http://ussmohawkreef.com The USS Mohawc CGC was sunk to form an artifical reef on
7/2/2012. I dove it just over a year after the sinking and there is a lot
of life here. We chartered the El Gavilan out of Placidia, FL (near Port Charlotte).
It’s a two hour boat ride each way, so this is an all day trip even if you are
already in town. When we got there the captain said there
were often many other boats there and given the good conditions for the day he
expected it to be packed. For whatever reason, we were the only dive boat
that day. Partly cloudy (or partly sunny if you’re a half full kind
of person), 95 air temp, 85 water temp, 1’ seas. This boat charter had a
sat phone for emergencies, because the reef is far enough out that radios might
not do the trick. Cell phones are also not an option.
There are mooring balls near the bow and stern of the wreck. There’s also
nothing but sand around the wreck so it should be no problem just dropping
anchor if the mooring balls are in use.
During the first dive, vis was around 35 feet. We swam
into the engine room, and through the bridge area. You can still throw
some of the toggle levers on the engine equipment. There are lots
of urchins and some coral or other growth I couldn’t identify forming on the
wreck. There was an abundance of life on the wreck as well. Very
large schools of fish (sorry I’m terrible at fish ID). Numerous
barracuda, and we encountered a LOT of jellyfish. Make sure you wear a
full length skin if you’re not using a wetsuit. On the port
side of the wreck during the first dive there were two very large Goliath
Grouper (aka jewfish).
During the second dive, the current picked up slightly (still very easy to
manage) but it spoiled the vis. Vis was around 15’. I guess the
grouper like low vis because I counted 8. One of them was simply massive,
I didn’t know they could be so large. Must have been well over 500 lbs,
it was the single most impressive creature I’ve seen in my 42 logged
dives. That includes sharks.
Anyway, this is a FANTASTIC dive site. The captain of "El
Gavilan" was a great guy. Discovery channel apparently chartered his
boat do do a show about the site just last week! I can’t wait to see the
show.
The only thing I can say negative about the site is the travel time. 4
hours of travel time on the water, plus (for me) 4 hours of driving to get to
the dock from Clearwater, FL. It was a long day - but well worth it!
There’s a detailed site about the wreck here:
http://ussmohawkreef.com/ The site includes video of the sinking of the Mohawk, and a "virtual"
dive tour.
We chartered the "six pack" boat for $125 a head. A lot for a
dive charter, but given that he probably burned 80 gallons of fuel and we were
on the boat for almost 7 hours - I thought it was worthwhile.
Although the bottom is at 90’, the stuff you want to see is really closer to 65
feet.
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