PfcAJ
Contributor
This weekend, I had the opportunity to link up with Rick Thomas and Kathy Dicker for an awesome day of wreck diving. Conditions were perfect, buddies were great, and the Captain was top notch! Here's the write up from Rick:
"Diving the Clinton - South Florida Tech Divers, with a GUE Edge!This morning AJ Gonzales, Kathy Dicker and Rick Thomas met the ‘Miss Conduct’ for a morning dive excursion out to the wreck of the Clinton. The seas were calm; 2 feet long swells, a warm April morning with temperatures in the low 80s. The Clinton is an easy run out of the Hillsborough Inlet, due east, south-east. She sits in about 175-feet of water. The Clinton is an old dredge-barge with much of her original superstructure still intact. We dropped in as a team of three just before 10am. Diving dry, 18/45 TX with a single 50% deco mix; typical Tech-1 diving profile. All three of us were diving with the Suex/Halcyon T16 DPV.
Conrad did a perfect drop, we floated down in a hot-drop and descended directly onto the deck of the Clinton. Visibility was pushing 100-feet this morning and there was just under 1-knot of current. Seawater temperature was around 76-degrees top-to-bottom. Reasonably good diving conditions! We scootered the perimeter of the Clinton, ducking under some of the rigging and dropping down into the equipment hold around mid-ship. Maximum depth was just under 170-feet. Kathy led us down a narrow passageway that ran the beam of the barge, the only penetration we made on the wreck. Our dive plan was for 25 minutes on the wreck, with a contingency for an additional 5 minutes should conditions permit. At about 16 minutes into the dive we had pretty much seen all there was to see of the Clinton, so we agreed to scooter to the wreck of the Miller Lite, about 600 feet due north of the Clinton. Once on-trigger it was about 3-1/2 minutes into the transit that we saw the Miller Lite slowly appear in-sight! Navigation skills working.
We had just under ten minutes remaining to explore the Miller Lite, she sits in about 160-feet of water, and we stayed up on the deck at around 140-feet. Lots of marine life, schooling fish, sea-fans and buttercup corals cover this wreck/artificial reef site. The wreck still looks like it is in good shape; even the mast is still erect, a solitary barracuda swimming around the top of the mast surveying the wreck below. There is lots of profile and structure to explore, worthy of a dedicated dive in the future. As we hit time at 30-minutes we moved off the wreck and started the ascent. AJ and I shot the surface marker while Kathy ran the deco. The ascent went on-time with no issues. A comfortable gas-switch at 70-feet and a nice slow decompression to the surface. It’s simply a pleasure to make such a dive when everyone is on the same page and the dive goes per-plan.
Rick Thomas, April 18, 2015"
Video: https://vimeo.com/125363865
"Diving the Clinton - South Florida Tech Divers, with a GUE Edge!This morning AJ Gonzales, Kathy Dicker and Rick Thomas met the ‘Miss Conduct’ for a morning dive excursion out to the wreck of the Clinton. The seas were calm; 2 feet long swells, a warm April morning with temperatures in the low 80s. The Clinton is an easy run out of the Hillsborough Inlet, due east, south-east. She sits in about 175-feet of water. The Clinton is an old dredge-barge with much of her original superstructure still intact. We dropped in as a team of three just before 10am. Diving dry, 18/45 TX with a single 50% deco mix; typical Tech-1 diving profile. All three of us were diving with the Suex/Halcyon T16 DPV.
Conrad did a perfect drop, we floated down in a hot-drop and descended directly onto the deck of the Clinton. Visibility was pushing 100-feet this morning and there was just under 1-knot of current. Seawater temperature was around 76-degrees top-to-bottom. Reasonably good diving conditions! We scootered the perimeter of the Clinton, ducking under some of the rigging and dropping down into the equipment hold around mid-ship. Maximum depth was just under 170-feet. Kathy led us down a narrow passageway that ran the beam of the barge, the only penetration we made on the wreck. Our dive plan was for 25 minutes on the wreck, with a contingency for an additional 5 minutes should conditions permit. At about 16 minutes into the dive we had pretty much seen all there was to see of the Clinton, so we agreed to scooter to the wreck of the Miller Lite, about 600 feet due north of the Clinton. Once on-trigger it was about 3-1/2 minutes into the transit that we saw the Miller Lite slowly appear in-sight! Navigation skills working.
We had just under ten minutes remaining to explore the Miller Lite, she sits in about 160-feet of water, and we stayed up on the deck at around 140-feet. Lots of marine life, schooling fish, sea-fans and buttercup corals cover this wreck/artificial reef site. The wreck still looks like it is in good shape; even the mast is still erect, a solitary barracuda swimming around the top of the mast surveying the wreck below. There is lots of profile and structure to explore, worthy of a dedicated dive in the future. As we hit time at 30-minutes we moved off the wreck and started the ascent. AJ and I shot the surface marker while Kathy ran the deco. The ascent went on-time with no issues. A comfortable gas-switch at 70-feet and a nice slow decompression to the surface. It’s simply a pleasure to make such a dive when everyone is on the same page and the dive goes per-plan.
Rick Thomas, April 18, 2015"
Video: https://vimeo.com/125363865
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