Why no mooring buoys on wrecks?

[Glock Diver]

Of all the artificial reefs sunk off PBC/Broward/Dade, do any of them have mooring buoys? My experience diving them from charters, and also consulting Welcome to DIVE-SPOTS.COM is that none of them are equipped with buoys.

I know down in the keys, the larger artificial reefs (Spiegel Grove, Vandenberg) do have buoys...

Am I missing some? Why not equip these wrecks with a buoy?

 

[mike_s]

Of all the artificial reefs sunk off PBC/Broward/Dade, do any of them have mooring buoys? My experience diving them from charters, and also consulting Welcome to DIVE-SPOTS.COM is that none of them are equipped with buoys.

I know down in the keys, the larger artificial reefs (Spiegel Grove, Vandenberg) do have buoys...

Am I missing some? Why not equip these wrecks with a buoy?

a lot of the wrecks in the keys are in Marine Protected Areas... no fishing.

so fishing boats can't really use them.... (no fishing).


If you put them on the wrecks off PBC/Broward/Dade, you'd just arrive in the dive boat to find a fishing boat already tied into the mooring buoy.


Also, someone has to pay for them..... (would have been a good use for Obama Stimulus money considering some of the other stupid things that it was spent on).

 

[deepstops]

In addition to what Mike said, the fact the Keys wrecks are either in or very close to the sanctuaries, there's little fear of commercial traffic hitting the buoys.

That is NOT the case in Dade/Broward/Palm Beach counties where southbound commercial traffic often hugs the reef line trying to avoid the northbound Gulfstream.

I think it was Breakers Reef in Palm Beach that was wire-dragged by a tug pulling a barge two winters ago that was simply trying to "make time" hugging the reef line.

 

[Jupiter31]

I go back and forth on this topic, as we have been diving the wrecks off Miami since the mid 1980's. And frankly, not to break my arm patting myself on the back, we have gotten pretty good at hooking them from the boat, and if that does not work, taking the anchor down and hooking it that way.

It takes practice on a few levels, and I have often really wished for mooring buoys - Deepstops makes a very good point in that surface buoys are often destroyed by ships - so even if you put the buoy 20' below the surface, as is the case on the "Eagle" - you might still have the problem with passing ships pulling it up. Also the politics of limiting a sunken buoy to only divers use, as well as who is going to be responsible for maintaining the buoy on an ongoing basis. That all being said, I'd still like to see a few buoys on a few of the sites!

To (finally!) answer the op's question - in the Key Biscayne area, there are buoys on the Atlantis/Neptune site, as well as a couple of others - maybe 3 others - shallow reefs, however, not wrecks. So you have a choice of sites without the need to anchor.

 

[reefman]

just to clarify one point in reguards to the artificial wrecks in the keys(FKNMS) from key west north. fishing is permitted on all the wrecks including but not limited to, spiegel grove, duane, bibb, benwood, eagle, thunderbolt, aldolphus bush, vandenburg, cayman salvager and joes tug that do not lie within the boundaries of the SPAS, and other no take zones(such as the city of washington, mikes wreck). spearfishing is not permitted on the speigel and benwood as they lie within the boundaries of the key largo existing management area(spearfishing is permitted on the other above noted wrecks that lie outside no-take zones). excellent point made in the above post from DEEPSTOPS, as vessels larger than 50 meters have a no exclusion zone which prohibits them from within a specified distance from the outer reef tract(depicted on nautical charts and gps chartplotters). you rarely if ever observe large ships off shore the upper keys,,,,,,


reefman
key largo

 

[Buoyant1]

To tag on to some of this...The Thunderbolt has two submerged buoys (at about 15ft.) to prevent fishing boats from mooring..the DM does a quick dive to hook on to the wreck, and you're good to go... last person up unhooks it!

 

[Splash-X]

I think it was Breakers Reef in Palm Beach that was wire-dragged by a tug pulling a barge two winters ago that was simply trying to "make time" hugging the reef line.

Local News: West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, Martin & St. Lucie Counties | The Palm Beach Post


So thats what the seeming endless cable is laying out there. On a previous trip out there not too long after the cable snapped I followed that cable on one of our dives for nearly the entire dive wondering where it had come from.

Very sad that it destroyed the reef but its good to see people trying to help the reef.

 

[Johnoly]

In addition to the other great reasons listed above:

* We also deal with a lot more current. Live drops allow the boat to pick up divers who don't/can't make it back to the anchor line, rather than chase them down an hour later and 2 miles drifting away.

* Many PBC wrecks are in a line with multiple sites do-able on one tank. In example, Governor's RiverWalk, Jupiter Bonaire wreck trek, etc.

 

[Glock Diver]

I go back and forth on this topic, as we have been diving the wrecks off Miami since the mid 1980's. And frankly, not to break my arm patting myself on the back, we have gotten pretty good at hooking them from the boat, and if that does not work, taking the anchor down and hooking it that way.

Jupiter- What anchor type & size do you use most? Grappling style?

 

[Reef_Haven]

So thats what the seeming endless cable is laying out there. On a previous trip out there not too long after the cable snapped I followed that cable on one of our dives for nearly the entire dive wondering where it had come from.

No. The cable on Breakers has been there since before the dragging. The suspected tug was not found. It sliced alot of barrel sponges and other corals off the reef.