Franjista Barge

[Admin]

County Decription:
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[Bayesj]

I'm not aware of a Franjista tug - just the Franjista barge. It was completely torn apart by the hurricanes of 04 and 05 - but that just made it a better fish habitat. It holds grouper, snapper, and sometimes legal sized AJ's.

[Mikey]

Our first dive, on 4 Aug 07, was on the Frangista Barge, a 195’ long hopper barge sitting upright on a sandy bottom in 85’ of water, running east/west with the bow pointing west. The sides of the barge have completely collapsed and are lying almost flat on the bottom, on both the port and starboard sides. The port side has a bit more vertical development than the starboard side, but neither is more than 2’ off the bottom. The stern rises about 25 off the bottom and the flat bow sticks up about 15’. The bottom of the barge has almost 6 inches of sandy silt covering most of it. There is a small area of rebar just forward of the stern area where a number of fish were hanging out. The stern itself is opening up due to rust and wave action, and is fairly easy to penetrate, although there is an extensive amount of steel reinforcement and other debris inside. The bow is too narrow to penetrate safely. Most of the large fish seemed to hangout near the stern. There were some large Red Grouper, Gag Grouper, and Red Snapper plus a number of White Grunts. I also saw a couple of large Sheepshead. There were several schools of Amberjack swimming around, including three or four big enough to shoot. There were several Flounder lying in the sand on either side of the wreck. Large Queen Angelfish, a lot of Butterflyfish, plus a lot of Beaugregories and other Damselfish were scattered around the site. There were also some Mother-In-Law Fish lurking in the shadows. Near the starboard bow section I saw a school of a dozen large Leatherjackets. It’s the first time I’ve seen Leatherjackets around here in a long time. I did not see the Goliath Grouper that normally inhabits the barge. Visibility was 20-30 feet and the bottom temperature was 80 degrees. As I lift bagged the anchor up, I was surrounded by a large school of small Atlantic Spadefish. A school of Amberjack also followed me up for awhile. The thermocline was at 60’ where the temperature rose to 84 degrees. Visibility above the layer was over 100’. There was also no wind or current, so I was hanging directly under the boat and could see it clearly while I did my deep stop. Several large Barracuda swam nearby, but didn’t come within 50’ of me. Water temperature at the safety stop was 85 degrees.

[Mikey]

Our second dive was on the Frangista Barge, a 195’ hopper barge sitting upright on the sand at 85’. The bow points to the west and stands about 15’ off the bottom. The stern is to the east and stands about 25’ off the bottom. The sides have collapsed so most of the wreck is pretty flat although there is some rebar near the stern giving a bit of vertical development. There is also debris off either side which has one or two feet of vertical relief. The stern can be penetrated, although it is a tight squeeze between the skin and the reinforcing angle iron inside. The bow is too narrow to penetrate. There were large schools of Amberjack and Atlantic Spadefish swimming around the wreck. There were also Red Snapper near the stern and Gag Grouper hanging our off to the sides. Large Queen Angelfish and Butterflyfish inhabit most of the wreck. Beaugregories can be found most everywhere. There is a small school of large Leatherjackets swimming around. This is the only place I’ve seen them in the Destin area. There were also several Trunkfish (Boxfish), including a Cowfish, on the wreck. Flounder were sitting on the sand off the stern and around the sides of the wreck. Visibility was about 50’ and the water temperature was once again 86-87 degrees from the surface to the sand.

[Mikey]

Our first dive was on the Frangista Barge, also called the Hopper Barge. It’s a 195’ hopper type barge seven nautical miles east of the Destin Pass. It’s lying upright on a flat, sandy bottom in 85’ of water with the bow pointing west. The sides of the barge have completely collapsed and are lying almost flat on the bottom, on both the port and starboard sides. The port side has a bit more vertical development than the starboard side, but neither is more than 2’ off the bottom. The stern rises about 18’ off the bottom and the flat bow sticks up about 15’. There is a small area of rebar and barge parts just forward of the stern area where a number of fish like to hang out. The stern itself is opening up due to rust and wave action, and is fairly easy to penetrate, although there is an extensive amount of steel reinforcement and other debris inside. There is currently a lot of space underneath the stern where fish like to hangout, but this space changes weekly depending on the shifting sands. Sometimes it is completed closed off and at other times you can actually swim under the stern. Most of the large fish seem to hangout near the stern. The recent storms have broken open the port side of the bow section making it fairly easy to penetrate, although it is cramped inside. There were plenty of fish on the wreck including some small Amberjack, Red Snapper, Silver Grunts, Triggerfish, and some nice sized Flounder. A large school of Atlantic Spadefish almost continuously circles over the stern section. Within the school of Spadefish, there were a few Bonita and a number of Blue Runners. There were also a few Barracuda cruising the area. On the wreck, there were Angelfish, Butterflyfish, and a few Mother-In-Law Fish plus a fair amount of bait fish and fry. On this particular dive I also spotted a 8 inch Scrawled Cowfish feeding on the stern section, a very large (30 inches or better) Leatherjacket hanging out in the debris just forward of the stern section, and a 12 inch Puffer (Porcupine Fish) about halfway along the starboard side of the wreck. There was no current anywhere. Water temperature throughout the water column was 78 degrees and visibility was 40’ to 50’ with vertical visibility being better than horizontal. The water felt cooler during the safety stop even though my computer said it was also 78 degrees there. This time of year, the surface temperature tends to be a bit lower than the bottom temperature as the cool nights tend to rob heat from the shallower waters.