Exciting Adaptive Re-Use of Ship: Another Reason to Come to Sanibel

Although the Keys are best known as a premiere dive destination, the waters off of Sanibel Island now offer a unique diving site.

The USS Mohawk, a retired Coast Guard Cutter, was sunk on July 2. The vessel is the first official memorial reef dedicated to all US veterans. The Mohawk completed significant tasks such as informing General Dwight D Eisenhower that the weather was clearing for the D-Day invasion and launched 14 attacks against submarines between 1942 and 1945. To mark the warship's conversion into a dive site, a number of artifacts from St Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum have been hidden around it for (seasoned) divers to find.


The first person to locate a selection of items including an 18th century rum bottle, a non-explosive projectile dating back to the 17th century and a hand-drawn treasure map will win free passes to the museum in St Augustine and dinner for two at the Key West restaurant.

Scuba centers in the area applauded the action of the sinking, stating that there is a dual advantage in creating a reef of this sort and allowing the history to live on.

The newest artificial reef has quite a history and now it has become part of Charley's Reef system which sits in about 90 feet of water. The ship — with cannons and propeller intact — was sunk using a series of explosives, which were handled by the Lee County Marine Services Program and a Key West company called Reefmakers. Although there are several existing wrecks — including the Bayronto and Fantastico — off the coast of Southwest Florida, this is the first decommissioned military ship used for constructing a reef.

For those who know diving and divers, there is great optimism about this historical action. According to these connoisseurs of the deep, there are a lot of divers from all over the world who will come just to dive a particular wreck to cross it off their bucket list so to speak.

With the ship reaching the sea floor, it will only be a matter of time before a variety of marine life begins to call it home, making the site more attractive to divers. Although it will begin attracting fish immediately, it will take years, or even decades for other structures such as hard corals and sea sponges to take hold.

The sea floor in the Gulf is mainly sand so it should attract fish quickly. By next year it should have a lot of life on it.

Although the ship will be a welcome addition to the undersea landscape, some in the local dive community warn that it won't be the instant boon to the industry that some expect.

Two of the biggest issues for the new site will be the distance from shore and the costs, like fuel, associated with getting there, and the depth, which at 90 feet to the bottom will preclude most recreational divers from being able to explore the structure.

It will be available to advanced divers only since most divers are only certified to go about 60 feet. There may be other issues, however, holding back mass popularity. 80 percent of charter dives are around nine miles out, 15 percent are to around 20 miles and only about 5 percent go out further.

Technical divers are going to love it. There will be plenty to explore inside the ship. And because of the profile of the ship, the smokestack will be in only about 50 feet of water so there will be something for everyone to see.