Saturday July 22, 2000 : We boarded the Margie II, located at Teach's Lair Marina with Captain Art "The Legend" Kirchner at the helm, and were underway out of Hatteras Inlet by about 7:45 am for a 2 hour boat ride out to the Dixie Arrow. The Dixie Arrow is a WWII wreck that was sunk by U-71 on March 26, 1942. Wave size on the way out seemed to range from 2 to 3 feet, with an occasional 4 footer thrown in to knock people off balance.
We arrived at the Dixie Arrow around 10:00 a.m. or so, and within 10 to 15 minutes most of us were in the water. My buddy and I descended into the warm, blue water, and the wreck's structure started coming into view at about 10 feet below surface. The viz was STELLAR :-) !! As it turned out, we hooked the wreck's stern section back by the propeller. Something that surprised me about this particular dive was that, even though I had been diving on the same part of this wreck only about 6 weeks ago, it somehow seemed entirely different to me this time. When we got to the bottom, I tied-off my reel line and we proceeded to swim toward the bow along the wreck's port side. Many large amberjack were seen, as well as stingrays and angelfish. Even though some reported seeing sharks in the area, I didn't see any. I also spotted a couple arrow crabs that had taken up residence in some nooks in the wreckage and was able to coax them out so that we could take a closer look. After putting out about 100' +/- of reel line, we started moving back toward the anchor line to spend the remainder of our time there. I took a few minutes to check out a large wooden structure off the wreck's stern before heading back up the anchor line with my buddies. Total time-in-water was 35 minutes at a max. depth of 92 feet. This is definitely a very nice & interesting wreck that offers lots of relief and places to explore :-) .
After a nice long surface interval, Saturday's second dive took us closer to shore to a Navy tug boat sunk as an artificial reef (some know this as the "J.C. Tug" I believe). My buddy and I were both in the water by approx. 2:30 pm. The viz here was considerably less than at the Dixie Arrow, and the water cooler as well. To be completely honest, I tend not to like the nicely sanitized, intact, and perfectly straight-up-right "artificial" wrecks as much as the "real" things, but this dive certainly has it good points. The wreck is small and easy to find your way around on. There are some easy swim-throughs for those that like penetrating wrecks. Also, most people got the opportunity to see some of the Sand-Tigers that happened to be cruising nearby (I counted about 4 or 5). My buddy and I spent most of our time checking out some of the critters hanging out on the side of the wreck. While passing over the deck near the bow, I also found a chisel just ahead of the wheel house. Once on the surface, my buddy let me know that during a moment when I was checking out some nook or cranny on the wreck, a rather large, plump 6-foot Sand Tiger actually swam by me within a few inches of my butt !! Total time-in-water was about 38 minutes, with a max. depth of about 80 feet.
Sunday July 23, 2000 : Departed from Teach's Lair Marina at 7:45 am to go check-out the Dixie Arrow again. Since we did the stern of the wreck the other day, today we were going to explore the bow. We arrived at the wreck at about 10:00 am, and after getting tied-in, we spotted some water spouts off of the dive boat's port side. After waiting 5 to 10 minutes for them to dissipate, we buddied-up, and in the water by 10:15 am. At about the 10 feet below the surface, the structure of the wreck started coming into view...the viz was STELLAR...AGAIN !! We continued descending down the anchor line toward the wreck. At a depth of about 30 feet, many large beams and plates on the forward deck came into view....some relatively straight...and some twisted and mangled. There were also many pieces of wreckage off to the wreck's starboard side. Off in the sand, one or two well-camouflaged stingrays were spotted. While crossing over to the wreck's port side, the first of many Sand-Tigers came into view. This one seemed relatively small at only about 4 feet or so. There was a large bulkhead toward mid-ship that seemed to go straight up about 20 feet. While checking out this "mini wall," a large amberjack with a hook-and-line trailing out of the corner of its mouth caught my attention. It seemed almost as though it was slowly trying to get closer to me. I also tried to calmly approach it to get close enough to see how deeply embedded the hook was in the fish's mouth. However, the fish only let me get so close and then decided it wanted nothing to do with me. With a few quick thrusts of its tail, it was quickly out of reach. Soon, 5 or 6 other larger sharks came into view. After checking out and interacting with some of the other numerous forms of marine life, we swam back to the anchor line and ascended from the depths to do our safety-stop on the hang bar. Total time-in-water was 34 minutes, with a max. depth of 95 feet being reached off in the sand. Due to thunderstorms approaching from the south, Captain Art called off Sunday's second dive to the F.W. Abrams. The up-side of this was that this meant we could get on the road for the drive home earlier than we expected.