Diving the Templet

Diving The Templete, Panama City Florida

I am not sure what time we arrived back at the launch but it was near dark. Now you gotta believe that this old Michigan boy was tired. We had driven, almost non-stop from Michigan, stopped to dump our gear at the double wide, went to the launch and went diving. We made the dive I just described and arrived at the dock around dark. We were all spent. We had not even eaten since breakfast!

We loaded the boat on the trailer and headed for what was going to be home for a couple days. We first had to stop at the dive shop to fill our tanks for the coming days diving. I sure the heck had nothing on my mind but food and rest but we had to get this done.

As we were waiting for the tanks to fill I noticed Arnie looking over the spear-guns. There are pretty expensive and I knew the kid had barely enough money for food. His mother had given him enough money for food, I guess but nothing extra.

Right next to the spear-guns were a selection of bang-sticks. These are used for serious fish getting. They are a pole with a rubber sling on the hand end. It is like a Hawaiian sling. Then other end is fitted with a head that takes a pistol shell or even a shotgun shell. This is set off when the end of the stick is rammed against the fish. It then sets off the shell and blows a hole in said fish. They are pretty darned effective too, as we were to see the next day. I think the thing was 120 bucks or so.

Arnie decided he just had to have one. He selected one that used a .45 cal shell. I am pretty sure that is what it was as it was quite a while ago. It was a big one anyway. We all told him he was nuts to be blowing his food money on a dang bang-stick that he could not even use in Michigan! He was not hearing any of that though. He just had to have the biggest and badest, it seemed. I preferred eating myself. Well he would not listen and bought it, with some help from Dave, I think.

Dave’s idea of dinner was the local Burger King. By then I didn’t really care all that much. All I wanted is nourishment and I was not caring what it was. We all piled in the van and headed out for chow.

After eating Dave wanted to shoot the bull with the guy that owned the Dive shop but I wanted sleep. Bob agreed with me and we headed for the doublewide, which I mentioned was behind the shop.

This place was not normally used except as it was now. Just a place for out of towners to crash. It was not all that clean and had a musty smell. This is common in a humid place like Florida. Good enough for me!

I turned out the lights and hit the sack. Aaaah, now for some sleep. I lay there for a minute and the thought of cockroaches popped into my head. I don’t like cockroaches and Florida cockroaches are the mothers of all cockroaches. To get people to visit the Sunshine state, they renamed them. They call the pimento roaches but they ain’t a kidding this feller. They look like a roach and they live like a roach and that means they are a dang Giant Cockroach to me! They are big enough to be able to hear walking in the dark. My imagination had me hearing the suckers too.

I was stationed in Jacksonville in 57 and one night I woke up and had to make a visit to the head. On the way I stopped at a drinking fountain for a drink. Hummm What else J I got my drink and looked down and there on the floor was the biggest dang cockroach I had ever seen! If it wasn’t three inches long it wasn’t there! I had an aversion to roaches and stomped on it. I swear that I did nothing but piss it off and maybe sprang its ankle! Well I did squersh it a little, I guess. I guess I should have waited until I had shoes on too! I looked at him and I swear he was getting ready to jump me! I just headed for the john, a sliding my stomping heel along the floor. I did that because a little of his squershings were stuck to my heel.

I did my business and when I came back out, he was gone. To this day I think I only upset him and am sure he is waiting for his chance to repay me.

This was going through my mind as I was trying to go to sleep. It didn’t help but finally I did manage to drop off. I didn’t even hear the others when they came in.

About 430 in the morning the lights came on. There was that damn fool Dave, all frisky and fresh, yelling that it was time to get ready. As I said, we had filled all our tanks the night before and they were already loaded on the boat, in their racks. Our diving gear was also ready, all rinsed of salt water and stowed. I barely remembered doing that the night before.

We now had to get breakfast! Boy was I hungry! “Where we gonna eat, Dave” Burger King, of course, says he! Geeesh! L Oh well, Burger King it was. We jumped into the van and headed out. At the BK we each ordered what we wanted and Dave reminded we had better get our lunch too. He said we were gonna be out in the Gulf Stream and too far from shore to be coming back for lunch.

Oh well, Burger King breakfasts for breakfast, lunch and if I knew that crazy sucker, we would have burgers for dinner too. He lived to dive and nothing else matters to him. We each ordered a bag full off their breakfast menu and headed out. I did notice that Arnie ordered a bit puny but he at least had a dang bang-stick! Dave said he already had drinks aboard. I was afraid to ask what he had brought.

By the time we had launched the boat and were headed out, it was dawn and what a beautiful day it was! The sky was blue and not a cloud in sight. The sea gulls were screaming their morning greetings, as they circled us. Many pelicans were around the docks, waiting for a handout, as we slowly worked our way past them.

It always worried me when a seagull circled over me because they have a straight gut and will dump a load on you, just because they can.

We slowly headed out of the marina area, aiming for the open water. Dave said we were headed for a dive site called the Template. He said it was an old oil platform that was towed out and sunk for an artificial reef, as was the so-called wreck of yesterday. As with everything else we were to be diving, it was in 105 ft of water. It stood upright, with its top about 30 or 40 ft from the surface.

He said there ought to be a lot of fish on the Template because nobody had dived it since the last hurricane, which was two weeks previously. The fish were really attracted to the site and we ought to see some big ones. Red Snapper, Grouper, Amberjack, Barracuda, Morays and of course Shark were common. He also said the visibility would be better as it was far out into the Gulf Stream. He did not know how the current would be because it changed all the time.

If I remember right and I might have the times and distances off, the Template was about 40 or 45 miles off shore. Dave had the LORAN numbers and it should be easy to find.

We cleared the marina area and Dave opened it up. The water was like glass and the weather reports looked great! I don’t know how fast we were going but Bob and I went to the bow and watched the water rush past. Porpoise must have been waiting because they suddenly appeared on the bow wave and rode it for quite a ways. I had never seen this so it was a thrill. They would weave in and out of the wave and you could occasionally hear their cries of joy, as they were just enjoying the morning as much as we were. Eventually they seemed to tire of the sport and fell behind as we aimed for the far horizon.

We rode for quite a while like this until I noticed that the watercolor looked different far in front of us. Where we were at the present time the water was still a muddy color but out ahead it was a dark blue. We were far from shore now and could see no sign of land.

I pointed to it and yelled to Dave and asked what it was. He laughed and said it was the Gulf Stream. It is a defiant flow of water and was separate from the inshore water. Bob and I sat on the bow as we neared it and it sorta startled me as it slid quickly under our bow. WOW!!J What a rush!

As we looked down not we could see for 50 ft or more. It was hard to tell but as we watched it was amazing to see the fish we were running over. Some of those things were BIG but it was impossible to identify them, the speed we were going.

We rode for miles like that, still headed for the Template. Now it was getting exciting. I was miles from shore and the sky was blue and there was not a wave on the sea. The water was as nice and clear as I had ever seen and Dave had been convinced to check the anchor. As I looked ahead to where the water met the sky, it was almost impossible to define the juncture. It was as if we were in a giant blue bowl! Life was good. The constant roar of the outboard and watching the blue water flash past, under the bow, was mesmerizing and it was hard not to doze off. I looked back and saw that Dan was taking the opportunity to do just that. He was sprawled out on the deck, using a dive bag as a pillow.

I constantly scanned the horizon, watching for the marker buoy, Dave said was on the site. The buoy was a tall one, at least 10 ft, if I remember right and should be easy to see. I did not see a thing. It was neat watching behind the boat and seeing the wake cutting a straight line to the horizon. I was doing this when I felt an adjustment of the boats heading. I noticed the bend in the boats wake and turned to look forward. Far ahead, on the horizon, there was a beacon on top of a buoy. We were there! There were no other dive boats on the site and that was good.

Dave cut the engine and approached at a crawl. The sea was like a platter and didn’t even have any swells, other than the ones we had made. The water was a deep blue and seemed endless. We slid up to the buoy and went around it. I was buggy eyed trying to see what the hell we were gonna dive on. Saying I was excited and a bit apprehensive would be an understatement! I wanted in that beautiful water but had no clue as to what I would be seeing, other than what looked to be many shapes of fish, circling in the depths. Some came up to inspect us. Dave said they were Jacks (amberjacks) and one of the prime food fish we would be after. These were small ones but he said there were much larger ones to be seen.
Dave circled the area until his graph was painting the target. He backed off it a bit and dropped the anchor, in 105 ft of beautiful blue water. I was getting as hyper as Dave was. Bob and I were grinning like possums eating crap! We were ready. Dave finally cut the engine and all was quiet. Except for the gulls, of course. Squawking and milling about. Some were resting on the surface and I half expected a shark or some other critter to drag them down. It did not happen, much to my pleasure J

Now everything was business on the boat. Dave threw his gear on and said he was gonna go down to check the set of the anchor. Good idea, thinks me J He jumped in and down he went. A little later he was back and a grinning. He said he had never seen it better. Fish were all over the place and big fish. Dang! I was ready!

Dan handed Dave his spear gun and jumped in with Arnie following. Of course Arnie had his new Bang stick and was grinning like he was in his right mind! I nodded at Bob and he said he was ready. I jumped in and since we had agreed to meet at the anchor rope, I headed that wa. When I reached it I dropped down about 15 ft and waited on Bob.. Looking down I could not make out anything clearly except the bubbles of the descending divers. Bob swam up to me and gave me the thumbs up. We started dumping the air from the BC and started down holding onto the rope. It is much easier to control your assent that way.

I was in no big hurry, to get down to shoot fish, as the others were. I was not in any hurry to test our puny spearguns anyway. It was enough for me to just enjoy the sights and I was having a thrill of a lifetime.

As we went deeper everything started coming into view. What a view it was. The Template was made of tubing. The tubing was probably 5 ft in diameter and it looked like a huge bench. There is no way I have the ability to describe exactly what I saw so long ago but it was breathtaking. It was like swimming in an aquarium! Fish were everywhere! Bob poked me and pointed to the bottom and right next to the anchor was a giant sea turtle! It was slowly moving by, 50 ft below us. There were huge Barracuda everywhere. Huge fish that had to go 50 lbs or more! I mean there had to be a hundred barracuda if there was one. There were groupers that I would not have shot with a damn shotgun, they were so huge. There were huge schools of amberjack. I did not know what they were at the time but was soon to learn. There were many fish that I had no clue as to their identity. Thousands of them! Everywhere I looked there were fish. Many of the fish were huge!

We kept dropping until we were finally on the bottom. I just stood there, amazed at what I was seeing. I could see the others prowling the wreckage for prey. I watched their bubbles reaching for the surface, slipping around the structure, reaching for the surface. What a sight it was. The water on the bottom was crystal clear and I could have been perfectly happy just setting there and watching. I looked up and could make out the bottom of the boat, far above.

The barracuda were very curious. As I sat there on bottom, minding my own dam business, a half dozen 5 footers came up to inspect this strange sucker that had invaded their realm. I had no experience with these things and was a bit nervous, to say the least. I looked at Bob but he had wandered off in pursuit of game. I finally said to hell with it and started exploring myself. The fish just backed off and followed. How nice! L

The structure was covered with sponges and soft coral. There may have been hard coral but I can not remember. There were thousands of little fish, like you see in aquariums. Everywhere you looked there was life. That is why these artificial reefs were put here in the first place. The natural bottom is just sand. No rocks or anything as I recall. I always wondered how these little guys found their way to the reef area. Did they just drift around until the come to it It seems that would be rather dangerous to me!

I honestly can not remember if I even tried to make a kill on this dive. I doubt it as I was in a wonderland and was perfectly happy watching and exploring. I rose up off the bottom to the first cross brace, about 20 ft or so off the bottom. Like I said, these distances and such are probably a bit off as I am going on memory. It was quite a while ago.

I adjusted my buoyancy and just hung there, watching my dive partners as they prowled the reef. I could see Dave on the far side and he already had a fish on his stringer. We had to wear a stringer on our belt because we could not take the catch to the boat, every time we got one, because of the depth. We had those dive tables with had to adhere to and it would have been impossible if we went up the 100f t every kill.

Dave had a Jack of about 15 lbs. They seem to school to size. They will get to over 30 lbs or more and to see a school of them is awesome. The schools can number in the hundreds! Dave had the one on the stringer and was prowling for more. Dan was on the other side of Dave and was fighting one. He had speared it and it was on the end of the line and fighting like his life depended on it, which of course it did. I saw that he had a couple on his stringer already. Those guys are good!

I did not see Arnie but Bob was laying directly on the bottom, below me. I could see he was looking at something under the debris, aiming his spear gun , and I watched. All of a sudden I saw the gun come out of this hand and hit him in the mouth! He grabbed it and shoved his regulator back in his mouth. He looked around to see if anyone had seen his bonehead move but could not see me directly above him. I was to find out later that he might have been slightly narced and when he shot at the fish, he did not have a good grip on the gun. It jumped back with the same force as the spear, going forward and it was lucky it did hurt him and that he had the presence of mind not to panic. Bob panic Ain’t gonna happen. J

At that depth we only had about 25 minutes bottom time and it goes fast. I was prowling around on the top of the structure and Dan comes up to me and pointed down. His eyes were as big as saucers. He pointed to his belt and then down. I looked down and there was his stinger, 25 ft below, tied to the structure and a huge barracuda was circling it. I caught the drift right away. This huge fish wanted Dans fish and was gonna take them right off his stringer. His spear gun was laying right next to the stringer, for some reason. He wanted me to go down and spear the Cuda with my puny little spear gun. No my mama didn’t raise no Thomas Edison but I ain’t no idiot either. That fish was longer than my spear gun and those were not MY fish on the stringer!

Just then Arnie came up to me. I saw he had the bang stick. I looked at him and pointed at the stick and then down at the Barracuda. His eyes lit up and signs of intelligence appeared. What passes for intelligence in a 16 year old boy anyway.

Down he went, and the Cuda saw him coming. It eyed him and moved toward the kid. No fear in that dam fool, I gotta tell you. He reached out with the stick and then I heard or felt the concussion, not sure which, but that dang Cuda sure felt it. He stiffened out and died! Arnie had gotten him in the top of the head, which you can see by the picture, and the fight and light was gone out of the Cuda.

It was a thing to see and the kid was in hog heaven. He dove down, chasing his Cuda and latched onto it. It sure was a big feller, as you can see and he was one proud puppy.

I checked my time and air supply and it was getting near time to start up. Like I said, I can not remember if I had gotten anything or not. I might have. Dan and Dave had a bunch of fish! Dave had several Cudas, which he wanted for school projects and Dan had a beautiful 32 lb red snapper.

The kid had the barracuda and maybe some others but I can not remember. That was not the most important part of the dive to me.

We started out assent now. Our time was up and we followed the anchor line up. We made several safty stops on the way to breath off nitrogen, finally surfacing at the swim platform.

What a dive! I climbed aboard and took off my gear. I went to the platform to help the others with their gear. Fins, weight belts, tank with BCs attached and then the fish. What a load of fish they had. I have no idea how many they had. The pictures will tell the story

After we were all aboard we checked the time. We had another dive to do but it would be a while. As I think about it , it seems like Bob and I came up a bit before the others as we were lower on air. All that excitement seemed to have made us suck our tanks dry, I guess J

We each have to keep track of our bottom time and surface interval, because this was needed to be sure we breath off enough nitrogen before our next dive. We had to have around 3 hours on the surface before going down again. During this time we would eat and rest up and it was needed because diving is a rather demanding sport. It sure is a long time to do nothing though.

We strung all the fish from ropes we brought for jus this purpose. It was new, half inch nylon rope and should be plenty strong. Arnies Cuda went on first and then the others. We had one off the bow and another off the swim platform. You could look down into the clear blue water and watch them, hanging there, tails to the depths. There was no life in them but they were impressive fish!

As always, the surface interval seems to go on forever. After you have taken care of the fish and changed tanks, eaten and done everything else you could imagine, a lot of time is spent just laying around, killing time. Since Bob and I were the first up we would be the first to go back down. Dave spent some time free diving with the spear gun to pop an occasional Jack that was silly enough to come up to investigate him.

Dave decided to move the stern stringer, with Arnies Cuda, along with others, to the bow so they would not be in our way. I grabbed the rope and pulled on it to drag it around to the bow. All of a sudden it went slack! What the hell!! I looked down and the fish were spiraling into the depths. I yelled the rope had parted and everyone was diving down, trying to recover what fish they could before they were gone.

Most were retrieved, except for Arnie’s Cuda. I it was on the bottom and was gone. We looked at the rope and saw it had been cut. Cut by Arnie’s Cuda’s teeth! This was half-inch nylon rope and it had cut it like a knife.

Well we could get it on the next dive. It was not going anywhere. Ole’ Arnie looked like he could cry and I don’t guess I could blame him.

Finally the surface interval was over for Bob and I and we started getting our equipment on. The day and conditions were still perfect and I could not wait to get down to the bottom. Arnie was dancing around, whining about his Cuda and for us to not forget to hunt for it. I told the boy to settle down as there was nothing gonna get his Cuda before we got to it.

We adjusted our gear and jumped in. We flipped over into a surface dive and started kicking for the bottom, so far below. I could not see the barracuda but it had to be there somewhere. I stopped at the top of the structure and scanned the bottom. Dang, there it was! Ir at least part of it! The head and part of the body was laying where some dang ole shark had left it! I was a bit nervous swimming down to it because I knew there was no little fish did that to Arnie’s fish! Later we were to weigh what was left and it weighed 23 lbs. Dan is holding it in one of the pictures.

It was lying right on the bottom and nothing was around it, so I grabbed it and stuck it temporally on my stringer. As soon as the kid got down, it was all his!

I can not remember much more about this dive as it was a short one. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes before our bottom time was used up. I do remember one thing. Bob and I were cruising about 15 ft off the bottom and I looked up and saw the biggest dang barracuda I have ever seen. It was suspended above us, near one of the cross supports of the structure. That thing made Arnie’s look like a dang minnow. At least it seemed so to me! I grabbed Bob and pointed at it and he looked and started yelling in his regulator and shaking his head NO!!! He thought I wanted him to spear the thing and he was having none of that! Excitement out of BOB Whoda thunk J

Arnie was soon at my side, looking at what was left of his prize. He could tell it was his fish because of the hole in the top of its head that was made by the bang stick. I just shrugged and handed it off to him.

Later when were all back aboard the boat and Arnie was moaning about his fish I told the boy that I didn’t know what he was moaning about. He had gotten the fish. He had a picture of him with the fish. He could never afford having the whole fish mounted and he had the head, which would make a great head mount. That consoled him. You can not eat barracuda anyway.

He did get a head mount done on the thing and it looks darned right vicious!! Great mount!

Next will be the dive one the Empire Mica….