Deborah

[Admin]

County Decription:
Deployed:
Depth:
Relief:

[Mikey]

Our first dive of the day was on the Deborah, a 135’ tugboat sunk 23 Jun 99 sixteen nautical miles south southeast of the Destin Pass. It doesn’t appear to be quite that big. It does appear to be similar to the Angelina B which makes it about 100’-120’ long with a classic H build bow used for pushing large barges. It’s lying upside down on a flat, sandy bottom in 135’ of water with the bow pointing west. The ship appears to have settled into the sand a good bit more than when I made a dive on it four years ago. There are only two ways to get into the interior now. About halfway along the starboard (southern) side, there is a dip in the sand where you can get under the ship. If you look up, there is an entrance through the walkway just big enough to fit through although there are several pieces of metal that can entangle a diver here. The better place to penetrate is by swimming under the H bow and entering just to the right of the wheelhouse. This area is a little larger and does not present as many entanglements, but it’s a bit deeper at 138 feet. The inside is very dark and there appears to be a good bit of silt. I did not penetrate very far, keeping my fins outside, since I did not have a good dive plan for this situation. Last time I was on the wreck, there was plenty of room underneath to enter and exit the wreck relatively safely and that’s what I had planned on this time. The bottom of the ship has a number of holes in it and I don’t think it will be long before it starts opening up to make penetration a lot easier. There were plenty of fish on the wreck including some nice sized Amberjack, some Red Snapper with a really large one (36 inches or more) joining me near the wheelhouse, a few Flounder, some nice sized Triggerfish, Atlantic Spadefish, Mother-In-Law Fish, some really large Silver Grunts, Angelfish, Barracuda, and a fair amount of bait fish. Water temperature on the bottom was 80 degrees and visibility was 60 to 70 feet or better. Rising above the wreck, you could pretty much see end to end, so it was probably over 100 feet once you got off the bottom. I could see the shadow of the dive boat circling over head and could see it clearly during my first deep stop at 70 feet. The water felt cooler during the safety stop even though my computer said it was also 80 degrees there.