Empire Mica A
Hello Wakulla
I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Today I want to tell you about my recent dive trip on the Empire Mica. Here’s a little recap of the ship. She was the only ship during World War II that was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico by a German submarine just 20 miles off Cape San Blas and she sits on the sandy bottom in about 110-115 feet of water depending on the tide.
She was hit with two torpedoes on June 29, 1942, she was carrying a full load of petroleum distillate for England.
The dive: we got to the dive boat at 7 a.m. central time and loaded our gear and tanks. Before the captains briefing we set up our dive gear and tested it for any leaks in the system. We stowed our gear bags under the bench seats we sat on, then we listen to the briefing from the captain. When he had finished we got ready for the three hour voyage to the wreck. They had snacks, breakfast muffins and lots of bottled water for the trip. The key for a successful dive is hydrate a lot.
After the ride to the site the captain let the anchor chain down on the port side of the Mica. We geared up and stepped off into the warm water.
I followed the anchor chain down until I could see the massive wreck lying dormant on the sandy bottom. My dive buddy and I let go of the chain and headed toward the stern of the ship. The first sight we see is the massive boilers that were the heart of the powerful motors. The ship is about 465 feet in length and 61 feet wide. The boilers about 30 feet in diameter and 20 feet long.
There was a resident Goliath grouper and he was at least 900-1000lbs, it was the biggest one I have seen. We worked our way back to the stern of the ship and noticed there was about a 4-5 knot current flowing from bow to stern.
We had to use the parts of the ship to pull back to the spot that we started the dive. I looked at my computer and it was getting time to start our ascent back to our safety stop.
I had gone down to 111 feet and there about 25 minutes which put me into a slight deco so instead of 3 minutes at my stop it was 5 minutes. We got back safely on the boat just in time for lunch that they provided. I don’t have much more room in this article so I’ll continue part 2 next week.
– Russell Miller, NAUI instructor #59999