Trip report for Morehead City, NC (4/26 & 4/27)

The weather on both days was absolutely unbelievable. It was sunny and 75-80F on both days. Water temperature was 73 on the surface and 63 at depth. Visability at all three wrecks we visited was somehwere between 50-60 feet.

We dove with Discovery Diving on Saturday. The first wreck we dove was the USS Schurz. The wreck as in 110 fsw, to the sand. It seemed like a very interesting wreck. There were a couple of boilers rising from the middle of the wreck and you could see the boiler tubes inside through holes that had erroded through. You could also make out piping, large gears, and parts of a shaft, indicating that we were in the engineering spaces. The only bad part of the dive was that the wreck was completely covered in bait fish. Where the visiblity would have been great, it was hard to make out many details of the wreck because the vis was limited by the number of bait fish. There were also quite a few lionfish all over the wreck and some of them were quite large. Also making their way through the bait fish were 2 or 3 sand tiger sharks.

The second dive was on the USCG Spar, an artificial reef. This was an absolutely amazing dive. On our initial descent, we noticed several amber jacks above the wreck. As we made out the outline of the wreck, we started seeing bait fish and several sand tiger sharks. The sand tiger sharks above the wreck were about 3-4 feet long. As we hit the deck of the wreck, it seemed as if the sharks got bigger. I would estimate 5-6 feet at the deck of the Spar. We swam up the port side of the wreck and noticed that below us the sharks got even bigger. Most of the sharks at the sand were greater than 7 feet and they were huge. We never went below 93 feet, and our bottom time was about 20 minutes. If I didn't mention it before, the sharks were AMAZING.

On the second day, Sunday, we dove with Olympus Diving. This day we dove the U-352 first, followed by the USCG Spar. The dive on the Spar was the same as the day before...and we were glad to dive it again. Being among the sand tiger sharks is unbelievable.

The pinnicle of the trip, however, was diving the U-352. We tied off on the aft port shaft of the boat. Once the sub was in view, I became very excited. Our dive plan, that we did stick to, was to go up the starboard side and back down the port side. We stopped along the way to look at the conning tower (looking inside), the deck gun mount, the torpedo tubes, and then back down the starboard side. The outer hull has pretty much erroded away but the boats details were unmistakeable. By the time we made our way back to the ascent line, we were at our no-deco time limit (with 1750# left) and had to head up. Our bottom time was about 20 minutes. When I do go back to Morehead City, I will definately want to dive the U-boat again.

On the second day, I was able to take a few pics and a couple of videos. I have posted the links to the videos (on You Tube) below. I'm not a professional videographer, but I hope you enjoy them anyway. I have also added some of the pics to my picture gallery.

If anyone has any questions, please give me a shout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i02EdQBkZBI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WUpoWxUFdM

AWESOME DIVE REPORT!!!

It sounds like you had a great time, which gets me excited to dive there. I have been trying to do some diving down there for a while now, hopefully over the summer I will.

Please tell me a bit more about the two charters you took. I know Olympus is the big name down there, but I am sure that they are not the only game in town. What were the differences between the charters, and what are the costs?

Ace

Thanks for the report!! We just booked with Olympus to dive with them on 15 and 16 August. Hopefully, we get to see the sand tigers and the U-352. Those are my two main reason for going.
Ace, check your calendar and see if you can join us that weekend. The 15th/16th is Friday/Saturday. We're on the 2-tank extended dive on Friday and the regular 2-tank on Saturday, We're thinking about signing up for an inshore 1 tank for later that day if we have enough energy left over.

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Originally Posted by acelockco

Please tell me a bit more about the two charters you took. I know Olympus is the big name down there, but I am sure that they are not the only game in town. What were the differences between the charters, and what are the costs?

Ace

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Ace,
The cost with Discovery Diving was $105.00 and with Olympus it was $135.00 (including the $10.00 surcharge for fuel). As for the differences, there was not much difference in the crews.
For Discovery, there were only 9 divers on Saturday. The boat (Outrageous V) was not crowded and there was plenty of room for everyone. On the way back from the second dive, most everyone slept topside in the sun. Did I mention how great the weather was.

For Olympus on the Sunday dive, there were more divers (maybe 12-16). The boat (Midnight Express) was a bit more crowded. I did initially feel that we needed a bigger boat for the number of divers we had. However, as we hit the dive sites and people started getting ready for their dives, it wasn't that bad.

My overall opinion is that you can't go wrong with either outfits. I will tell you that there is no guarantee where you will dive. Neither outfit decides until the morning of the dive and that is usually based on input from the divers.

Hope this helps.

One last thing I forgot to mention for both charters...

Each dive trip (full day trip) includes two dives. You leave sometime around 7 am and your back by 3-4 pm. There are only two dives because the wrecks are in deeper water (95-110 fsw). Therefore, you need the Surface Interval (SI) after your first dive so that you have some bottom time on your second dive. The SI's are usually 1.5 - 2 hours.

Thanks for the trip report. It sounds like you enjoyed yourself tremendously! Even though it's not really the sort of diving that gets me excited (other than the part about the sharks), I do love to hear when people have had a great dive experience. Personally, I simply have little interest in visiting wrecks unless they are mature artificial reefs without much metal showing. As such, my favorite wreck to date is the USAT Liberty Glo at Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia.

I may change my mind, though, when the Royal Navy finally sinks 8 aircraft off the coast of Phuket. This was supposed to happen tomorrow, but the weather and sea conditions have made it impossible, so the sinking has been postponed until late in the year when conditions improve. I expect our newest dive site here to be sort of like a playground for divers. The aircraft are so big that they will be penetrable even by recreational divers. And can you imagine 8 of them all together in one spot?