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Key West commissioner says artificial reef still a go |
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Written by Michael Wheat
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Thursday, August 21 2008 |
 "It isn't on, it isn't over," said City
Commissioner Bill Verge of plans to sink the USS Hoyt Vandenberg off
Key West to create an artificial reef and diving destination.
The ship is now docked in Virginia where it will remain at least until hurricane season is over. And then, it's anyone's guess.
Escalating
costs and evaporating finances have stalled the Vandenberg project, and
it's uncertain whether the ship will ever come to Key West.
It will cost $8.45 million to scuttle the Vandenberg according to the most recent estimate.
A
bank consortium consisting of BB&T, Orion and First State Bank
offered an initial combined investment of $4.6 million at the project's
outset but scaled that back to $3.2 million when progress came to a
halt. Other funding pledges include:
-- Monroe County, $2 million
-- City of Key West, $1.3 million
-- U.S. Maritime Administration, $1.3 million
-- Tourist Development Council, $1 million
-- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, $1 million
This leaves a funding gap of $1.85 million that needs to be raised either through private donations or more government earmarks.
District
IV Commissioner Barry Gibson said the City Commission is "still
interested" but that considering finances, the project "sounds like
it's becoming an unreality."
But Verge was upbeat. "This
investment will make money for 100 years," he told the Keynoter. He
went on to project that free media coverage from the scuttling would be
valued at $40 million, citing interest from "Good Morning America," the
Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" and other national and international
outlets.
Jackie Harder, President of the Key Largo Chamber of
Commerce and champion of the Spiegel Grove scuttling, said "sinking
ships these days is very, very difficult...it's a real tough thing to
do."
The total cost of sinking the 510-foot Spiegel Grove in 2002
was $1.4 million; $868,000 was provided by the Monroe County Tourism
Development Council. The difference was made up by a $300,000
allocation from the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce Artificial Reef
Committee and a medallion-purchasing program involving local dive shops
including a $250,000 guarantee from Divers Direct. There is currently
$98,000 left on the bank note which is due in 2013.
Harder said that the success of the Spiegel Grove project is due, in large part, to continuing community support.
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Mini-season lobster hunt is maxi-fatal |
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Written by Michael Wheat
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Monday, August 11 2008 |
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Five deaths in two days. If this were bird flu, instead of spiny lobsters, we'd be calling the CDC.
We've either got ourselves an annual mini-season or an annual mini-epidemic.
Five deaths in two days. About average for South Florida's amateur lobster chase, said the Coast Guard's James Harless.
Officially,
four divers perished during those famously frantic, infamously beery
two days. Then, on Saturday, the Coast Guard suspended the search for a
63-year-old diver who had gone missing 12-miles off the coast of Vero
Beach on Thursday morning. He was presumed to be the fifth fatality.
EXTREME SPORT
Five
deaths in two days. Stats like that lend lobster diving, a sport
pursued by so many out-of-shape, out-of-practice and occasionally
drunk-out-of-their-mind middle-age sofa jockeys, the aura of an extreme
sport.
Five deaths in two days are the kind of stats that evoke
the sense of romantic danger that comes with climbing Mount Everest.
Five deaths (along with a couple hundred arrests) among those bobbing
for Florida lobster evoke a sense of an offshore party gone mad.
Somehow,
Florida's gun-wielding game hunters, who have all winter to wreak
mayhem on one another, manage to keep their death toll down to about
one a year. During the 2006-07 season, only one hunter was killed from
a firearm accident. (Two other fatalities were recorded after hunters
fell out of their tree stands.)
SAFETY COURSE
The
annual number of hunting fatalities took a marked drop in 1991 after
the state started requiring a safety course for anyone applying for a
hunting license. In the decade before the safety course was adopted,
Florida averaged more than six hunting fatalities a year.
But any
fool can get a lobster license. No safety course required. And
mini-season death tolls are only rivaled, among Florida's festive
events, by the annual bloodletting Daytona Beach calls Bike Week: 20
bikers died in 2006, eight died in 2007 and this year's event left
seven dead. Of course, the biker deaths are stretched over a 10-day
period. Mini-season losses are jammed into 48 hours.
Petty
Officer Harless, a native of Ohio, witnessed his first mini-season and
admitted, ''I've never seen anything like this.'' He suggested that
not-so-young or not-so-fit divers are often done in by the unexpected
exertion.
Steve Lamp, a professional fishing guide and boat
captain in Key West, is hardly surprised by the dire statistics
registered during the annual invasion of guys who haven't been diving
for five or six years and whose equipment has been collecting dust all
that time in the garage.
RULES IGNORED
Lamp,
a professional guide since 1983, said each season brings him new
worries that one of his Dream Catcher charters will run over some
bobbing lobster diver who didn't bother with a diving flag.
''Too many just don't pay attention to the rules,'' he lamented.
The
mini-season's good for the local economy, but some Keys hotels, he
said, eschew the lobster party boys with their legacy of discarded
lobster heads and damaged rooms.
Lamp notes that Fantasy Fest,
Key West's notoriously raucous Halloween party, also fills the town
with hard-partying out-of-towners. But he noted an important
distinction: ``They aren't going out on the water the next morning and
diving for lobster.''
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Vandenberg artificial reef plans sinking fast |
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Written by Michael Wheat
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Monday, July 21 2008 |
 Efforts to scuttle a 520-foot former
military ship off Key West as an artificial reef now appear to be
sinking faster than any vessel could.
The
cost to put the USS Hoyt Vandenberg on the sea floor seven miles off
the island is now $8.45 million -- 3.9 times higher than the $2.1
million estimated when the project was proposed in 2001.
Now, Key
West City Commissioner Bill Verge says it might be best just to cut
losses and sell the Vandenberg to a scrap yard for around $2 million.
That's because banks helping finance the deal are starting to get
skittish, he says.
"Well, it will be clean
scrap, because they spent several million dollars cleaning it," says
County Commissioner Sonny McCoy.
The
banks -- BB&T, First State Bank and Orion -- originally offered to
invest a combined $4.6 million toward the scuttling but stopped funding
it at $3.2 million.
Others financing the deal include Monroe
County, the city of Key West (which holds title to the ship), the state
and the U.S. Maritime Administration. However, none of the governmental
agencies have released any money. All are waiting for the scuttling
first -- which increasingly looks like it won't happen.
"If I had to place a guess, I'd say we're going to scrap the deal," City Commissioner Barry Gibson says.
"I
feel badly that so many people did so much work," Commissioner Teri
Johnston added. "It looks like it's not going to come to fruition. I
would be very surprised in these economic times if someone had another
million and a half to contribute."
The ship is docked at Colonna's Shipyard in Virginia.
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Miracle rescue for Taiwanese divers |
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Written by Michael Wheat
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Thursday, May 01 2008 |
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Taipei - Eight Taiwanese scuba divers have been rescued nearly 48 hours
after going missing off the island's south, the coastguard said on
Monday.
In a remarkable feat of endurance, one of the divers managed to swim
ashore and told rescuers where they could find the others, a
spokesperson said.
"Five were plucked from the sea by helicopters at dawn Monday and at
around 10.47am (02H47 GMT) the last two missing divers were rescued,"
the spokesperson said.
"They all remained conscious but appeared exhausted. They are now hospitalised," he said.
The six men and two women, all experienced divers, went diving at
10.30am on Saturday near Chihsingyen (Seven Star Rock) off Kenting
national park, but failed to return to their boat an hour later as
scheduled.
After a lengthy wait for rescuers, the group's coach Ding Bo-ling set
off on a more than 10-hour swim for shore, finally reaching land before
midnight Sunday at Taimali, 76 kilometres (47 miles) further north.
The remaining divers saved energy by floating on their backs and held hands to avoid being separated, local ERA TV reported.
Five helicopters and nine patrol boats had been dispatched for the
round-the-clock rescue operations, while the divers' relatives also
hired fishing boats to join the search.
In a similar accident in the area nine years ago, six divers were
washed away by strong ocean currents, and four of them were rescued
after 30 hours.
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Treasure hunter to set out from Miami, seeking $100 million in gold |
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Written by Michael Wheat
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Saturday, March 22 2008 |
 Miami - The treasure is out there: a fortune in shipwrecked silver, gold bullion and centuries-old artifacts, in the crystalline waters of the Caribbean, just waiting to be found. And Burt Webber Jr. is confident he'll find it.
"It's not just about getting rich," said Webber, referring to at least $100 million in riches that went to the bottom after the Spanish galleon Concepción foundered on the Silver Bank, about 80 miles north of the Dominican Republic, in 1641. "It is also history, the mystique of it all. It is just fascinating."
Now 65, Webber won renown as a treasure hunter in 1978 when he first located the Concepción and recovered booty then valued at $14 million. But more remains, and when Webber and his 13-member crew head down the Miami River aboard the Ocean Lady next week, they will take with them an unprecedented array of high-tech hunting gear.
Webber, who learned to dive in stone quarries of his native Pennsylvania, custom-designed some of the equipment aboard the chartered 128-foot Ocean Lady: battery-powered jet boots for the divers, and super-sensitive, hand-held metal detectors capable of locating cannons or anchors hidden beneath ranges of coral, for example.
As an expedition leader, Webber is driven and encyclopedic in his knowledge of shipwrecks and maritime history. Through literature and lore, he caught the fever of sunken treasure at an early age, and he recounts the history of shipwrecks with boyish excitement.
Nuestra Señora de la Concepción left Havana at the peak of hurricane season in 1641 laden with gold bullion, pieces of eight, silk, even Chinese Ming Dynasty porcelain. After running aground, the crew piled treasure on the reef, and from there it was picked up by an English pirate ship.
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