puttered around at 20 ft. for 4 minutes, cleared all my deco, moved up to 15 feet, remaining on O2 until Dan got just about clear, then I switched back to my backgas, unclipped my deco bottle and put it on the equipment line. Then made sure Dan got switched back to his backgas alright and gotten his deco bottle on the equipment line too.

Maxdepth = 111 ft.
Runtime = 60 mins
Deco = 4 mins on O2, 2 mins deep stop @ 63 ft.
Backgas = EANx32

We had a nice surface interval with lots of water, juice and gatorade along with munching on roast beef and cheddar sandwiches.

About 3pm, Kent and Dave W were ready to go back in on their 2nd dive for the morning. Since Dan and I were doing things outside recreational dives, we thought we'd just sit this 2nd short dive out and go for a longer surface interval before getting back in the water.

Plan was for Kent and Dave W to keep it to a maximum of 30 mins so we could head back to Subtropic for fills before they closed at 5pm and get back out to a different wreck for our night dive. We debated about doing the Vandenberg for the night dive but we figured that the life on the Cayman Salvager might be better. Plus we couldn't really do any penetrations at night *safely* on the V. So Cayman Salvager it was to be!

Kent and Dave W dropped in right at about 3:15p and were out pretty close to on the dot at 3:47p. Lines were pulled and we were at speed by 4p. Kent and Dave W reported near *zero* current on that last dive.

We made it to Subtropic around 4:30p but unfortunately their Nitrox bank was low on pressure so we didn't get completely full fills again on the HP tanks. So we topped off a couple extra AL 80s for transfilling between dives again and made sure all the tanks were about 3100 psi or so once they cooled down.

Since the plan was to do a 2 tank twilight / night dive, leaving the dock right away would put us out on the water waaay too early. So we just hung around, got some snacks and chilled for a bit. We left the dock sometime after 6pm and were in the water sometime after 6:30p.

The Cayman Salvager is a small wreck of 180 ft. in length in about 100 ft. of water. Fairly intact with some swim throughs but a decently amount of life on it. It lies about 2 miles away from the Vandenberg and is also just about 7 miles off the coast.

We got there, tied into the one line and took notice of the current. Almost nothing. The water too was beginning to calm down even more and we had 1 to 2 footers at most. Wind had died down almost completely. While we couldn't see the wreck from the boat, visibility was a decent 50 to 60 ft. I figure.

For these two dives, everyone would pretty much stay together. Kent did a wonderful job finding small stuff to look at including a nice sized Scorpion (rock?) fish. Dan had the luck on this dive and found the Goliath Grouper underneath the bow. I think Dave W had fun poking his head in all the nooks and crannies on this one. There were a couple decent sized places to explore in the wreck.

Upon ascent, there were tons of jellies in the water. More so than on any other dive. Kind had me worried about the night dive when you really can't see them coming at you in the dark dark, you know?

Cayman Salvager during daytime - a set on Flickr

Maxdepth = 94 ft.
Runtime = 59 mins
Deco = 5 mins @ 20 ft. on backgas, 2 min deepstop @ 52 ft.
Backgas = EANx32


We got out of the water and waited for night to fall. Had plenty to drink but needed more snacks than we had :headshake: Dang it. We hung out, listened to XM radio and shot the bull.

Sometime between 8:30p and 9pm, it was nice and dark, we turned on the deck lights and started getting geared up. Water had gone almost completely flat at this point and current became non-existent.

Dan and I did a quick gas check and he had about 1100 psi in his doubles. He said he'd dive 3rds, then turn back and ascend when he was done without me and at that point I should stay with Kent and Dave W.

We all splashed in and began making our way around the wreck. Things change so much at night -- I love night dives. Parrotfish were sleeping, Kent found a 2nd Scorpion fish, and it was just very peaceful. I wish there had been more of a moon out. It was dark enough that you needed a light but not so dark you needed a honkin' big primary light. I ended up using my Rat Jr backup light for most of the dive and actually turned 'em off during ascent.

Dan turned his dive after about 25 mins. Kent, Dave W and myself stayed down for about another 15 before starting our ascent. It was pretty neat ascending in the dark, watching Dave W and Kent come up the line. They did their 3 min safety stop while I did my short bit of deco and a couple minutes beyond just to chill.

Unfortunately not many of the night dive pictures turned out really well. While I took my camera on the first dive on this wreck, only Kent took his on the night dive.

Cayman Salvager at night - a set on Flickr

Max Depth = 82 ft.
Runtime = 49 mins
Deco = 5 mins @ 20 ft. on O2, 2 mins deepstop @ 47 ft.
Backgas = EANx32

Friday night dinnver

We drove around Key West a little bit and found *the* authentic Irish Pub. Had proper fish and chips along with a pint of cider (or two). It was an awesome ending to a very good day.

 

[pickens_46929]

Saturday - Day 4 - Final Day of Diving

Well our final day of started off with Dan deciding that his knees were bad enough to not dive anymore. They had been bothering him off and on. Even with IBprufen and ICY-hot wrap on his one knee, I think the doubles just to got to be too much for him.

So Dan took a "day off" and just relaxed. He needed it after all the scrambling around and stuff. So he took it slow, rinsed his gear in the pool and just chilled for a while. So Dave W, Kent and I were a team the whole day.

We started the day off fairly early knowing that we needed to be done (out of the water) around 3pm. Lunch was packed and off to the shop we headed. First order of business was filling tanks. Here's where I ran into one slight snag with the doubles we had been using all week, they didn't have enough pressure in their Nitrox bank to fill them to any decent pressure by the time we filled the single tanks

Nice part was they had a set of rental HP120's (OMG) ready to go and we struck a deal so I basically got them for the same price as fills. :snoopy: Only worried I had was being able to get back on the boat with them. In the end, they were really nice tanks to have -- plenty of gas!

Once we got fills, we headed off and were treated to the best day of the 3 on the water. Seas were already pretty darn flat at 1 footers with occasional 2 footers and would get even better as the day wore on.

Getting out to the wreck we weren't the first one out but close to it. Ended up getting the 2nd mooring ball from the stern. Being a Saturday, it was busy even though we parked on the same mooring ball that whole day.

Conditions were excellent! We tied in no problem and found about the same amount of current as usual, perhaps a quarter knot. Dave W, Kent and I geared up.

Boy getting up with HP120's on your back after slinging around LP85's was interesting. Not incredibly more difficult but noticeable. I managed. Somehow. rofl Ok. I had some help. Once I was up I was ok thank goodness.

Plan was to do dive as a team, do some more aggressive penetration work on the first dives and take pictures on the last dive. I would lead and run the line if needed.

With the help of Kent and Dave W, I got into the water and trimmed out fine. We met up and started our initial dive on the wreck for the day.

Kent and Dave W hadn't seen the shaft room when we were talking about the dive plan topside, so that was our first stop. Immediately upon entering the shaft room, we came face to face with a small Goliath Grouper, probably 100 lbs or so and within arms reach. He was intent on staying around and had showed he wanted to stay put. We gave him some room, did a quick tour of the compartment and headed out the starboard side rather than go back the way we came.

We moved up the side of the ship to the main deck and into one of the machine shops. The starboard machine shop has a fan shaft that goes down the another machine shop / area. The three of us looked down the shaft and discussed it. Kent said he'd just stay put but Dave W wanted to look around. We decided that we'd go one at a time -- that I'd go down, look around and come back, then Dave W would go.

It was a nice little drop into the lower shop area, opening up to a room about 50' x 50' which I poked around in for a while. After a couple minutes of looking around I came back up and let Dave W have his turn. It was interesting to feel some of the cold water pockets in the areas of the ship that didn't get any water flow like this one.

Once Dave W came back out. We did pressure checks and decided to do the one swim through from the starboard side to the port side that was just off to the one side of the machine / fan room. Once through, we made our way back to the mooring line and began our slow lazy ascent. The current had slacked off even further and all three of us enjoyed watching the divers from the other boats blow bubbles on the wreck. Even with all 5 mooring lines full, we really didn't feel crowded and weren't bumping into divers all the time.

Kent's got some great pictures and video. I am waiting on him to post them somewhere though

Here are my pictures from the day Vandenberg Pics from Saturday

Maxdepth = 121 ft.
Runtime = 53 mins
Deco = 3 mins @ 20 ft. on backgas, 2 min deepstop @ 67 ft.
Backgas = EANx32

The nice part about this first surface interval was the scenery. Yes the ocean was gorgeous. The sun was out. There was a nice little breeze and we had a cooler full of water and drinks. But that's not what I am talking about.

I am talking about girls in bikinis. Oh and not just one here or there. Every boat out there had at least one or two good lookin' women in bikinis. Life was rough I tell you. :

We got a little braver even on the 2nd dive and hit of the deeper compartments in the ship. Well deeper from a penetration stand point not depth. It took a little finesse getting into it but was worth while. It opened up into a 30 x 30 room that was connected to another 20 x 20 room and eventually led out to the main deck. Had great fun opening up drawers and lockers on this dive.

Maxdepth = 106 ft.
Runtime = 51 mins
Deco = 7 mins @ 20 ft. on O2, 2 min deepstop @ 52 ft.
Backgas = EANx32

On this surface interval we continued our bikini watching and ate lunch. It was a good day indeed. Even got some time to snorkel over the wreck a bit too. Vis was *that* good.

For the last dive, we did a drift dive over the entire wreck. There was barely a current so it made for a very slow drift dive. lol Since we had done two deep dives already, I wanted to stay pretty shallow, take pictures and just see the whole wreck in one shot. I did take my deco bottle and camera on this last dive.

We jumped in and made our way over to the starboard side where there was more of a current. Steve said he'd wait tied up to the mooring line for about 10 to 15 minutes then head to the other end and wait for me to shoot a bag up.

Not quite all the way through the ship, Kent signals that he's at turn around pressure and that he needs to start his ascent. I undo my safety sausage and spool, shoot it from about 60 ft. right near the US flag on the wreck so Kent has a visual reference. I watch him from 50 ft. or so as I drift the remained of the bow of the Vandenberg, saying a silent good bye or rather until next time. About 2 mins later Dave W finishes his dive right on the bow and makes his ascent, catching up to me on my deep stop.

I finish up my deep stop just as Kent completes his 3 min safety stop and I ascend to do my final underwater deco obligation I have for the trip. I could have sworn in that short 5 minutes of time we had drifted waaaay the hell out into blue water... nope, we were within 100 yards of the bow mooring. :loopy:

Maxdepth = 87 ft.
Runtime = 44 mins
Deco = 5 mins @ 20 ft. on o2, 2 min deepstop @ 43 ft.
Backgas = EANx32

After getting back on board the boat, we headed back to Subtropic dive shop to unload the boat and load up the van. Tipped Steve for an awesome job and headed back to the house to meet up with Dan for dinner.

Dan was already squared away gear wise and so he helped us rinse rinse rinse our gear. Once we did that, we cleaned up and headed into Key West to see the sunset and enjoy a nice little dinner in town.

Sunday - Winging Our Way Home

We didn't really have to rush so bad on Sunday morning. Made breakfast and used up what food we had left for that as well as pack a lunch for the trip to Ft. Lauderdale airport.

On the way back we returned the tanks at Silent World, stopped off for some t-shirt / souvenir shopping and mostly made a beeline to the airport. I dropped the guys off at the Northwest departure, returned the car and checked in myself.

The only hiccup along the way was the there were significant storms and weather in Northern Florida which blocked our flight path, so we ended up sitting on tarmac waiting for over an hour. We still made our connecting flight in Detroit but just barely -- what had been an easy hour layover evaporated into just enough time for a bio-stop between gates. Thank goodness the two gates in Detroit were close together. Even better news was that our luggage made it as well.

Everyone was tired but had a good trip. Still waiting on some pictures and some video.

All-in-all a great trip and I am looking forward to getting back there soon.

PS. I've been asked 2 questions about the trip... 1) what would I do differently?; and 2) why Keys Mobile Diving?

Keys Mobile Diving -- Captain Steve

I'll answer the latter first. Steve's got a small 6-pack boat and I wanted the freedom to select where we'd dive. Steve also charges a flat rate plus charges you for any gas you burn, so it was predictable in terms of cost and was extremely reasonable. Lastly Steve can trailer his boat, and our initial plan included doing some diving on the Thunderbolt or Adolphus Busch, so that would have been another plus. I wouldn't hesitate to use Steve again. He's a great Captain and formerly of the USCG -- super job!

What would I do differently?

1) I overpacked as usual -- didn't need full 3mm or 2mm sleeveless, didn't need 2nd and 3rd rash guards or bathing suits. Eh.

2) Food-wise: More white bread. More bacon. 2 loaves of white bread instead of 1, more bacon, breakfasts and lunches worked out but over bought on the dinner food, plan one really good dinner, one really simple dinner (e.g. spagetti for first night)

3) Stay closer to the dive shop for convenience factor. Would have been nice to stay closer to Subtropic if we could have. Again was thinking we'd dive the Adolphus Busch or Thunderbolt and ended up not doing that. Then again I couldn't find anything remotely like the place we had on Cudjoe Key in Key West for the same amount on money.

4) Make sure all tanks have current VIP and hydro. It wasn't a deal breaker here but it did make things interesting. My fault for not checking the tanks.

5) Need a new carry-on roller bag for doubles regulators and can light -- something small and no pockets. Ended up using a small duffel bag that wasn't ideal.

6) Get everyone who's coming on the trip in the water before I go with the equipment they are going to use -- don't wait until the night before, don't wait until that first morning. Even if it's a pool, that's better than nothing. We replaced several o-rings and did some repairs while out on the water that really should have been done on a workbench. Lesson learned.

7) Do more hardcore technical diving on the Vandenberg. Now that I've done some exploration and know the logistics of things a bit, I'd be pushing the technical limits on some of the dives that Dan and I did a bit more.

 

[Buoyant1]

Good stuff thanks!!! I'm hoping to get on it next month.

 

[deeper thoughts]

Thnx for the detailed report

 

[kidsdream]

Great report, thanks so much for sharing. Having done the Vandenberg with Subtropic (they did a good job), I think Keys Mobile diving is in my future for my next trip to KW.

 

[NJ to FLA]

Nice report! Sounds like a great time. Thank you.

 

[pickens_46929]

Great report, thanks so much for sharing. Having done the Vandenberg with Subtropic (they did a good job), I think Keys Mobile diving is in my future for my next trip to KW.

Yep and we boarded the boat, got fills, and got off the boat right there at Subtropic 2 out of the 3 days. Steve's boat was the next best thing to owning my own down there. actually better!