Dive Report: Mexicana, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Date: Saturday, August 5, 2000
Boat: Miss Lindsey

By: Mike Rodriguez

I was graciously invited by the Virginia Beach Tech gang (VB Tech) to
dive with them on the Mexicana.  I accepted and loaded my airplane
full of dive gear, then headed to Virginia Beach for a weekend of
cold-water diving.  I knew I was getting close when the beautiful
Florida weather gave way to IFR conditions with low clouds and fog
north of Savannah, Georgia.  I arrived at the boat Friday night and
loaded my gear, then went to sleep.  We arrived the next morning at
the site of the Mexicana which sits in 140 feet of water 60 miles
offshore.  The ship has often been misidentified as the Equipoise but
the wreck and surrounding area has turned up many artifacts over
the years which confirm the identity of the ship.

The day was hazy with air temperatures around 78F.  There was no
current at the dive site and the water temperature at the surface
was about 70F with seas less than two feet.  The crew anchored to the
wreck and everyone geared up to go diving.  I splashed in over the
side of the boat, then swam forward to the anchor line and started
down.  There was no current and it was an easy descent.  The water
got cold around 70 feet.  I'm a native Florida boy; anything under
70F is freezing by my standards so you can imagine the invectives
coming out of my regulator when I reached the bottom and found the
temperature around 48F.  At least the visibility was pretty good for
that part of the world, it was about 30 feet, though it was dark and
gloomy on the bottom.

Once I recovered from the cold, I started exploring the wreck.  It's
deck has long since rotted away leaving the ribs of the ship and
lower decks exposed.  There were numerous fishing nets snagged and
abandoned all around; some of them had fish hopelessly caught inside.
I cut open several of the nets and let the fish out.  All the sealife
was very sluggish in the cold water compared to the active and colorful Florida fish I'm used to.  Numerous anemones covered the
wreck.  I swam around the wreck, then dropped under the deck ribs for
a closer look, then dropped to the sand and poked around some of the
debris there.  Under a piece of wreckage I found a lobster.  Unlike
Florida lobsters, these bite back so I left it alone.

My bottom time was nearly over, so I began a leisurely swim back to
the line avoiding the many jellyfish drifting around.  When I reached
the line I started up for a quick deco, then boarded the boat to
the smell of hot dogs and hamburgers cooking on the grill.  Everyone
ate lunch, than sat around on the top deck talking and warming up in
the sun.

We returned to the dock around 6pm where I got cleaned up and went
to play tourist along the boardwalk on Virginia Beach, then returned
to the boat for a midnight departure to our next dive on the
Washington and an "unknown" the next day.