May 2, 2000: Grand Bahama, Bahamas

A Bahamas 2000 dive

"Theo's Wreck"

Diving off of Grand Bahama:

• Directions from Tampa: It's only about 55 miles off of the coast of Florida. You can go by boat or by plane ... talk to a travel agent.
• Conditions on the day of my visit: Sunny and very comfortable.
  
  
• Personal Notes: Bring a light, as if you go anywhere where there's an overhead condition, you'll want one. Visibility was amazing; on the way down (and at the safety stops) you can see the entire wreck.
  
  I had computer issues that embarrassed me to no end. This is more than the usual occasional drop in tank pressure transmission. Having used my computer early in the morning to log the previous day's dive, I set the computer to the nitrox rating of my tank (32%). As I sat on the mooring line, waiting for everyone else so we could go down together, I noticed that my computer had shut off (two hours had gone by without a dive). I turned it back on, forgetting that the computer tends to reset (if set to something other than 21% or AIR) that it might reset to 50%. Risky nitrox diving is approaching a PO2 of 1.6. At 100 feet, 50% O2's PO2 is over 2. Needless to say, the computer wasn't happy, and became a constant annoyance, beeping in protest to it's perceived violation.
  
  We swam through the cargo bay of the ship and apparently there was an eel visiting the wreck that I missed. Shamie took us through the engine room and that was pretty much the dive. Some of us were concerned with our air situation, while another (me of course) was tempted to flood the battery compartment of his computer to get it to shut up.
  
  We were there with other friends from Florida that had taken a cruise; upon exiting the water, one injured her hand. The next dive was postponed as we went back to shore to take care of her. She turned out okay, we decided to skip the dive and head to lunch, and then get them back to their boat.
  
  We raced to our scheduled dive with UNEXSO for a shark feeding, showing up as the boat left the dock, so we postponed that dive to the next day (which would have been our day off).

Theo's Wreck
Without blowing up each individual fish and pouring through my ID book, I can't hazard a guess as to what these little guys are (and there's probably more than one type of fish here). I originally thought this photo was from another dive, but I've since checked the photos for their positions on the original negatives and I apparently took this one while at "Theo's Wreck." This makes sense as an after thought, as outside of the effect of the flash, the colors are heavily blue (which happens the deeper you go).
I daresay this is one of the prettiest pictures I've every taken. Always half serious, half fooling when I try to do artsy shots like this, I'm amazed at how well this came out. I think the bubbles add to the scene rather than detract. I'm probably a good 90 - 100 feet down, next to the top side of the wreck (as it lays on its port side), looking past the starboard side.
Remember the wreck lays on its port side. Here's a shot of the mooring line, looking down the starboard hallway of the wreck. That's my sister on the edge of the photo.
You can barely make out the wreck in this picture; this could have been taken on our safety stop, but considering the positions of the divers, I get the feeling I might have also taken this shot on the way down. I don't recognize any of the divers though.