Dive Report: Caicos Express
Date: Sunday May 14, 2000
Boat: Miss Conduct
Captain: Conrad Nix

By: Mike Rodriguez

The Caicos Express was a 190 foot freighter built in 1956.  It had
a 29 foot beam and was powered by a diesel engine.  The ship was
sunk off Ft. Lauderdale as an artificial reef on November 12, 1985.
It now sits upright in the sand at 240 feet.  Before the sinking,
the ship was used as a set for several episodes of Miami Vice.

The AUE "Usual Suspects" showed up Sunday afternoon and had the boat
loaded and ready to go in no time.  We exited the Hillsboro Inlet
with good conditions.  The air temperature was 84 and it was sunny.
The seas were less than two feet and there was a light breeze.  At
the site we found there was no current with a surface water temperature
of 79F, but the water was a nasty green indicating poor visibility.

Everyone got ready as the captain found the wreck on the sounder.
I took the floatline for the free-descent and when the captain called
out, we all jumped in.

The green water was true-to-form - the visibility at the surface
was only about 40 feet.  The water was full of large, stringy
particles.  Visibility didn't improve as we dropped deeper.  At
around 180 feet I could make out the dark shape of the wreck against
the white sand.  The drop was perfect and we landed near the bow
where I tied-in the floatline.  The visibility on the bottom remained
about 40 feet.  The dirty water blocked a lot of the sunlight making
it dark and gloomy on the wreck.  The bottom temperature was 64F and
I was painfully aware of it in my 3mm summer wetsuit which has been
crushed to about 1mm by a year of diving.

Once I recovered from the cold I swam over the holds toward the
stern.  The ship's cargo holds are mostly empty except for several
large spools of thick cable strewn about.  I swam into the wheelhouse
and out the other side, then down to check out several levels of
rooms and corridors below the wheelhouse.

I found my way to the engine room and entered it.  The engine room
is silty and has a lot of things sticking out at odd angles waiting
to snag an unwary diver; anyone going in there should have cave
training.  As my time ran out, I exited the engine room and swam
back toward the floatline.  Due to the poor visibility, I was unable
to do a head-count before unhooking us.  I took a look around to see
if there were any bubbles still coming from the wreck and didn't see
any, so I unhooked us and we drifted of the wreck.

Decompression was uneventful though everyone stayed close to the
line in the poor visibility and everyone was back on the boat a
while later.