It's a nice dive and I would recommend it.
This part of Florida has a very large number of wrecks put down for the purpose of diving. The Ancient Mariner is one of the better ones. As with all "artificial" wrecks, the hatch doors and cables have been removed to make it much safer. It is nearly intact with very little structural damage beyond the holes to sink her and the years of rust, which is a vast improvement over the "wreckage" dives like the Copenhagen. It also has been down long enough to developed a large amount of growth making it better than some of the newer wrecks. (Check out the growth
http://www.knight2remember.com/scuba/Ancient_Mariner_062803.JPG ) It is in relatively shallow water for the size of the ship which makes for nice bottom times (I got 50 minutes on a Nitrox 80). It also has lots of openings that offer pretty safe swim-through penetrations with plenty of light.
The only negatives would be that it is a fairly small ship with small interior holds. This tends to make it more crowded when you are sharing it with a large group.
I also noticed that it could silt up pretty fast. There was almost no current Saturday, and while I would rarely complain about that, it did mean that any silt stirred up tended to hang around for a while. The ship leans enough that the deck is only 6 feet or so from the bottom on one side, putting the deck close to the sand. The holds have a generous helping of sand as well. So a group of new divers can cut down on the water quality enough to be annoying.
If you get a chance, check out the Rodeo 25 which is bigger but deeper, usually accompanied by a large school of barracuda. Or do a night dive on the Bud bar which (if I am remembering right), has a ton of little shrimp that come out at night in numbers that makes their red eyes light up the place like a Christmas tree.
Good luck and send pictures
