you can be rewarded with some awesome visibility. We have had some recent good sized swells, so getting out of the inlet has been a bit more tense than usual, especially given the fact that a recent charter company flipped one of their boats in the inlet on Thanksgiving day and a femal diver perished from that accident. :-(
Sunday was no different, as we headed for Hillsboro inlet, I saw there was a swell from the north and the occasional roller was breaking right through the middle of the inlet. We waited and waited and all was looking good... probably waited a bit too long. Right when I was committed to my exit out into the Atlantic, a good sized breaker started coming in fast from the north. Fortunately, there was a nice long period between the waves and the 225 Yamaha had no problem getting us to deeper water before the roller made the boat.
We ran about 4 miles north and I was treated to something I don't normally have... a live boat. The Hydro is a deco dive and I had 3 non deco divers onboard and 2 of them know how to run the boat. SO we decided to hot drop instead on anchor. Not a bad idea as the current was pretty stiff as you can see at the end of the video where Scott is swimming like hell to make it to the winches on the bow.
We dropped 200 feet due south of the beast and landed right dead smack on the mast... Perfect drop. I could not believe the visibility. I have never dove this wreck with such good vis. The Magnus made easy work of the current for me, even in dubs and 2 deco bottles.
She was built in 1905, is 315 feet long and 52 feet wide... a wide girl! She spent a lot of her time as a dredge as you can see from all the pipes. In December 1987, she was being towed to Brownsville, Texas to be scrapped. She never made it. Her hull gave way just outside the Boca Raton inlet and she sank in 175 feet of water. She is one of our only "Natural" diveable shipwrecks here in South Florida, and it is apparent with all the "stuff" scattered throughout the ship.
Enjoy. I did.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/kwky-exAaQo[/youtube]
