The Accident, the Opportunity, and the Shipwreck of The Kid

The accident might have happened because it was so hot. Many islanders agree that August is the hottest month in summer. Because our summers are so very oppressive with the heat, and the humidity, many of us working in the jungle-like atmosphere tend to hurry when working under the broiling sun.

Most everyone that has been a Marco Beach Boy or Girl will remember Cape Marco and the southwestern tip of the island when it was “The Compound.” This was the bulky concrete bunker dominating the entrance to Caxambas Pass. The big bunker with the squat tower was originally a missile tracking station keeping a watchful radar eye on potential attacks from Cold War Cuba and the early days of the American space program and the rocket launches from Cape Canaveral.

When the tracking station mission was over, The Compound became a staging area and worksite for the Deltona Corporation and the developers of modern Marco. When that era was past, the property was sold, and demolition began on the cold war relic that was the dominating but aging concrete bunker.

After heavy equipment reduced the old radar station to rubble, a large barge with an attached tugboat and crane was assigned to haul huge piles of rocky debris offshore to become an artificial reef and fish haven.

For the crew working the barge without any shade, the heat must have brutal. In addition, the repeated and very slow rides out to nine miles offshore and the site of the new rubble-reef must have been tedious.

After the barge, the crane, and the tugboat, made the final track from Caxambas and the barge was unloaded, one of the crew noticed that even without the heavy weight of the rubble on the deck, the barge was still riding very low in the water. When another crewmember discovered an open hatch near the waterline, and that, during the voyage offshore, the open hatch allowed water to flood the buoyancy compartments, disaster struck when the crewmember driving the rig placed the tugboat in forward, and all the water in the flooded barge ran backward.

This was the moment when fisher folk nearby on another vessel watched as the tugboat, the barge, and the big crane rose up, tilted backward, and slipped quickly below the water as the open hatches dipped below the waterline.

The fishing vessel rescued the shocked, surprised, and swimming crew, and the barge and the tugboat that was The Kid became another shipwreck.

When news of the accidental sinking reached the island, the newly certified Beach Boy divers were out on the new reef site after only three days.

When we submerged and began to explore, everyone was amazed to see that the wreck of The Kid was sitting upright on the seafloor. A large field of concrete rubble surrounded the maritime mishap, and we were excited that this was going to be a wonderful scuba diving destination. 

The crane, which had lifted all of the rubble from the old compound, was also amazingly upright with the top of the crane only about ten feet below the surface. As we descended to the rubble field, several large sea turtles were circling the wreck and the boom on the crane. Hundreds of fish appeared eager to move in to the new address, but the adventure beckoned, and all the divers began to explore the wreck. A length of red and green hose snaked out from under some debris and one of the divers soon claimed an oxygen acetylene cutter as a diving prize. Another diver discovered a waterproof diving light that was quickly switched on, but the real treasure was discovered when we all realized we could look through the closed portholes of the tugboat and see that we were looking into a section of The Kid’s cabin house that was still dry inside.

After a little exploring and negotiating a few twists and turns that were not too confining, four of us surfaced inside the trapped air compartment. We remembered our scuba training and did not breathe the air inside the dry compartment. This was because it could have been poisonous. As we stood up in the almost perfectly dry air pocket, we could not help but be amazed that there was a desk with dry paper and pencils, dry welding cables neatly coiled and hanging on a bulkhead, along with perfectly dry clipboards and charts. The most amazing memory was that, through the sealed porthole windows we could see other divers still outside The Kid and watching the sea turtles through the glimmering sunlight from the surface.

The wreck of The Kid, at three days old, was truly a scuba dive to remember. After we surfaced and returned to Marco, we were very excited to tell every diver we knew about the dry compartment inside the sunken tugboat.

Timing was indeed perfect for the Beach Boy’s dive, because we learned that soon after our submerged excursion, another diving team went down to explore The Kid and did not have such a happy or exciting experience.

Apparently, a week or so after The Kid settled into her watery grave, she began seeping oil. The dry compartment that we found so clean and inviting, and like an underwater movie set, acted like a container for the leaking oil that wanted to rise to the surface.

When the next divers entered the air pocket to hopefully see what we had discovered, all four surfaced into a thick oil slick inside the compartment. Every part of the subsequent divers that came up through the floating oil was completely covered in the unrelenting gooey mess. Their hair, their skin, their diving gear was completely covered with the thick goo that could not be easily removed. When the Beach Boys heard about this misadventure and the hour ride back before the oily divers could get clean, we all realized there are indeed many surprising mysteries waiting below the surface of the sea - and some of those mysteries and surprises might have more adventure than anyone would want.

 Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: Lost and Found and Surrounded by Thunder—the Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men. Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.