Yesterday we chartered out to the wreck of the Bayronto using a charter through Florida West Scuba in Venice. The vessel was very nice, a 41' Morgan with some "yank me, crank me" Yanmars that let her cruise at 25 knots and top out at 31 knots (confirmed on my personal Garmin). She has plenty of deck space for six divers although for our trip, we only had three sets of dive gear and a Meg rebreather.
The Bayronto: this ship was a 400' LOA, 6,045 ton British flagged steamer that had been torpedoed by the UB-88 during WW1 (yes, WW one, not two) and had just been repaired. She was on her first voyage after repairs when she foundered in a hurricane off the coast of Sarasota, FL in September 1919.
She landed upside down and remains there today. The hull has two breaks in the hull, both towards the stern area along with numerous other places to one can gain access to the interior. While definitely an overhead environment (a steel cave I like to call it), you are probably never more than 50' from an egress point.
As you can imagine having been down for nearly 89 years, she's has a lot of growth and has become a complete eco system. This wreck offers it all, nudibranchs and other sea slugs for the trained eye all the way up to massive 600+ lb. jewfish patrolling the site.
We had 100' plus viz above the wreck and 40' or so on the wreck with temps at 78 on the bottom and 80 on top. For profiles, we did three 45 minute BT dives with a 90 minute SI between each using an average depth of 90' with a max depth of 104' reached. The sea state was about 1' for the ride out and back in. Afterward, we enjoyed some tasty hogfish on the menu at Captain Eddie's Seafood just up the road from Florida west.
Here's some pics by buddy Netmage took (all the baitfish had the particulate stirred up pretty good making good pics tough):
In the bow section, this would be going down the ladder since the wreck is turtled.
Looking out through a break in the hull (and the baitfish).
The baitfish were sometimes so thick, they blotted out all the light and everything past them.
The Bayronto: this ship was a 400' LOA, 6,045 ton British flagged steamer that had been torpedoed by the UB-88 during WW1 (yes, WW one, not two) and had just been repaired. She was on her first voyage after repairs when she foundered in a hurricane off the coast of Sarasota, FL in September 1919.
She landed upside down and remains there today. The hull has two breaks in the hull, both towards the stern area along with numerous other places to one can gain access to the interior. While definitely an overhead environment (a steel cave I like to call it), you are probably never more than 50' from an egress point.
As you can imagine having been down for nearly 89 years, she's has a lot of growth and has become a complete eco system. This wreck offers it all, nudibranchs and other sea slugs for the trained eye all the way up to massive 600+ lb. jewfish patrolling the site.
We had 100' plus viz above the wreck and 40' or so on the wreck with temps at 78 on the bottom and 80 on top. For profiles, we did three 45 minute BT dives with a 90 minute SI between each using an average depth of 90' with a max depth of 104' reached. The sea state was about 1' for the ride out and back in. Afterward, we enjoyed some tasty hogfish on the menu at Captain Eddie's Seafood just up the road from Florida west.
Here's some pics by buddy Netmage took (all the baitfish had the particulate stirred up pretty good making good pics tough):
In the bow section, this would be going down the ladder since the wreck is turtled.
Looking out through a break in the hull (and the baitfish).
The baitfish were sometimes so thick, they blotted out all the light and everything past them.
