- [Announcer] This "how to do Florida" segment
is presented by VISIT FLORIDA.
(guitar music)
- [Chad] The 120 miles of islands that make up
the Florida Keys are home to North America's
only living coral barrier reef,
a place I've been diving since I was a teenager.
But today is special, I'm diving on a former Navy vessel,
that's now one of the largest ships ever sunk
to create an artificial reef, the USS Spiegel Grove.
- Chad's coming down for a visit to dive
the Spiegel Grove, and we're real excited about it
because it is a 510 foot ship that is 84 feet wide
in a 130 feet of water.
It is a spectacular world-class dive in and of itself.
- Alright, let's go dive Spiegel Grove!
(music)
- Had to run down.
(music)
- [Chad] Got it?
- Yeah.
The current's depth and structure
make this an advanced dive,
and requires divers to be wreck-dive certified.
Divers must also be in good physical condition.
My dive budddy is Steve, just met him,
and already we're buddies.
- Right, we're tight! Like this!
- Yeah.
- [Chad] Like the solid dive instructor he is,
Steve goes over the hand signals we'll be using
underwater and he gives me a thorough briefing
of our dive plan for the Spiegel Grove.
- We're gonna drop down and kinda hide
behind this section over here.
This is the shallowest part of the wreck.
We have this top which is about 65 feet,
and then each additional layer coming down
to the wreck is about about a 10 foot depth.
Over on the bow section, this is roughly
around 90 feet, you've got the two big cranes
over here, which is probably the signature shot
if you will, of the Spiegel and what it's all about.
The cranes are just massive, when you see them
it's gonna blow your mind, it's really crazy stuff.
And since this was a military vessel
during some wartime periods,
it's also got gun mounts on it as well.
If you want to go through one of the swim-throughs,
we'll have light penetrating all around it.
It's really cool, you'll see the cathedrals
of light shaft coming through.
(music)
- [Chad] Finally, it's time to get in the water
and execute the dive plan Steve has laid out for us.
(music)
On descent, once we broke 50 feet,
out of nowhere, there she was!
I struggled to get perspective on what I was seeing.
It was huge!
Okay, after getting my bearings,
we headed toward the massive cranes
I'd been hearing so much about.
It was so much coral growth on these cranes,
it was hard to make out what these might have looked like
before the Spiegel Grove sank.
But Steve was right, they were massive in size!
The Spiegel Grove was a landing ship,
designed to carry other boats into combat,
and at one point this ship could hold over 8 helicopters.
Something I was really looking forward to
is what they call a swim-through.
And it's here where you really get
the true effect that this indeed was a ship.
It feels a bit ghostly being able to swim
into a place where you knew at one point
was occupied by sailors going about their daily duties.
All too soon, it's time for us to head for the surface.
(whooping) Whoo-hoo-hoo!
- Oh man, just incredible.
I mean the structure is so huge,
I mean just big decks, you're able to go inside of it,
which is really kinda cool, just incredible!
Absolutely incredible!
(music)
I've logged many dives in the Florida Keys,
but the Spiegel Grove was special.
So much history, so much to see,
and so much effort just getting it to where it sits today,
and how it brought this dive community together,
giving them something to rally around.
And it never gets old, seeing the awe-inspiring visuals
of such a massive structure on the ocean floor.
- [Announcer] View more videos at howtoDoflorida.com,
presented by VISIT FLORIDA.