USS Oriskany/Morrison Springs Trip
27-29 July 2007
Pensacola, FL
I have finally gotten the time to sit down and
write up the most requested trip report I've ever done. Everyone wants to
know about the Oriskany. Well, here is the story.. On this trip is myself,
Dive Buddy Dee, Mark M2 and Bill F+10. Dee, Mark and I all work together
and Bill was in my Rescue class back in April. We had been trying to do a
Jacksonville trip, but when things started to not look so good with Jax, we
decided to do the trip we were planning to do in October. To dive the USS
Oriskany. And that's exactly what we did.. I called and booked us a
charter to the "Mighty O" through
MBT Divers and Mark took
care of the hotel and car reservations.
0900/Friday, 27 July 07: We decided to rent a van
instead of carpooling or convoying down to Florida. Since there were only 4 of
us going, it would be a good ride down there with everyone in the van together.
So, the plan was for me to go pick up Mark, get the van, load out stuff and then
pick up Dee and Bill on the way out. I ran about 10 minutes late, so when Dee
called to see what was going on, since I was right by her house, I stopped and
picked her up. We then went and pick up Mark and got the van. They originally
had us a minivan waiting, but we saw some 8 passenger cargo vans on the lot and
got an upgrade to one of them. Plenty of room for each person and all the dive
gear to include 10 tanks. After we dropped my truck off on Base, we left
to pick up Bill. By 1015, we were on the road to Florida with a full tank
of gas, Mark's Tom-Tom GPS unit and some good company and conversation.
Some of the conversation included Bill's time as an Air Force A-10 Warthog pilot
(that's just bad-ass!!) and Mark's desire to be cremated when he dies and be
mixed in with concrete to be made part of an artificial reef. (that's just plain
freaky) We even came up with a couple business ideas that I won't discuss
here because we don't want anyone stealing our ideas, no matter how stupid or
creepy they may be. Except for Mark trying to run another car off the road
while changing lanes, it was a pretty uneventful, but enlightening trip
down to Pensacola.
1645/27 July 07: We arrive at MBT Divers. We drop
off our tanks and tell them what we want them filled with along with paying for
our charter for the next day. We talked to the girl at the front counter
about night diving on Saturday, but she said the jellyfish were so bad, so would
HIGHLY recommend not doing any shore dives out of Pensacola. Good enough
for us. We'll see if we can get a charter. If not, then no night dive on
this trip.
1730: We check in to our Hotel rooms and will meet
at 1900 to go eat. Dee and mark have their own room and Bill and I decide
to share one to cut costs.
1900: We all meet up and after checking with the
ladies working the desk, we head out to "The Fish House" to eat. It was told to
be a Southern seafood joint. Well, it was a bit more upscale and pricey
than we're used to eating on this trips, but the food was great. It was NOT a
southern seafood joint, but it was very good food. They had best hush puppies
I've ever eaten and the biggest scallops I've ever seen. (both on the plate and
walking around) :) After eating, we stopped by a grocery store to pick up snacks
and water for the boat ride out tomorrow. Then, it was to our rooms to crash and
meet up at 0700 the next morning.