USS Strength

[eric myers 2]

Last week when I was on vacation I also dove the USS Strength, an 1940's navy minesweeper. We descended the tag line to the wheelhouse where I did an immediate penetration through up and out the top. There were quite a few lines and you tell the structure was weakening a little bit but it was still doable. Then I proceed to encircle the wreck, reviewing it and taking it all in! The visibility that day was only 20' because the gulf has not had the chance to calm down vis wise from Katrina and the others. But to someone from MN the vis still seemed pretty good. I looked into port wholes with my light and so on. Apparently, the Navy Diving school was still using the sunken vessel up until a few years ago and there was extensive damage to the forward hull area where they must have use some ordanance to blow her into two big pieces up front. The wreck was really cool!

After that dive we went to a sunken bridge span and I was hanging with the DM who had a spear gun and was looking for a wicked huge "Jew" fish or group but to no avail!








Allied Warships
USS Strength (AM 309)
Minesweeper of the Admirable class


Navy: The US Navy
Type: Minesweeper
Class: Admirable 
Penant: AM 309 
Built by: Associated Shipbuilders (Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.) 
Ordered: 
Laid down: 4 Oct, 1943 
Launched: 28 Mar, 1944 
Commissioned: 30 Sep, 1944 
End service: 19 Jul, 1946 
 
History: Decommissioned 19 July 1946 at Orange, Texas
Struck from the Naval Register 1 April 1967.
Sunk in Gulf of Mexico (date unknown) as a fishing and diving reef off the coast, south of Panama City, Florida, U.S.A. 

[Shooter]

  The big groupers are very tasty but the jew fish (p.c. name = goliath grouper) are protected :o They can't be speared legally. They do get very brave and will come up to you and try to take your stringer of fish.They see divers and its like ringing the dinner bell. You just have to let them know who is boss! Its a good thing they don't have sharp teeth. ;D

p.s. a little bit of narcosis can help when challenging a 3-400 lb for dominance of the wreck