Trip to the Skycliffe, Boynton Beach

[denise]

This past weekend, six of us dived the Sky Cliff off Boynton Beach with Captain Larry of Six Pack Divers. The Sky Cliff is a 320 foot long freighter, and she sits upright in 200 feet of water less than a mile from the shore! This wreck is covered in soft corals and sea fans, and is home to a lot of fish life. Despite ten plus years under the water, the wreck is still intact and in good condition.

It was a short 15 minute trip out to the dive site, we donned our gear (3 bottles each), and hopped into the 76 degree water. Current is usually VERY strong on the Sky Cliff, but was non-existent on Sunday! We were dropped in close proximity to the wreck and we did a free descent down. Our descent took about one I-2 minutes, and we drifted right onto the bow. We made our way up along the decks (160 feet), we passed staircases, ladders, railings all intact and covered with a variety of life. Visability was perfect, more than 100 feet!! Lots of life swimming around too, big angelfish, snappers, and some of the BIGGEST groupers I have ever seen, they were easily 200+ pounds! Water temperature on the bottom was 75 degrees.



Richard exploring the main deck of the Sky Cliff

Halfway up the wreck, we dropped down into the cargo holds (saw more groupers) and continued our exploration at a depth of 200 feet. We swam through three large holds and met the main superstructure of the wreck. It was massive (seven stories tall, we didn't get to explore it due to limited bottom time), and we exited the cargo hold via a crack in the wreck, and swam back towards the bow section.

At the top of the bow, we looked back down and easily saw over halfway back down the wreck! Another big grouper here, this one grunted loudly at us!!



After 20 minutes we shot our lift bag and left the wreck. We could see the outline of most of the wreck as we lifted off and started our slow assent back to the surface. Our deco started at 110 feet. We deco-ed for the next 45 minutes (on 50/50 from 60 feet), and as we made our way up through the water we saw lots of big barracuda and amber-jacks.



On the surface we were met by Larry and still flat calm seas. Perfect viz, perfect sea conditions, and nice weather, we couldn't ask for more. We had a fantastic dive and Congrats to Rachel, Scott and Richard who graduated NAUI Trimix I!


Mark exploring the cargo holds on the Sky Cliff


Flat calm seas!!


Our first NAUI Trimix I Class of 2008

More Pictures....