by Easy Diver Correspondant Bond Lux
About 2 years ago, I stumbled on the news that a retired aircraft carrier – the
USS Oriskany, CVN 34 – was to be sunk a few miles offshore from Pensacola as an
artificial reef. For the better part of the last 2 years, I’ve been watching,
waiting, anticipating the sinking of this boat. What took so long? Mostly
environmental permits, environmental reviews, public hearings regarding
environmental concerns, and cleaning up potential environmental “hazards” on the
boat – oh yes, and a couple of hurricane seasons.
Enough! On May 17, the “Mighty O” had her bottom blown out for a “controlled”
sinking. Well what was expected to be a 5 hour process was done in about 30
minutes (that’s what you get when you let the Navy have 500 pounds of C-4!).
Within 2 days of the sinking, the dive community got the word – “the pool is
open!”. In spite of topside videos of the sinking showing the boat rolling about
30 degrees, she came to rest on the bottom perfectly level. Ok, so what?!?!?
It’s just an old rusty aircraft carrier. It’s only about 900 feet long (okay…3
football fields long!) and 160 feet wide. From keel to the top of the island is
only about 150 feet (e.g. 15 stories) So what! It is only sitting in 200+ feet
of warm Gulf water. So what! Hey…have you ever been next to, let alone on one of
these suckers?
While on vacation to Gulf Shores the first of June, I convinced my wife to let
me take a little dive outing to the Oriskany (actually she kicked me out the
door with instructions to get it out of my system!). Right now, only Pensacola
operators are making the 25 mile trip out to the O. On the boat with me was a
writer for a British dive magazine, the owner of a dive shop in Gulf Shores, a
guy from Germany that came over just to dive the O. It took about 2 hours to get
out to the O but once we were tied onto the boat, we got the “pools open” word.
Giant stride…spash…ok signal…get camera…grab hold of the down & swim lines…wait
for buddies…signal ok…descend…pull to the bow of the dive boat…look down…though
the layer of tidal stuff you can only see darkness. We begin the descent down
the anchor line and against a 1-2 knot current…Down…30 feet…35 feet we start to
see through that tidal trash an imposing grey mass…40 feet…45 feet we break
through into clear water and there is the island…can you say “O”…”OH”…”OH
WOW”…”Holy - - - - COW”…50 feet you start seeing schools of “bait fish” teaming
around the island…55 feet looking straight down you see 4 or 5 stories of
cutouts in the side of the island allowing penetration to the island…60 feet
skads of fish are all swirling all around…Between 65 and 70 feet and we finally
can grab hold of the railings at the top of the island. Looking down, the flight
deck is barely discernable. Starting to move around the island, we notice that
on the floor there are baby crabs and blennies…we’re 150 feet off the bottom on
a big chunk of steel and here these little bottom/sand dwellers have already
taken up residence. We begin the descent to the flight deck. 80…90…100…and the
details of the deck are now getting clearer but it is also noticeably
darker…110…120…gear down…touchdown!...standing on the flight deck my gauge reads
130…and that’s 4 feet off the actual deck! Oh man…Oh me… You look up to the
surface and divers at about the top of the island are just dark shadows. Look
around real quick. On the stern side of the island are some plaques identifying
the Oriskany, remembering its history, and commemorating the efforts to sink
her…3 weeks after the sinking these brass plaques are already covered. Okay…air
and bottom time is already an issue after only about 3 minutes of looking
around. We begin the ascent toward the bridge (bow end) to scout out the next
dive. Man!
On the second dive we “only” go to about 100 then spend most of our time
penetrating the bridge and some of the top of the island. Talk about
challenging! There is supposed to be safe passage on the interior of the island
from the flight deck all the way to the top with openings at every level. We
play captain on the bridge go through the open windows then circle the upper
part of the island. I decide to try going through the top “floor” of the island.
Talk about tight squeezes – hatchways are barely 28-30 inches wide and when you
“miss” a clean passage your tank announces your blunder with a very loud, deep,
penetrating boom. Again, because of the depth air and bottom time are starting
to be an issue. So we circle the island again one last time and head for the
anchor line up to the dive boat. As we slowly ascend we watch this massive
playground slowly disappear. The challenge for the next dives includes
penetrating the island (with tight hatchways, current, some dangling stuff
leftover from the Navy, and depth this will make for some real “fun”), exploring
more of the island superstructure (masts hanging out over the abyss, walkways,
old gun emplacements, etc.), and getting further out the flight deck for a more
panoramic view of the island. Of course, just seeing how the sea slowly claims
the O will be worth the show. There is a lone barracuda hovering around the
island along with the schools of “bait” fish. There was a sighting by one of
tech divers of a large eagle ray doing a touch-and-go landing on the flight deck
the week before. Oh yes…that diver from Germany. He was using a tri-mix
rebreather and had been cleared to do a solo dive of the hanger deck and beyond.
His only dive went for close to 2 hours, including decompression stops. He
penetrated the hanger deck (at about 160 feet) and said it resembled a big cave
– the openings on the other side were mere dots of light when he entered and
pitch black once he got away from his entry point. He also inspected the sands
at over 200 feet. And the writer from Britain…he should be publishing his
findings & pics in July or August.