Key West

A few days before Christmas at the bottom of the Keys, diving out of Key West.

The weather limited where the boats could go, so the first afternoon was two easy, sheltered reef dives, neither deeper than 7 m, in 24 °C water. We came back in with wetsuits drying on the rail and the sun going down behind the sunset schooners, which is about as Key West as it gets.

The next morning was the big one: the USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, with Captain’s Corner. She was launched in 1943 as the troop transport General Harry Taylor, renamed in 1963 and fitted with huge radar dishes to track missile and space launches off Cape Canaveral, then retired in 1983. She also played a Russian science ship in the 1999 film Virus. In May 2009 she was scuttled about seven miles south of Key West. She sits upright on the sand at about 43 m, with the superstructure rising to within 12–14 m of the surface. At 160 m long, she’s one of the largest artificial reefs in the world.

We made two dives on her, both to about 29 m along the decks and superstructure, in 25 °C water. The tracking dishes are the highlight: big lattice bowls standing off the wreck, already furred with growth. A great barracuda hung in the shade under the structure.

The underwater photos are from a SeaLife Micro HD+, which wasn’t behaving on this trip. Everything came out with a magenta cast that was worst in the corners, and its clock was still on UK time. The shots here are colour-corrected to take the cast out, and they’re a record of the dives more than anything.