Northern Light Dive Report
April 9, 2008
Silent World Dive Center
Key Largo, FL
Key Largo, FL
The Northern Light, positively identified by divers in 1989, is a 300-foot LOA Great Lakes steam freighter commissioned in 1888. The owner of the Northern Light attempted to sink the ship in 1927 by setting her a fire. The goal was insurance fraud; however, the ship survived and was later converted into a barge. She finally sank off Key Largo in 190 fsw during a storm in November of 1930. The Northern Light broke into two sections and rests on the bottom in a somewhat bow north stern south fashion. Making the wreck even more interesting is the fact that where the hull split, the stern and her rudder folded up on top of the mid-ship in an upside down angled position which gives the Northern Light her nickname, ‘The Elbow Wreck’. This gives the wreck of the Northern Light some extra character and a sort of break water area of relief from the often strong currents that flow on this wreck due to it’s proximity to the Gulf Stream. The top of the now upside down rudder can be reached in 150 fsw. As a caution to divers, the wreck is fraught with fishing line, lures, and vintage net. The aft section of the ship and the mid-hull used to be exposed, but under the weight of the stacked sections, the once exposed cross-sections have since collapsed on top of each other. There are still many places to get inside the Northern Light; however, remember the age of this wreck and it’s instability due to strong currents and hurricane abuse. This is an often overlooked wreck by technical divers; and if the conditions permit, it makes one fantastic alternative and challenge to the typical fare in Key Largo wreck diving.
I got the ‘call’ from Paul (pwl4476) back in late March questioning my interest in joining him on this dive. Paul is an accomplished OC cave/wreck diver from Kansas City who made the transition to CCR on his Megalodon in the last year. I jumped at the chance to get on board, since my other attempts at diving the Northern Light have been blown out by weather. Paul was planning on being in the Florida Keys for vacation with his wife, Becky, and decided to drag the gear down for some wreck diving. We met up at Silent World Dive Center in Key Largo, a brilliant dive shop owned by Chris Brown. Chris caters to technical divers with helium, oxygen, knowledgeable crews, specifically equipped boats, and a full line of Halcyon gear and rental doubles, rebreather bottles, and decompression tanks. This shop is very rebreather friendly, as they proved during our two-day January SCRUB trip. After some quick administrative chores, Paul and I meandered over to Coconuts for a quick light lunch prior to the dive.
Loading the boat was logistically simple and relaxing since there were only three divers and a crew of two on the Silent World IV, a custom Island Hopper capable of transporting up to 14 divers. The third diver, Ron from Ft. Meyers, FL, was the open-circuit addition to the trip. The run out to the wreck was quick since the conditions were near flat and the boat was light. 45 minutes after leaving the dock, we had a shot-line to the wreck (grapnel and chain rode sitting in the sand 20 feet off the port side bow), and we were actually able to stern-tie in due to almost zero current! The plan was for Paul and I to drop in a minimum of 10 minutes ahead of Ron, who would be on OC. This would give the three of us a balanced total run time and keep Ron ahead of us on the up-line since his total runtime would be a minimum of 30 minutes less than ours. Captain AJ, Paul, and I all agreed that 120 minutes would be the maximum runtime based on Paul's bailout capacity. While I was diving a 13cf 10/50 diluent and an 80cf 21/35 deep bailout with my O2 bottle being surface supplied, Paul was diving a 19cf 18/45 diluent, a 40cf @21/35 deep bailout, and a 40cf ean50 for deco. This would limit the emergency open circuit decompression time for Paul based on volume. Paul was using his VR3 with 4th-cell on Buhlmann with +2 conservatism, while I was using my VR3 with VPM in a non-integrated configuration at zero conservatism. His longer deco obligation would come into play at the end of the dive. We agreed to descend with a set point of .7 and switch to 1.2 on the bottom. Deco would be performed at a set point of 1.4 switched at 70 fsw. We performed our pre-dive checklists, pre-breathed the units, and got help from DM Jerry with our side mount bottles.
I splashed first and descended to 15 fsw where I shot video of Paul giant striding in over me. With an OK from both of us, we started the descent. I have not had this easy of a descent ever on a wreck this deep! I was basically free falling down the shot line! I frequently looked up to make sure Paul was still behind me and OK. The vertical visibility in the water column was outstanding, letting sunlight penetrate all the way to the bottom. The horizontal visibility was about 50 feet. At about 50 feet off the bottom, I saw the shadow of the immense bow to the east. I realized that the shot line drop had been perfectly executed. Since our ‘high current’ plan was to untie the shot and drift deco, we decided not to tie in. If the current picked up and the boat pulled the shot away from the wreck, then we would decompress on SMBs. In the sand, Paul and I did our set point changes on both the Megalodon primary handsets and the VR3’s. I unthreaded Paul’s HID light cord from between his right side deco bottle and his harness and then started filming again.
At 187 fsw, we moved southeast toward the bow and around the starboard side of the hull. This wreck has a lot of growth on it from its nearly 80 years on the bottom. Draped over the starboard side is one of her anchors and chain. We continued toward mid-ship where we decided to ascend slightly and enter the elbow. We had been told that there were many bull and reef sharks that call the Northern Light their home and that we would most likely see them congregating in the elbow formed by the two sections of the wreck. With the abundance of fish on this wreck, I was wondering where they were. They were there, just checking us out from a distance at this point! We moved aft again and came across a school of very large and agitated silver spadefish. I wondered if it was us or something else that had them all worked up? We dropped out the backside of the wreck, which slopes back down to the sand. As we moved around the broken and collapsed hull, we came to a opening in the wreck which now resides a very large goliath grouper. I am used to seeing 200 to 300 pounders on Miami and Palm Beach wrecks, but this fellow was twice that size! Paul and I estimated him to weigh around 500 pounds. I bellied in under the structure with the camera to get some video. He postured a bit when I got within about 5 feet, so I backed out to continue the dive.
This is where the dive really got interesting. Paul had turned to face down the wreck and seemed to be looking at his VR3. I was filming him from behind when I decided to pan up at the wreck. A 5-foot reef shark came buzzing over the topside of the wreck and swam at a good clip down towards Paul. I was trying to get Paul’s attention with a light signal as the shark veered out away from the wreck. Paul turned toward me and I gave him the sign for shark and pointed off into the gloom. He had just missed a very close encounter with this reef. We had just started to move on when we both looked up to see a very large bull shark cruising overhead. This shark was about 7 feet in length, and a smaller bull shark was cruising the top of the wreck off its left side. The bull, about 12 feet over our heads, paid no attention to us and so we continued forward along the port side of the wreck. I went to add a little insulating gas to my dry suit, and unbeknown to me, the inflator hose had popped off. I’m sitting there letting cold water into my suit! It took a second to realize it due to the fleece undergarments. I found the hose and reattached it. I would finish the dive with a soggy and cold right foot. Paul found an adolescent spotted eel in a hole, and I saw one more, possibly the same, reef shark cruising the top of the wreck. That was the end of the excitement for the dive! I looked down to check my camera housing because it was feeling heavy at this point. It was now about a third full of water! SOB! I had just gotten about 5 minutes of the best video I’d ever shot, and the thing floods! Bad luck. I have it soaking in fresh water and will try to salvage the tape later.
We ascended up the now upside down section of the stern hull, which is actually up toward the bow now. Confused yet? I saw a stream of bubbles in the distance across the wreck. It turned out to be Ron, our OC diver, whom had probably just arrived on scene recently. The bubble skittish sharks had more than likely disappeared due to the noise. Diving silent is the only way to go for close encounters with these majestic animals in a natural non-feeding environment! Paul and I made a loop back around the wreck from the topside. When we got back to the bow, I decided to thumb the dive based on total time to the surface being about 2 hours. The shot line was still in the sand off the bow, and Ron was on the line above. We would start the long decompression in total comfort. Well, with the exception of my cold and wet right foot!
I pulled out my Jon-line at the 70-foot stop, as the current had picked up to about half a knot. I figured the grapnel must have dragged into something, because we didn’t seem to be drifting in the current. Being clipped into the line would make the deco more comfortable. The deep stops went by relatively quickly, but the long shallow stops were boring. The longest stop for me was 25 minutes at 15 feet, which I decided to let the VR3 figure out at 18 feet instead due to topside sea conditions at this point and Ron being just slightly deeper than 20 feet. Total decompression was about over an hour, and Ron with his conservatism set 2 points higher than mine, had another 20 minutes to go when I headed for the ladder. I hated to leave him there, but he seemed fine with it, and I wanted to get out of my wet dry suit. The DM could actually see us from the surface. I new Ron had plenty of gas left in those 19’s, as I had only used about 6-7cf out of my bottles. Plus, he had two 40’s side mounted, so he could stay under for quite a while. Presence of an SMB at this point would constitute a dive by the DM for assistance.
Once all three of us where on the boat, Captain AJ and DM Jerry retrieved the line and hardware, which came free with a mild tug of the boat. Paul supplied the after dive Presidente long necks for our toast to what turned out to be one outstanding 120 minute dive!
Dive plusses:
- Great shop! (Chris and Allison are top notch!)
- Great boat and crew! (It is nice to know you have a Captain and DM that can provide support when it is needed)
- Great wreck! (It’s deep. It’s a challenge. It has penetration. It has sharks.)
- Great dive buddy! (Paul is a top notch diver and a lot of fun to share stories with!)
- Key Largo! (Not much to add here.)
- Flooded video housing and destroyed camera/footage!
- Partially flooded dry suit! (I need to remove the hose hat. I think it played a part.)
- Didn’t penetrate! (I don’t like to penetrate a wreck on the first dive. Good reason to go back!)
Hope everyone enjoyed the dive report, and I’m sorry for not being able to provide any video.
Eric Stadtmueller
Thanks to Mike Barnette and AUE for their historical information, which I researched for the opening paragraph of my report.
Association of Underwater Explorers - NORTHERN LIGHT
