Dive Report: Baja California
Date: Sunday Afternoon June 25, 2000
Boat: Nauti Gal
Captain: Jeff Hunter

By: Mike Rodriguez

After diving the Oil Wreck in the morning, we arrived at the Baja
California early in the afternoon.  This would be the final dive of
our three-day trip to the Dry Tortugas and Marquesas islands.

The Baja California is a popular wreck for open water divers out of
the Ft. Myers and Naples area.  Since it's frequently visited, a
permanent sub-surface buoy has been attached to the wreck for easy
mooring.  To attach a line, though, it's necessary for someone to
take the line down and thread it through a loop just beneath the
buoy.  I volunteered.

The captain loaned me a snorkel and I jumped in.  I held station
over the buoy as the boat maneuvered around me.  One of my buddies
threw me a line, and I dove to the buoy about 15 feet down.  I ran
the line through the loop and surfaced, then I handed the line to
my buddy who attached it to a cleat as I got back aboard and
demanded lunch.  :)

The Baja California was a freighter built in 1914 in England.  The
ship was 266 feet long with a 38 foot beam.  During WWII, it was
en-route from New Orleans to Key West when it was sunk by U-84 which
probably also sank the nearby Oil Wreck.  The ship landed in the sand
in 115 feet of water.  The ship was carrying a cargo of assorted
household items and, it's rumored, a large cache of morphine ampules.
During lunch I joked with the team that if we managed to find the
morphine, we could finance the entire trip by selling it in Miami.

By the time we'd finished lunch, a large storm darkened the horizon.
It was headed toward us so we relaxed on the boat to wait it out.
The dark clouds grew and moved our way as the wind and seas began to
build.  Even though it was early in the afternoon, it became dark.
Impressive lightning bolts zapped out of the clouds and into the
water, and a heavy rain began to fall almost horizontally in the
howling wind.  Everyone moved into the dry, comfortable cabin to
talk and wait out the storm as thunder boomed around us.  Whitecaps
grew in all directions and the wind drove spray from breaking waves
over the ocean.  We securely stowed everything while the sturdy boat
rocked and pitched vigorously in the storm.  About 40 minutes later
the storm passed, the skies opened up and it became beautiful
again - typical Florida weather.

The team geared up and jumped in.  There was no current so the swim
forward to the downline was easy.  We started down in good
visibility, but near the bottom it dropped to about 30 feet.  The
line was attached to the stern near a deck gun.  I took a quick look
at the gun, then dropped to the sand which was littered with all sorts
of stuff from the cargo holds.  There were plastic thingies, mirrors,
reading glasses, bottles of hair tonic, cosmetic cases, cheap cups,
bowls, and plates, plastic flowers, dolls, picture frames, and hair
combs... lots of hair combs... thousands of them all over the place.
I poked around on the bottom amid all the junk and noticed the corner
of something smooth and shiny sticking out of the sand.  After a
little digging, a glass thing-a-ma-jig came up out of the sand along
with a few hair combs.  The object was about four inches by six, made
of glass, and had two round depressions about an inch deep and an
inch in diameter.  I had no idea what it was, but it looked cool, so
I took it.

I swam toward a hole in the hull too small to swim into and dug
around inside.  Lots of sand came out, lots of hair combs, but no
morphine ampules.  One of those would have made a really cool
souvenir.

I swam to another area and under a large part of the ship that hung
mangled over the sand.  I dug around and found more hair combs.  Out
in the open one of my buddies was trying to pull something out
of the sand.  It was long and well-buried.  Even with both of
us pulling on it, it wouldn't budge.  We dug around the object like
two raccoons trying to dig up a root; hair combs flew out in a torrent.
After several minutes of digging we'd reduced the local visibility to
zero.  I couldn't see anything other than silt and hair combs
drifting around in front of my face.  The object still wouldn't budge,
so I gave up and left my buddy to his digging.  I rose about 20 feet
above him to watch the futile effort.  He never did manage to get the
object out, but as I watched from above, I was very impressed by the
cloud of silt and hair combs he'd created.

Finally, he gave up as our time ran out.  We swam to the downline
and began our ascent and brief decompression.  Later on the boat we
all compared the goodies we'd found.  One of the other divers
immediately identified the thing I'd found; he'd seen them in
antiques stores frequently.  It turned out to be an ink well.  Happy
with my catch, I stowed my gear and prepared for the ride home.

On the way back, we ran into another Florida storm which slowed us
to a few knots.  After about an hour, we came out the other side and
had a smooth ride the rest of the way to the dock arriving around
7pm.  Everyone was tired but happy with the successful trip.  We all
enjoyed ourselves immensely and look forward to repeating the
experience later in the year.

Unfortunately, as I packed up my stuff I discovered that somehow
I'd lost my hair comb.