In the middle of Washington state’s farm country, is a unique dive that I learned about when researching the Valhalla missile silo in Texas. Once I found out about this Titan missile silo dive, I added it to our map and hoped to get to the area eventually. The site is fairly remote from any major cities, but as luck would have it, it ended up being near our route from Portland to Spokane, Washington.

The Titan Nuclear Missile

This Titan missile silo complex is much larger than the Atlas silo that I dove previously. It also had much more of the original equipment inside. I only did 2 dives here, but I could easily do more to explore other areas in the complex. You can even make your way through horizontal tunnels underwater into other parts of the missile complex if you are properly certified and equipped.

This is a painting of the missile complex. We entered through the vertical shaft near the center.

Traveling by motorhome made this dive a lot more accessible. We spent the night in town before the dive and then drove the motorhome right down to the dive site. It was nice to have the AC running and the awning out in the 90-100 degree heat while we suited up into our dry suits for the mid 50-degree water below.

The dive shop has set up some benches and tables on the surface to make it a bit easier to gear up. Here we are receiving our pre-dive briefing before heading down into the tunnels.

The entry down the old emergency escape hatch. This shaft would have been filled with sand to protect the workers inside from a blast above. If they needed a quick escape, it could be opened and the sand would fall into the room below and then they could climb out.

The dive shop rigged up a pulley system so we could easily lower gear down into the staging room below.

I’m heading in!

Here you can see the sand from the escape shaft covering the floor. We made our final gear checks and prep in this room before we headed into the tunnels.  These are the last lights we will see other than the lights we brought with us.

The shop keeps a small kayak in the prep room so we can drag extra gear with us through the flooded tunnels. The tunnel behind the kayak is our entry into the silo complex.

Our group heading into the silo.

The tunnels connecting the silos are all flooded. The metal flooring was salvaged long ago, so we had to make our way on exposed beams and pipes. We kept our BCs inflated so that when we missed a step we wouldn’t fall into an open hole in the floor.

The water became deeper and deeper as we approached the silo. I actually enjoyed this because it helped to keep the weight of the tanks off our backs and the water was nice and cool in our dry suits so we weren’t too hot by the time we reached the silo. When we reached the silo through the door in the photo above, we put on our fins and masks and deflated our BCs to drop down into the main missile silo.

As long as we made sure not to disturb the silt on the beams, the visibility in the silos was pretty great.

The depth of the silo was around 105-110 ft. The water temperature was a pretty consistent 55 degrees.

The entire internal structure was supported by giant springs so that the missile and equipment were protected from shock if a bomb should go off on the surface.

Fortunately for us, these are no longer “hot.”

I like to find all the serial number tags on the old equipment in the silo.

Here, I am looking up toward the blast doors on the surface. You can see the platforms that fold out of the way when the missile would be lifted to the surface to fire.

This was the only bit of color in the silo. I believe these are pressure release valves. They were probably for the fueling of the Titan missile.

The staff would use an intercom system to communicate with various areas of the silo complex.

I think this eye wash station and elevator are a bit redundant now that the silo has flooded.

I believe this interesting looking pipe transferred the liquid fuel for the Titan missile.

I’m glad we don’t have to use the stairs to get up and down in this silo. I’m sure the people working here never imagined a bunch of people swimming around for fun inside their top-secret base.

At one point in the dive, I looked up to find the dive master sitting on a beam watching everyone. It was a bit creepy and cool at the same time.

Verdict: If you are at all interested in diving and cold war era relics, this is a very cool dive! I found the walk in through the tunnels to be just as interesting as the dive itself. If you can only dive one silo, I would choose this one. It has a very authentic feel and there are a lot of little interesting things to look at along the way. If I’m in the area again, I will try to go back and explore some more.

A website with the history of the Titan missile program.

Wikipedia page for the 568th Strategic Missile Squadron that managed this site.

So far, I have been able to dive the 2 known dive-able missile silos in the US. Now I’m hooked and want to find more. There must be more silos out there just waiting to be explored.

Kerensa decided that we should book it to Burlington, Vermont to get out of the summer heat of North Carolina. Of course, the first thing I did was get online to see if it was even possible to scuba dive in Burlington.

It turns out that yes, you can dive in Burlington and it’s pretty damn good diving too!

It doesn’t really matter how good the dive was when you surface to a view like this.

A quick Google search came up with Waterfront Diving in Burlington. Their site contains a list of historic canal boats that sank in the cold fresh water of Lake Champlain. As a shipwreck hunter, the news of well-preserved wooden wrecks really intrigued me. The next step was to find some locals to show me around. I put up some posts on Scubaboard and connected to the Vermont Divers Facebook group to find some fellow divers to point me in the right direction and take me out for some dives. Little did I know this would lead to one of the most interesting dives I have done to date.

An unexpected  dive on a relatively unknown wreck deep in Lake Champlain

I went on nice evening dive with a couple of the locals I met through Facebook. I didn’t realize at the time, but they were testing me to see if I was capable of conducting a dive they had planned later that week. We met up at a location called Thompson’s Point. There isn’t much to see here, but it is one of the deepest places in the lake. From the shore, we were able to gradually swim down past 100′ to cruise along a ledge that drops deeper into the lake. It was pretty dark at this depth, so I don’t have any photos to show, but as we went along with our flashlights we started to find old bottles strewn along the bottom. We collected a few for one diver’s personal collection and surfaced shortly after to the beautiful sunset in the photo above.

Once we surfaced, they invited me to dive on a wreck that they and a local boat captain had recently re-discovered. The wreck was a steam-powered tug boat that sank in 1931. The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum found the wreck in 1996 and sent a few divers down to verify its identity. Even though the museum identified the as the US La Vallee, the location was not shared publicly in order to preserve the site.

My new dive buddies invited me to dive this wreck with them and be one of the first to see it since the survey crew located it in 1996. As a thank you for the boat captain, I created this video to show the wreck and credit Larry’s Diving Services. The wreck lies at 105 ft near the current Ferry Lanes in Lake Champlain. The water at that depth is very cold and pitch black. Due to the depth, we only had one dive with a limited amount of time. Below is the video we managed to capture during that short first dive. I hoped to get back to it again but the weather didn’t cooperate and we had to move on.

The wheel and rope pulley still intact on the La Vallee

Bottles and other artifacts were still present on deck

You can read more about the US La Vallee on the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum website.

The OJ Walker

In addition to the US Lavallee, I dove a few other wrecks with Waterfront Diving. These were also on Captain Larry’s boat since the shop contracts with local dive boats. One of my favorites was the OJ Walker. The OJ Walker was a schooner-rigged canal boat which is basically a sailing cargo boat that designed to fit through the canals and locks to bring cargo up and down the Hudson river from as far away as New York City into Lake Champlain. The size of the locks determined the size of the boats and because of this archeologists can determine the age of the ship from its size. As time went on, the locks grew bigger and bigger in order to bring through larger and larger ships laden with cargo.

According to the Waterfront Diving website, the OJ Walker went down in a storm in 1895 carrying a heavy cargo of bricks and tiles. Even though this ship has been underwater for over 100 years it is remarkably well-preserved. The cold fresh waters of Lake Champlain serve to preserve these old wooden ships, unlike the ocean where currents and living creatures will quickly eat their way through a wood ship like this.

The Wheel of the OJ Walker: Care must be taken in order to avoid damaging this delicate structure

This wreck lies at a depth of 65ft and is considered an intermediate to advanced dive. Good buoyancy control is mandatory to avoid running into and damaging the fragile structures on the boat and to avoid touching the bottom and kicking up a cloud of silt. Here some light still filters down from above, but a good flashlight really helps you take in the details of the site.

In the gallery below, you can see the deck and mast of the OJ Walker as well as some of her cargo of bricks still resting on deck and one of the brick carts laying on the bottom near the ship.

A dead eye from the OJ Walker: Although these look skulls, they are used in the rigging of the sails

There are many other wrecks in Lake Champlain that all have their own story to tell. The Vermont Division for Historic Preservation puts out a very nice pamphlet that describes the wrecks, their history and gives specific location information. I picked up my copy from Waterfront Diving.

As our route took us towards Houston, I really wanted to do a tour of NASA since I didn’t get a chance in Florida due to timing. While diving at Valhalla, Nuclear Missile Silo, I met some people who worked at NASA in Houston. I contacted them to ask if they had any insight into the best experience at the Johnson Space Center. They told me that the Level 9 Tour was the best way to go and would get me into places that other tourists don’t get to see. That sounded right up my alley, so I called to book it. I called over 1 month in advance and still had some trouble getting a spot. (NASA only allows 12 Level 9 tour members each day and it’s steep at $89.95 per person, but the small private group and the access you are granted I found to be well worth it if you are at all interested in space.)

When I arrived at the Johnson Space Center for my tour, I skipped the ticket lines outdoors and went directly inside to the information desk. There I got my VIP Pass and ticket good for two days: one day to do the tour and one day to come back and see the rest of the Space Center. At our scheduled time, we met in the back of the space center and had our pictures taken for security purposes. We then boarded a small 12 person bus with our tour guide and driver who was also a tour guide. We would use this bus all day, so we could leave our belongings in it and only take what we needed. We were allowed to take cameras into all buildings, but some buildings did not allow any bags but they could be safely locked in the bus.

When you enter the space center property, the first things you expect to see are astronauts and scientists. Instead, you see longhorn cattle! This is because of a joint venture between NASA and the local school district to provide land for the students to raise cattle.

Only in Texas would a space center have longhorn cattle.

The first stop on our tour was actually off of the NASA campus. We headed over to Ellington Field which is home to various reserve branches of the military, as well as NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL). As a scuba diver, this was, of course, the place I wanted to see most of all. On the short ride over, our tour guide who grew up in this area during the height of the space race told us stories of his parents packing them all in the station wagon to drive by John Glenn’s and Neil Armstrong’s houses to see if they were out mowing the lawn. He shared with us a bit of what it was like when astronauts were regarded as celebrities and the race to the moon was on everyone’s mind.

The Neutral Buoyancy Lab is where the astronauts can come as close as possible to the weightless environment of space and do dry runs (or would that be wet runs) for missions on the International Space Station. Here astronauts can work on 100% accurate full-scale models of the actual space center components. Teams of scuba divers accompany the astronauts to help them move into position under water. I could see myself doing that job one day!

If you are lucky, you may be there on a day when astronauts are in the tank working. No one was in the tank this day, but it was still very impressive. Sitting just outside the tank is the new Orion Module waiting for testing. This will soon replace the space shuttle for missions to the Space Station and keep us from having to pay the Russians for a ride. It’s interesting that they are going back to a capsule system rather than a shuttle.

Orion Module awaiting testing in the NBL

Unfortunately due to some shenanigans involving someone thinking it would be funny to jump into the pool, NASA has made the floor level off-limits to tours, so the only view of the NBL is from above.

The next stop, on the other hand, puts you up close and personal in building 9 – the robotics building!

Walking into the building, we were immediately face to face with the Mars Exploration Vehicle Prototype. I had seen this vehicle in various documentaries before. To be this close to the Mars vehicle is my equivalent of a 10-year-old girl meeting Justin Beiber (Or whatever thing 10-year-old girls are into nowadays).

This vehicle is designed to get out of any terrain in which it finds itself. The back side of the vehicle has a space suit incorporated into it, so that the astronaut can get into the suit and walk around then return to the vehicle without bringing dirt and debris inside. Also when they are out for a walk, the vehicle can follow them autonomously.

The people in this photo are others form the tour group. This is how close we were!

Building 9 is packed with old and new prototypes as well as current experiments and test models. There is so much to see here that I could have spent all day.

Also in building 9 were several active projects. There was a mock-up of the Orion capsule on which they were busy installing internal components for training.

There were also some SpaceX components in the building, but some of them were a little more shrouded in secrecy.

This rig lets them test fit docking rings from various private and international companies such as SpaceX to ensure that they will mate successfully with the ISS.

ISS Docking Ring Rig

This is an actual space suit from one of the space shuttles. They are using it to test something and we were right next to it. No glass, no railings, just us and all this cool stuff.

A real space suit from the Space Shuttle missions.

I don’t know what this is, but I didn’t stick my hand in it.

Pretty much the motto of NASA

The next stop was lunch. This being an all access tour meant we ate lunch in the same cafeteria as the astronauts and engineers of NASA. On our way in, we saw astronaut Timothy Peake leaving. We were each given a ticket that allowed us to get anything we wanted from the cafeteria and to choose a table. Off to my right, I overheard a group of engineers talking about the ISS and something they were working through. Behind me was a couple of marketing guys talking about the NASA facebook page and the Twitter feed. I sat quietly taking it all in as I ate my burrito.

Space Burrito

Pro-Tip: Wait to buy your souvenirs until you get to lunch. There is a gift shop in the cafeteria and since it is for government employees, the prices are much lower than the Space Center Gift Shops and they don’t charge tax.

After lunch, we got back in the van and headed over to Mission Control. Here we were shown the past, present, and future of mission control.

The first stop was the present; the current mission control room that is flying the International Space Station. Here we got to quietly observe the space station as the astronauts were headed off to sleep somewhere over North Africa. Our guide told us about each position in the control room. We were fortunate this day that a group from the NASA IT department was also giving a tour, so we got to hear a couple funny stories about what it’s like to be IT for NASA Mission Control. One anecdote involved an astronaut on the ISS forgetting his email password and calling the NASA tech line from the ISS to request a new password. The astronaut could not remember his pin number to authenticate his password reset so the tech just asked him to come over to the office to get it reset. The tech didn’t quite understand that this guy was calling from space. The astronaut then asked the tech to tune their tv over to NASA tv. There the tech saw an image of the flight director holding up a sign to the camera that said “RESET THE PASSWORD!” Apparently, you don’t mess with the flight director.

Present day Mission Control

The next stop was to see the future of Mission Control at NASA.  Here you see a much less cluttered environment that feels more open and integrates more touchscreen technology. After thorough testing, NASA will move Mission Control over to this room.

Future Mission Control

Finally, we were invited to see the past. The actual mission control room for all of the moon landings and most of the shuttle missions. My parents remember watching the moon landing on tv which was all controlled from this room. I remember watching the Challenger disaster which was also controlled from this room.

Past Mission Control

Unlike the regular tour that just gets to view this room from behind glass, we got to sit in the actual seats while our guide talked to us about some of the people who sat here before us. When Apollo 13 called and said “Houston, we have had a problem”, this is the room they were calling. When the Eagle landed, it was controlled from here. It’s amazing to think that my camera has more computing power than the entire space program when they put a man on the moon.

Sitting in the flight director’s chair.

Someone’s idea of a joke.

You didn’t want this phone to ring.

Don’t flip this switch!

It was great honor to sit in the famous Houston Mission Control. I am afraid one day they won’t allow the tours to do this anymore. The guide told a story of one of the tourists that started opening up the cabinets while sitting there. It just takes one incident in this historic room to have it sealed behind glass forever.

NASA has a lot of rules and a lot of procedures. I got a kick out of this very official looking sign for the break room.

The last stop on our tour brought us back to view the mighty Saturn V rocket. After the program was shut down, two rockets were left behind. My grandfather was one of the 350,000 people involved in the Saturn V program, so it was pretty cool to seen one of the actual rockets in person. It’s hard to capture in photos the magnitude of this machine, you really should see it in person.

Pro-Tip: The Saturn V on exhibit at the Johnson Space Center is owned by the Smithsonian making it is free to visit without having to buy tickets to the Space Center. Just look up Rocket Park in Houston.

After our visit to the Saturn V, the tour wound back to the main museum space just in time to purchase a few souvenirs before closing. I already bought a t-shirt at the cafeteria, so I took this time to check out some of the space suits on display and the space toilet!

On the way out, I stopped to check out the last 747 used to carry the space shuttles. Boeing donated it to the museum and it will soon become an interactive exhibit that you can walk through.

I finished the day eating dinner with my dive friends I met at Valhalla that work at NASA. We enjoyed some Rudy’s BBQ and talked diving, the ISS, and future hopes for Mars.

This is a very cool tour and well worth the money. If you are even slightly interested, you should do it. It’s rare to get this kind of access to artifacts like this anymore. Make sure to book way in advance!

http://spacecenter.org/attractions/level-9-tour/

We’ve been looking forward to swimming with manatees in Crystal River, Florida ever since we missed our chance last year. Getting to do it with our friends from Gone with the Wynns was the icing on top. Since we were in the area, we made sure to maximize our water time in the Florida springs with an additional dive in Rainbow River and a canoe trip down the Silver River.

Crystal River

Boats to see the manatees run three times a day. Unfortunately for us night owls, we heard the best time to go was 6:00 am when the manatees are are just waking up and haven’t been disturbed by too many people yet. So we all woke up a couple hours before sunrise and headed over to the dive shop.

After getting into our gear and watching a video on proper manatee etiquette, we headed out to the known manatee hangouts. The sun was only starting to come up and water was chilly, but after swimming into a cove and seeing a manatee up close, it was all worth it.

Rainbow River

For our next water adventure, the four of us rented canoes, piled in our dive gear and paddled up the Rainbow River. The river is spring fed and exceptionally clear. We took our time paddling up to the headsprings taking photos along the way. After having our picnic lunches from the canoes, we suited up to dive back down the river towing the canoes behind us. The water felt great and the clarity made it feel almost tropical. We could see little springs bubbling through patches of sand and even found a couple vents with strong currents cutting through the rocks. We were having so much fun that we lost track of time and had to book it back to the park to turn in the canoes! I think just the last few hundred feet counted as our workout for the day.

Jason and Nikki cruising along.

The hardest part was getting into the dive gear and river from the canoe.

Take a look at that visibility!

Nikki striking a pose underwater.

Brandon’s thinking about styling his hair like this everyday.

Silver River

Brandon and I had one more water trip in a canoe on the Silver River. It’s another spring fed river and Silver Springs State Park is famous for their glass bottom boats. Personally, we enjoyed getting closer to everything in the canoe and experiencing the paddle loop the bigger boats can’t traverse. Whereas Rainbow River had docks and some houses built along it, Silver River felt more natural. With the exception of a reproduction cracker village (pioneer settlements in Florida), we mainly saw cypress and other trees lining the banks. The amount of wildlife we viewed was amazing; everything from alligators to herons to otters and even monkeys! This turned out to be one of our favorite experiences so far and we’d recommend it to anyone heading that way. Just don’t get too close to the big gators, they don’t seem to like that.

A turtle and great blue heron share a perch.

Monkeys are not native to North America, but a cruise operator turned some rhesus macaques loose to enhance his jungle cruise in 1938 and they have colonized the river. We were lucky enough to have them run right over and next to us while there.

One swampy area was filled with egrets and ibis.

A little guy soaking up the sun.

A not-so-little guy soaking up the sun.

So this is too close…expect a hiss directed your way.

Hollywood has used Silver Springs and Silver River in many movies, most notably the Tarzan series. Can’t you just hear Tarzan’s call ringing our through the trees?

Thanks to Nikki and Jason at Gone with the Wynns for joining us. Make sure to check out their video of our manatee trip here.

Want some food after exploring? Check out our finds in Taking a Bite Out of the Nature Coast.

Lake Jocassee is in South Carolina and holds a few interesting secrets. One of which is the Mt. Carmel Cemetery. It was sent to the bottom in 1973 when the valley was flooded to create a reservoir for the new nuclear power plant.

The infamous movie “Deliverance” featured the Mt. Carmel cemetery. As I wound through the hills of South Carolina to the dive shop, I could hear the dueling banjos playing in my head. In the clip below from Deliverance, you can see the backhoe and graves from when they were removing bodies before they flooded the valley.

This cemetery is 130ft deep and lies right at the extreme limit of my training. The dive plan only allowed for about 9 minutes at the bottom to avoid necessary decompression.

Another concern for divers at this depth is Nitrogen Narcosis. This is sort of like becoming drunk from the excess nitrogen in your system due to deep depths. It affects everyone differently and for me it clearly affected my ability to run the camera. There were a couple of shots I thought I captured, but after I reviewed the video on the surface, I realized I turned off the camera when I thought I was turning it on.

Below is the video I was able to capture featuring some of the more prominent grave sites. I saw open graves from where the bodies were exhumed, but unfortunately I messed up and didn’t capture the video.

I hope to visit this site sometime again in the future and explore it further.

If you are ever out this way and want to check it out, head to The Lake Jocassee Dive Shop. They’ll take care of you.

Posing for my 100th dive in the center of the large radar dish.

Vandenberg is a name that all wreck divers in the US know. Since I started diving just a couple of years ago, I have dreamed of diving on this ship and when we bought the RV, we knew Key West would be one of our first major stops.  I spent countless hours researching the dive plan, depths, current conditions, and ship layout. She was formerly a troop transport and missile tracking ship. The Vandenberg is over 500ft long and in almost 150ft of water. The ship rises 100ft off the bottom and can experience strong currents dues to its location in the open ocean. I realized that I needed to increase my skill and comfort if I wanted to enjoy a dive like this. So I quickly got to work.

While in Indiana, I had a good group of mentors and some nice, deep quarries to play in. Every dive was a training dive for me. I tried to get feedback from fellow divers and I dove every month … even through 6 inches of snow and 43 degree water. The only way to get better at diving is to keep diving. In the video below, you can see one of these dives in my favorite Midwest quarry on New Years Day.

In addition to diving, I sought out additional training to help me better understand the challenges I could face. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make the Vandenberg out to be some kind of a death-defying, extreme dive site. It really isn’t most of the time and many divers have dove there with much less training, but I am a bit of a safety nut underwater and I wanted to make sure I felt prepared and comfortable so that I could enjoy the dive.

It just so happened that my first dive on the Vandenberg would also be my 100th dive. This is a big milestone for most divers, and traditionally you are supposed to do it naked. I’m sure I could have gotten away with it in Key West where anything goes, but … maybe for my 1000th dive I will.

Because of the size of this wreck and the fact that I would only get 2 dives on it, I chose to hire a guide in order to get the best view of the wreck without wasting my air swimming in circles. I asked around on the scuba forums and found an excellent guide in Bill Grayson, an underwater photographer and dive guide in Key West. He was able to show me all the key spots and cool areas he knew at a pace that allowed me to take the photos I wanted. We were actually able to cover the whole ship in 2 dives, but it would take many more dives to really get to know her well.

Bill Grayson approaching the large radar dish

After a short boat ride about 7 miles out from Key West, we arrived at the site of the Vandenberg. When we tied up to the mooring, we were greeted with the best possible conditions I could have imagined. The seas were flat and there was no current at all. Looking over from the side of the boat, you could make out the top features of the Vandenberg almost 60ft below us. All that preparation and worrying was unnecessary, but as they say, “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.” This time I got the best! On top of the pristine dive conditions, we were the only boat of divers (just 4 of us) on the Vandenberg that day and we had the whole ship to ourselves.

Here you can see the dive boat nearly 60 ft above us

The main features of this wreck are the huge radar dishes that once listened for nuclear missiles launched from the former Soviet Union. You can also see these dishes and the ship in action in the horrible 1999 movie  “Virus.”

The Big Dish

There is a lot of relief on the deck of the ship

There is so much to explore on the ship and it has been expertly prepared for diving. Once properly trained, there are a lot of internal spaces to explore and get to know. You can also see life taking hold on the ship. We swam into rooms with barracuda hanging out. There were also large schools of jacks cruising around the ship and using her for shelter.

There are many swim-throughs to explore on the Vandenberg

Here we are swimming up through the decks of the ship

Heading toward the big dish

The crow’s nest

Here we approach the dish that is now sitting on deck after being “destroyed” in the movie Virus.

The big dish from above

Swimming out through the bunks

The Vandenberg is a great dive and I wish I did more than 2 dives on it. I will be sure to dive it again when I get back to Key West. Do yourself a favor and get down there!

More info on the Vandeberg from the Florida Keys website.

Once I learned that 30 miles off the coast of Morehead City, NC there lies a graveyard of shipwrecks inhabited by Sandtiger Sharks, I knew I had to go. Here the Gulf Stream sweeps warm waters up from the Caribean, bringing with it good visibility and a plentiful supply of food to support a large population of sharks. The sharks congregate on ships, many of whom were placed here by a different type of underwater predator. In the last years of WWII, German U-Boats prowled the deep up and down the East Coast of the United States looking for easy prey in merchant vessels shipping war supplies in the Atlantic.

CARIBSEA

A 8ft Sand Tiger I met above the Caribsea wreck

One of the wrecks I dove was named the Caribsea. It was sunk in the middle of the night by 2 torpedoes fired from the U-Boat U-158. It is reported that the ship sank quickly and only 7 members of the 28 member crew survived the attack. The ship lies in 70-90 ft of water is known for its abundance of marine life and the presence of many Sand Tiger Sharks.

When I reached the wreck, I had my first encounter with Sand Tigers. I have seen a few sharks before, but they were all nurse sharks and one small reef shark which are smaller and not as imposing as a full grown Sand Tiger. Fortunately, the Sand Tigers look menacing, but actually have a very mellow personality. I had to keep repeating this to myself as I was passed on both sides by Sand Tigers as big as me. It is definitely an interesting experience to realize you are no longer the top of the food chain. On this dive, I saw over a dozen individual sharks. They would cruise by with their snaggly teeth overcrowding and hanging out of their mouths. They didn’t seem to be bothered by the divers and would just glide past as their dull black eyes kept a watch on these noisy bubble making primates flopping around beside them.

I’m sure the wreck is interesting, too, but my eyes were fixed on the predators encircling me. I don’t really have much of a recollection of this wreck as it was my first time in water with large sharks!

More info on the Caribsea wreck from NC-Wreckdiving.com

AEOLUS

Life inside the Aeolus

My next dive trip was a bit farther out to sea. The hope was to actually dive on one of the U-boats that prowled these waters. A depth charge sunk the U-352 in this area in 1942. It lies a bit farther out than other wrecks and can have some very strong currents on it. We were trying to dive the U-boat, but Neptune didn’t want to cooperate and we had to divert to a different wreck in the area.

More info on the Aeolus wreck from NC-Wreckdiving.com

If you choose to visit Morehead City to check out some of the awesome wrecks in the area, be sure to bring your Dramamine. The typical boat ride is 30 miles and takes about 3 hours in the open sea. The benefit of this long ride is much clearer water and some of the best wreck diving in the country.

I used a dive operator called Olympus Dive Center. They are one of the best in the area. They operate 3 boats. Two of the boats are nice, large ocean-going boats that are pretty comfortable for the long ride out. The third is a smaller boat used for inshore diving.

Olympus Dive Center
713 Shepard Street
Morehead City, NC 28557
252-726-9432
info@olympusdiving.com

Hanging out with Barracuda during the safety stop

On a drive back from a dive near Austin, my new dive buddy mentioned that there was a decommissioned nuclear missile silo that was dive-able in Texas. If you know me, you will know there is no way I am leaving Texas without diving it. So I got on the googles and turned up the interwebs and found Valhalla!

The view from the blast doors to the surface of the water.

Standing on the Silo Doors.

Valhalla is a decommissioned Atlas-F hardened nuclear missile silo located near Abilene, Texas. It is actually part of a complex of 12 silos located around Texas and formerly run by Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene. To learn more about the silos check out this guy’s site: Phildorsett.com. I talked with him prior to the dive to learn more about the silo myself.

Valhalla is owned by Family Scuba in Midland Texas. If you want to check it out for yourself, contact them to find out when there are open dives you can join.

The silo itself is divided into 2 separate silos. One is 2 stories tall and served as the command room and crew quarters. The other is the main silo where the missile and fuel was held. The main silo is 180ft tall from the base to the blast doors. This silo was once filled with many levels of equipment to service, fuel and guide the missile. It is now mostly empty and filled with nearly 130ft of water. The water comes from ground water that seeped through the concrete walls of the silo. The water is extremely clear and at a constant 60 degrees year round. The air temperature of the silo stays at 68 degrees year round, so this is a great dive to escape the summer heat in Texas.

Original section view of the silo.

The first question I get asked when I talk about this dive is, “what is there to see?” The silo once housed a lot of equipment and instruments. Those were salvaged after the silo was decommissioned, but as they lifted some stuff out through the blast doors the shackles would break and some material would fall to the bottom of the silo. The bottom is littered with debris made up of mostly twisted metal and duct work. At 40-50ft, there is a metal shack attached to the wall which served as the inertial guidance shack. Apparently it was too difficult to remove, so it was left in place. Inside you can see some control panels and plaques for the machinery manufacturers. The walls of the silo are mostly featureless and smooth which can make for a very eerie feeling when ascending and descending. There are parts of the wall, though, that have deposits on them from when the ground water seeped in over time and they are interesting to check out. The coolest thing about the place is the fact that you are diving in a Nuclear Missile Silo.

Diver approaching the Inertial Guidance Shack.

My video of the bottom of the Silo. The audio is from an old news reel film about the Atlas program.

Another interesting feature about this dive is that it qualifies as an Altitude Dive (2500ft above sea level), Night Dive, Deep Dive, and Wreck Dive in one. The location for the dive is about 20 miles south of Abilene, Texas in the middle of one of the largest wind farms in the country.

After driving through scrub brush and the rolling desert hills near Abilene, you approach the dive site. The site is mostly left over junk from previous years as a farming community. There is one small nondescript concrete doorway that gives the first hint of the silo below. On the day we visited the silo, there were some mild threats of tornadoes in the area. This is the only dive I have ever been on where the weather did not matter. It was impossible to get “blown out” on this dive. If a tornado came overhead, we would just go underground and shut the blast doors behind us. We could have a nice enjoyable dive with the apocalypse going on overhead. Fortunately, on this day, we didn’t need to test that theory.

The entrance to Valhalla

At the entrance to Valhalla, there is a nice little warning to those who may want to dive without paying; it’s a little good Texas humor. The owner of the silo was a pretty cool guy and not what I expected at all. He seemed pretty down to earth compared to the type of people who you would expect to own a missile silo.

Once in the silo you begin the journey down the stairs. There is one long set at the entrance, then a set spiraling down to the control room. All equipment for the dives must be hand carried down these stairs and then back up at the end. You learn real quick not to waste any trips up or down the stairs. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as I expected and there were plenty of places to rest.

Stairs down into the silo.

After passing through 2 sets of blast doors, you arrive in the command center. Here you can spread out and set up your gear in preparation for the dives. The owner also has a small selection of dive gear here for purchase in case you forget anything.

Once geared up, you pass through another set of blast doors that would separate the crew from the missile and head into the main silo. Here you walk 30ft down to the floating platform on the water’s surface. The owner demonstrated the water’s clarity by dropping a nickel in the water and you can watch it fall deep into the silo.

Tunnel from command center to missile silo.

You have to climb up and down the stairs for each dive. I am glad I was diving sidemount, so I could leave my tanks at the bottom until the end.

Exploring the deposits from the seeping groundwater on the walls of the silo.

The only limitation to the visibility in the silo was the light. The only light in the silo was from 4 flood lights mounted overhead. This was good down to 60ft or so, but after that the water filtered out the light and dive lights are necessary.

Here I am circling my way up the silo.

The inertial guidance shack.

Mounts for the levels that were previously in the silo.

The owner signing my Valhalla shirt.

After you complete your Valhalla dive, the owner will sign a shirt for you. He will not sell you a shirt unless you actually complete a dive here. Here he is signing my shirt after diving to 105ft in the silo.

Looking up at the launch doors.

This trip was a very unique experience and I recommend it for a couple of dives. It’s one of those you do, just to say you did it. The dive itself is super easy, if a bit cold. Being inside a former missile silo was the real draw for me. During lunch while others were up on the surface grilling I was down in the silo playing with the blast doors. They still swing easily given their age and size. If you have some time and want to do something unique, head deep into the heart of Texas to visit Valhalla.

Now, I hear there is a Titan missile silo in Washington state that is dive-able. I’m going to have to find my way out there.

UPDATE: I finally got to the Titan Silo in Washington. Check it out here: Titan Missile Silo Dive