6 passengers new and old and 11 crew departed Key West for the S-16 submarine located approximately 20 miles southwest of Key West, Florida for the fourth of July weekend. Here's what we found.

We arrived at the S-16 at 8 AM Friday ready to tie in. Our crew was made up of New Jersey wreck divers new and old, including mates Mike Pizzio and Richie Kohler, Diving Safety Officer Dori Phillips, Gas King and ass Richie Hoska (Evil Richie) and Joe Citelli, as well as the normal crew of the Spree. We had with us 6 rebreather divers, all diving Evolutions. Over the course of the trip, we would have 2 of these Evolutions fail fatally, but both failed on deck so no divers were injured in the making of this expedition. We shot the shot line, and Kohler and Pizzio rode the shot weight to the bottom. We shot right over the forward torpedo room hatch, where 2 mooring bitts were available for tying in. Some nice fisherman left behind a Fortress anchor and 50 feet of 3/8" galvanized chain which we used to create a stout mooring. We were tied in and ready for divers about 10 AM.

First dive was an exploration dive to see which hatches were open and what the locking mechanisms were on any hatches leading forward or aft from where we could get in. We found that the conning tower hatch was open into the conning tower, but not into control. We found that the forward personnel hatch was open to the forward torpedo room, but it was just big enough for a man, but not a man and his rebreather, and the after steering hatch was open, and quite large. An assault on the after hatch would be in our future. Richie penetrated the after hatch on the afternoon dive to describe to me the locking mechanism on the hatch leading forward from the after steering room. Mike Pizzio took his new Canon 7D in that room to make a record that I would be able to understand. The hatches were similar to the hatches I saw on the USS Cavalla (SS-244) in Galveston last year. The hatch dogging mechanism is completely exposed on the side where we could get at it, and completely impervious to hand tools. These hatches have been closed and 275 feet deep since 1947, and mere sledgehammers aren't going to do a thing to open them.

We thoroughly investigated the after steering compartment, going as far aft as we could without stirring up the silt. When I say "we", I mean Richie. You wouldn't get me in a sunken submarine for love nor money. I was the only open circuit diver on the boat, and my bottom time was limited to about 20 minutes. I dove twice, once on the bow, and once on the stern. On day 2, after the first dive, we broke the mooring in a squall. It turns out that the mooring bitts were welded to the outer hull, not to anything substantial. Unfortunately, that part of the framework is no longer there to see, as we left it somewhere in the sand beside the wreck. We recovered all of our mooring, the chain and Fortress anchor (which I'll trade for beer, by the way), as well as a mile of mono filament and some hooks. When the squall was over and we decided to re-set, we chose to do it in the stern so that we would be closer to the hatch we had chosen to penetrate. I dropped the chain and shot line on the stern right next to the propellers so we could moor on the shafts. I don't figure we will rip them out. On the second dive Richie took the HD video camera in and filmed the entire after steering area for our record.

Day three went without a hitch. We decided to penetrate the forward torpedo room for our big dive. I went and paddled around the propellers and stern planes, the rest of the team went to the forward opening to determine the logistics of the penetration. The opening is too small for a diver wearing a rebreather, so we knew that this would be an open circuit job. We measured the opening and found it to be just big enough for Richie and a single 80 of trimix. The second dive Richie took his rebreather off, switched to open circuit, and down the hole he went. It's amazing how fast a guy who hasn't been on open circuit in a number of years sucks down gas. He blew through 1800 PSI of trimix in 4 minutes he was in the hole. The video is spectacular, however. No-one has been in that room in a very long time, and the entire room is intact, down to the bedding, mattresses, torpedo tubes, valves and air piping, the firing order lights are still on the wall, wooden lockers are still standing with their doors open, and brass plaques still are mounted on every device and valve. This submarine is truly a piece of history.

You will see in the video (when I get it edited) that there are lionfish everywhere. We saw approximately 1000 lionfish on a 257 foot wreck. Jess was the great lionfish hunter, in 8 dives he sent over 200 lionfish on to their 80 virgins. These are not the wimpy reef lionfish, these are the big boys. Some were over 16 inches long. I'm thinking lionfish tournament in November.

Day 4 dawned a little sloppy as far as weather went. The first 3 days we had little current, 50-200 feet of visibility depending on time of day, surface temps of 82 degrees and bottom temps of 65 degrees, and waves of 6 inches to maybe a foot. Monday we had 2 foot seas and a stiff surface current. Visibility, however, was spectacular. The stiff surface current went all the way to the bottom. 2 dive teams chose to abort their dive at 130 feet (this is supposed to be fun, right?) while the last team completed their dive. The final dive team had a few problems with an aborted deco and a Evolution travel frame losing its scrubber and having to have it stuffed back in under heavy current conditions. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and, before someone got hurt, we chose to scrub the rest of the dives. We pulled the hook at noon and headed back to the beach. We have a spectacular weather forecast for the next trip to the deep wrecks of the Dry Tortugas and look forward to seeing friends old and new there.