Scuba

[ashauler]

Got my first certification in the Navy, and did the PADI certs up to Rescue Diver starting in 93. Got the cavern specialty, which is really just baby cave diving...can't go in past available light etc....

I have been diving primarily fresh water lakes for years and love it, much different from warm-water ocean diving.

[roscoe]

Dive on Spiegel Grove wreck off Key Largo turns deadly for 3

sun-sentinel.com
Posted March 16 2007, 4:30 PM EDT


KEY LARGO -- Three divers died on Friday while diving on the Spiegel Grove ship wreck, the Monroe County Sheriff's office said.

In an e-mailed statement, Becky Herrin, spokeswoman for MSO, said the three men were part of a four-man team that was diving on the popular wreck from the commercial dive boat Scuba-do. All were reportedly advanced certified divers and planned a penetration dive into the sunken wreck. That's when something apparently went wrong.

`These wrecks can be very confusing inside,'' Herrin said. ``There's a lot of places to go wrong.

None of the four divers were immediately identified but Herrin said all were from New Jersey. They were not related, but were friends traveling together.

Herrin said the four divers dove on the Spiegel Grove wreck the day before. They did a penetration dive at that time as well, she said.

Here's what Herrin said happened on Friday:

One of the divers was stationed at the entrance of the and the other three went inside. The release did not say how deep the divers were. The ship was sunk about 5 miles off Key Largo in the Atlantic.

The diver left outside the wreck began to run out of air, according to detectives. He surfaced safely.

Two divers from another boat went down to look for the others. They surfaced with one diver who was in distress. That diver was taken on board a Coast Guard vessel where CPR was performed. Paramedics met the boat at shore and transported the victim to Mariner's Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The two other divers did not surface and initial searches of the wreck failed to locate them.

Just after 2 p.m., a dive team from Key Largo Fire Rescue that was searching the wreck located their bodies inside. According to detectives, the bodies are so deep inside, it will be difficult to recover them. More divers from that team will be deployed to the wreck on Saturday and will make another attempt at recovery.

Names of the divers were not released pending notification of next of kin.

The USS Spiegel Grove was a Navy Landing Ship Dock that was sunk to create an artificial reef off Key Largo in 2002. The vessel is 510 feet in length and 84 feet wide. When it was sunk it went down on its side. In 2005, underwater currents caused by Hurricane Dennis shifted the ship upright into its present underwater berth. The highest point of the ship now sits 40 to 60 feet below the surface.

[pub spears]

Padi certified since ? Wrecked my knee and quit diving. Basic Openwater is not a hard class for anyone comfortable with the water and half a brain. The only remotely hard part I can remember was treading water, and that really wasn't bad. Upon being certified, lots of people say "I wish I had done this years ago."