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.

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