'Spooky' Dive
5/25/2004 6:32:54 PM by Susan Cocking
Those aren't ghosts making a clanging noise, but this newly sunk ship has a haunting feel
All but forgotten in the hoopla over the Florida Marlins' World Series victory last October was the sinking of Miami-Dade County's newest artificial reef. Officials of Miami-Dade's Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM) and Schurger Diving & Salvage sank a 165-foot-long freighter in 80 feet of water about 3 1/2 miles off Key Biscayne. The former GDD Trader, seized by U.S. Customs for carrying drugs, was renamed DEMATrader after the Dive Equipment and Marketing Association annual convention held last October in Miami Beach.
I recently got to dive the wreck with the crew from Divers Paradise out of Crandon Marina. For a newly sunk reef, the DEMA Trader made for an interesting dive. You couldn't help but be entertained by the hand-painted legends of Miami Beach's Ken English. While the ship was being readied for deployment, English decorated the bulkheads with names of prominent members of the South Florida dive community -- and whatever dive slogans came to mind. His artwork likely will be covered with marine growth one day, but right now it is easy to read.
Touring the ship, it would be easy to mistake it for a concrete carrier, but those slabs stacked near the bow were loaded aboard just before the sinking. "It produces ballast in case of storms and creates a lot more habitat than just an open cargo hold," DERM artificial reef chief Brian Flynn said. Flynn accepted the donation of an oddlooking, cage-like reef module from Reefmaker that sits near the stern, creating even more of an attraction for passing fish. We noticed hogfish and grunts swimming around it, regarding it with fishy curiosity. Penetrating the interior has been rendered safe by the cutting of large holes in the bulkheads. Swimming below decks is not scary, but intriguing, reminding you of a Clive Cussler novel.
Atoilet that popped loose when the ship hit the bottom has been set upright in the middle of the floor by unseen hands. Adding to the haunted atmosphere, you hear an intermittent clanging that sounds like a ghostly ship's bell. "Spooky," said diver Jurriaan Horowitz of Miami Beach. "I expected to see dead bodies playing cards and drinking whiskey inside." Investigating the source of the sonorous bell noise, I discovered a loose porthole cover that bangs the hull in rhythm with the tidal surge. So much for ghosts. The main inhabitants are grunts, snappers, hogfish and some large barracuda. The 'cudas hover in what remains of the wheelhouse, pretending to pilot the ship. Diver Karen Jones of Anchorage, Alaska, saw a stingray.
"Pretty impressive," Jones said afterward. The DEMATrader is one of a few shallow wrecks put down in Miami-Dade waters in the past few years. "It's a good thing to be able to get in reasonable diving range so that even a novice can get down and see it," Flynn said.
Susan Cocking can be contacted at scocking@herald.com.