Artificial reef for florida
Diving enthusiasts will be thrilled to hear that a 13-year project to create an enormous artificial reef for sport diving and fishing has been completed in Key West, Florida, with the final stage being the sinking of a World War II warship for divers to explore...
Florida's coral reefs have long been popular with divers from all over the world and now the artificial reef will offer a whole new world to explore under the water.
As well as taking pressure off the existing reefs, the new reef will offer a unique opportunity to explore the 160-metre-long Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg ship, which has become the second largest vessel in the world ever purposely sunk to become an artificial reef.
The ship was last used by the military to track missiles and spacecraft and, for 20 years, served as a missile tracker throughout the height of the Cold War and was retired in 1983.
It is second in size only to the USS Oriskany, which was sunk off Florida's Pensacola Beach in 2006.
It took just under two minutes to sink the Vandenberg after demolition experts triggered a series of explosives that lined both sides of the ship's bilge area below the waterline. The ship settled upright on the floor of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary as planned.
The ship should already be attracting fish; "The marine life grows on the wreck and the little fish come and the big fish eat the little fish and just like that," said Joe Weatherby, who organised ‘Artificial Reefs off the Keys' in 1996 and selected the Vandenberg from 400 decommissioned military ships rusting away across the country for this latest artificial reef.
The Vandenberg's sinking also completes the Florida Keys Shipwreck Trail, a series of intentionally sunk vessels that begins off Key Largo with a former Navy landing ship dock, the Spiegel Grove, and ends with the Vandenberg.
The ship will be open for public diving as of tomorrow, Saturday 30th May 2009. Check out the Florida Keys Tourism Council's website to see footage of the sinking of the Vandenberg.
Picture by everystock