Dive Report: RBJ
Date: Sunday Morning November 5, 2000
Boat: ReefCat
Captain: Jim Mims

By: Mike Rodriguez

Once again, the usual group of AUE divers showed up at the dock
Sunday morning to dive the RBJ.  One of our guys didn't show,
but I have it on good authority that he's been grounded by his
significant-other.  Anyway, despite the exceptionally good conditions,
none of the other local cyberdivers showed up.  Go figure...

The boat was running late, so after loading my gear, I got out
my lawn-chair, shade umbrella, and MP3 player, then sat around
talking and listening to music for a while.  Eventually, we got
underway and were on-site with excellent diving conditions.  The sea
was running less than a foot with a light south current.  The water
temperature was 80F and the air was about 84F.  There was a gentle
breeze and the sun was shining.  There were dozens of boats out that
day enjoying the great Florida weather.  I was diving trimix 15/49/36
with 50% and 100% oxygen for decompression.  My bottom time was a
little under 30 minutes.

Rather than try to hook the wreck the captain asked if I'd take the
grapple hook and smart-bomb it.  There was only a light current and
the visibility looked good from the boat, so I agreed.  Everyone
geared up and piled onto the back of the boat waiting for the drop.
Once over the wreck we jumped in and headed down.  With the extra
weight of a heavy grapple hook in my hand I shot down at warp speed
and was on the wreck before my bottom timer clicked off two minutes.
We secured the hook, did a quick head-count, and started exploring.

The RBJ is actually two wrecks.  The Corey N. Chris, a 130
long US Army dredge and the Ronald B Johnson (RBJ), a 226 foot long
freighter which was sunk as an artificial reef and landed *by
mistake* right on top of the Corey N. Chris.  Both sit upright in
the sand at 260 feet.  Together they form a unique and interesting
dive.  There are two swim-throughs under the hull of the RBJ where
it sits on the Corey N. Chris.

As I swam around enjoying the abundant sea life on this wreck, my
buddy handed me his Gavin scooter.  I clipped in and took off for a
grand tour.  The RBJ has a large crane structure that sticks way up
from the deck.  Scootering around it you feel like a seagull flying
around a ship underway.  The visibility wasn't very good at only
about 50 feet but it was enough to give a great view of the wreck
from the top of the crane.  As I scootered around, a barracuda took
an interest in me and followed me for about five minutes.  At first
it made me a little nervous since I couldn't keep an eye on it
trailing my fins, but after a while I got used to it and relaxed.
It never became aggressive; it just followed me around.  At one end
of the Corey N. Chris is a short corridor through the beam of the
ship.  I scootered in one end and out the other hoping to lose
the barracuda, but it followed me right through and stayed with me.
It was very humorous.

A while later, I scootered into the ship to a spot where I always
find hundreds of tiny colorful shrimp living under a stairway.  As
I approached the spot I found the shrimp still there as usual where
they've been every time I've visited the RBJ.

I scootered around inside the wreck a while, then exited and handed
the scooter back to my buddy as the barracuda who’d been following
me left me seeming unhappy that the follow-the-leader game was over.

We were near the end of our bottom time as everyone met back at the
line.  A head-count found one diver missing, but I knew he'd planned
only 18 to 20 minutes on the bottom so by this time he'd be
decompressing on the line about 150 feet above us.  The visibility
wasn't good enough to actually see him from the bottom, though.  I
signaled my buddy that the missing diver was on the line far above
and he unhooked us as I tied a loop in the line to hang the grapple
hook.  It's always gratifying for me to dive with the same group of
divers all the time; our teamwork has become so finely honed that we
frequently don't even need to signal each other and know instinctively
what the other is thinking.  My buddy *knew* without looking at or
signaling me that I'd be tying a loop in the line as he unhooked us
and I *knew* that as soon as he did so, he'd scooter the grapple up
to the loop.  This wasn't planned ahead of time and no communication
was necessary.  It's like tag-team diving, and it makes everything
a lot more fun.

Once the grapple was fouled on the loop, we headed up to start deco.
Although I knew the diver missing at the head-count would be, as
planned, on the line above us, I was still relieved when I saw his
silhouette come into view above us confirming that everything was
going as-planned.

After deco, we all boarded the boat and headed home discussing
the great dive and making plans for the dives next weekend.