Went scooter free diving on the Vandenberg yesterday, huge thanks to Paul Menta of The Kitehouse setting me up with a boat and GPS. The Vandenberg is a large 522 ft. artificial reef and former radar tracking ship. She was sunk in 140 ft. off water about 7 miles south of Key West on Wednesday. Wore a Go Pro camera in a chest harness shooting stills every 2 s and hand held a camera for video. Thanks to Mike Hirooka for giving me a loaner camera and tons of mounting gear pending my camera arriving. I wanted to catch it shortly after sinking before the algae covered all the white surfaces up. I still remember a Stephen Frink shot of the Duane off Key Largo in clear blue water just after sinking. White on blue! Just put up a short video clip from my Canon G9 pending processing all this stuff into a video:
Here are a few stills as well from Mike's Go Pro camera on auto:
Viz. was about 50 to 60 ft. I think the cameras saw further than I could in some cases
The bow has a surreal aspect to it. Passed a couple of divers holding a Conch Republic flag up after of this point. There was about 1.5 mph current running north. With the scooter on high power you could motor fairly easily into it. On downwind turns you went flying though! Covered about half the wreck on one dive.
Both radar dishes were dislodged by hydraulic forces during sinking. They've been cabled in place to pad eyes on the deck to secure them for the time being
Coming up from the bottom at 140 ft., looking way up the side and to the sun.
Nice session, lots more to come