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Dive Report: Cities Service Empire
Date: Saturday August 18 and 19, 2001
Boat: Reel Time
Captain: Tony Andreoni
By: Mike Rodriguez
The "usual suspects" from the Association of Underwater Explorers (AUE) began
rolling into Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral Friday night with the rest of us arriving
early Saturday morning to board the Reel Time, a fast and well-appointed 38' fishing
charter boat docked at Port Canaveral. The helpful crew assisted with our loading and
we were on our way shortly after 7am.
It was a warm day with air and sea surface temperatures in the upper 80s Fahrenheit.
It was sunny and the ocean was calm allowing us to make way at nearly 30 knots. We
reached the site quickly and all the divers, anxious to get in the water, geared up. It
was a bit cramped with six divers, but with the help of the excellent crew, we
had no trouble gearing up for our dive on the Cities Service Empire.
The Cities Service Empire was a 465 foot long tanker built in 1918 and named after its
owner, the Cities Service Oil Company. In 1942, the U-128 shot two torpedoes at the
CSE and sent to the bottom of the ocean. It now rests upright in 240 feet of water
about 30 miles east of Cape Canaveral.
While the team finished gearing up, the captain set about estimating the current. To our
good fortune, there was almost none; truly an unusual condition at this site. The captain
set us up over the wreck and we dropped our grapple hook and ball, then we quickly
finished gearing up. When we were in position next to the ball, everyone
walked through the transom door and into the water like lemmings. With almost no current, we
easily followed the line down and landed on the bow of the ship within seconds. It was
cold on the bottom with the temperature in the upper 50s, but the visibility was good
around 70 feet.
I did a quick head-count to make sure everyone was there, then my buddy and I
started aft. One of my other buddies immediately set about poking around the bridge
area where numerous artifacts lay strewn about. I passed him and noticed my buddy
signaling me toward an opening in the deck. He dropped in and I followed into a large
empty hold inside the ship. There was a metal ladder that lead from the deck above
straight down to the bottom of the hold. I waited in the daylight zone next to the ladder
while my buddy tentatively explored to see if it would be worthwhile tieing in a
guideline. The hold turned out to be empty, so we exited and continued aft to explore
under the stern deck gun.
At the stern, we entered an interesting area that appeared to be an auxiliary helm. We
poked around and found numerous artifacts. Some of the other divers later found some
china near this area. We moved forward still under the top deck and entered the engine
room. The massive engine sits exposed surrounded by myriad valves, pipes, and
other equipment.
I glanced at my bottom timer and with time running out, I drifted up over the engine
and swam forward toward the bow. For some reason, perhaps the light current, there
seemed to be many more fish around than usual on this wreck. There were tons of
jacks, as usual, but there were also snappers, grouper, wrasses, and assorted tropicals
all around. I enjoyed the scenery while leisurely swimming forward to our line at the
bow.
When I reached the bow, a quick head-count found a diver missing. It turned out he'd
left early and was on the line above us, but since we were unsure of his location, we
did a quick sweep of the wreck, and seeing no bubbles, we started up the line but left
the hook in-place.
Near our shallow stops, the current began to pick up a bit and we decided to cut the
line and drift off under the ball. Deco was uneventful and we were back on the boat a
while later discussing if we should go back down to recover our monster grapple hook
or just get it the next day when we would return to dive the CSE again. After
some discussion, my buddy and I agreed to go back down to get it. That hook is part of the
family now, and we just can't bring ourselves to leave it behind.
We waited out a brief surface interval, then my buddy and I geared up and dropped
back in. We scootered for the bottom and hit the wreck about midships. Fortunately,by now I had done numerous dives on this
ship and knew it fairly well, so I was easily able to determine which way the bow was, both by compass and by sight.
We scootered north and found our hook where we'd left it at the bow with the line
strung out over the sand. We quickly hooked up a liftbag and shot the hook to
the surface, then we headed aft and into one of the holds to explore a bit before our time
ran out.
The hold we entered was, like the one we explored on our previous dive, just a big
empty room. In several places the hull plating had lost rivets allowing shafts of sunlight
to enter through the holes. The light illuminated silt particles in the still water making an
interesting effect. Since we didn't have an upline to swim back to, we were able to
spend all our time exploring the hold, then when it was time to go, we just rose out of
the small access opening in the deck and drifted off the wreck.
We shot a liftbag, completed deco, and boarded the boat hungry for lunch and ready
for our next dive on the Laertes (AKA Dutch Freighter) before heading back to port
for the day.
The team unloaded the boat, got cleaned up, and went to dinner at a popular seafood
place by the water. Captain Tony joined us and we spent a nice evening talking and
laughing while a Florida thunderstorm screamed by outside, then went away again
leaving a beautiful, starry night sky.
Copyright
© 2001 Mike Rodriguez. All rights reserved. |