A 239-foot (72-meter) boat was sunk off the coast of northwest Florida to create a habitat for marine life.

Video by Robert Renfrow shows the vessel going down, with dive footage showing the wreck.

“The vessel … joins hundreds of other artificial reefs already deployed off the shores of northwest Florida and will serve as a haven to support various marine species while simultaneously providing the fishing and diving industry with an additional resource,” the Okaloosa Board of County Commissioners said. Credit: Robert Renfrow/Active Duty Outdoors via Storyful

Video Transcript

[LAUGHING]

[WATER SPLASHING]

– Yeah.

– There it goes.

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

– It should hit the ground in a thousand–

– Oh.

– The bow is–

– Whoa.

– Crows Nest is underwater.

[SPLASHING]

– There it goes.

[BEEPING]

Man, I don’t know if you guys don’t get excited about that. I get excited about that. I’ll tell you what. That thing is going down. Now it’s time to suit up.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

– Well, welcome back to “Below the Surface.” you guys can just barely start to make out the ship as I’m dropping down on it.

[BREATHING]

Now visibility is not really that great today, but considering that we’ve had a lot of bad weather, a lot of wind, it’s kind of to be expected. But you start making out the stern of the ship. You see all those disks that were on the back. The majority of them survived. There was one that came off the back and it’s sitting in the sand now, but there’s a lot of force when a ship is falling to the bottom of the Gulf. So only losing one, it’s not bad odds.

Now I didn’t edit a whole lot of this part, because I wanted you guys to see the entire ship in its entirety as I’m swimming through and I want to give you guys the true depth that I’m reading on my Suunto watch. And if you hear it beeping right now, it’s because I’m about to hit my maximum depth limit that I set. I’m diving at 32% mix, so I should be about 131 for my 1.6, for my MOD.

And I go a little bit beyond that just so I can show you guys where it’s at the sand, but then I pop right back up. And I’m really just stretching my arm out down to the bottom. 134ft to the sand, and there you go. There’s that pyramid or that disk that didn’t survive. As you guys can see, the ship landed perfectly on the bottom and didn’t sustain any damage when it hit. This is going to be a perfect wreck for us to dive on, an even better wreck for us to fish on. It’s a little ways outside of Destin, but once you get out here, you’re going to see that in a year from now, this thing is going to be loaded with fish.

So whether you’re scuba diving on it, fishing on it, spearfishing on it, this ship is going to have it all. Here we come up over the stern back into those disks. And as I go up towards the bow, you’ll see the pyramids start taking shape. But as I’m swimming up there, you guys stick around to the end of the video and you’ll see the first fish that found this place to make itself a home within 30 minutes of it hitting the ground. Insane. It’s at the end of the video. Check it out.

And there’s this huge cutout down at the bottom of the screen. You can’t really see it right now, but you’ll see it a little bit later in the video. That’s also got some really cool swim-throughs. Get down in there in some of the lower chambers and come up the stairs and the ladders and bring you back up to this deck. It’s really cool. Now these pyramids, they are going to be awesome. I guarantee you these things are going to hold so many red snapper and so many triggerfish, lionfish, mingos, mangroves, it’s going to be loaded, I promise you.

Come out here in the year, dive it, and you’re going to have a blast. And I didn’t mention it when I was up top, but I’m out here with Shark Quest Eric and Nick. They brought me out. They called me up the other day and said, hey, we’re sinking this ship. You want to come check it out? I said, heck, yeah, I do. So you guys make sure you guys go over there and check them guys out. They’re in Gulf Breeze, and always doing their dives outside of Destin.

So this one’s going to be on their list along with a whole bunch of other wrecks. Pretty strong current down there today, too, coming down from the north, just kind of pushing me around. You can hear my breathing. I’m kind of struggling to make my way forward, but we get there.

[BUBBLING]

And you got to remember, this thing just sunk. So some of this debris that you’re seeing is also from this ship actually disturbing some of the sediment on the bottom. And as I come into this swim-through, I poke my head in. I can see that it’s definitely not worth going into because I can’t see any openings. I’m sure there are a couple of openings in there, but I wasn’t going to risk it, so I backed out and erred on the side of caution.

Because this thing did just sink, so I don’t know what’s disturbed in there. I don’t know what’s still about the fall. So I just kind of backed out, let it be. I’m just going to swim around around the outside. If there is a bigger opening later, I might check it out.

Hey, and if you guys like this kind of stuff, make sure you guys subscribe to the channel. Hit the like button, leave me a comment down below. Let me know what you like, let me know what you dislike. I make a whole lot of scuba diving content, whether it’s wrecks, lionfish hunting, or if it’s up on the surface with kayak fishing or just fishing in general. Either way, I’m down here in the panhandle of Florida and I’m trying to bring you guys all the content that I can think of to bring you. So if you guys like it, hit the Subscribe button. I definitely appreciate it.

So here I am on the bow of the ship. I’m going to go forward just a little bit, try to see if I get a backwards angle shot on it. But the further I go, the less I can see the ship. So right here, this is about as best as it gets. And there it is. On a clear day, that’d be really cool to see. Kind of murky, kind of eerie right now. But that’s all right. It looks pretty cool.

And if you guys are wondering why I geek out on this stuff so much, well, I’m currently in my Master’s program in environmental science, working on a concentration in fisheries management. So being able to see these artificial reefs be deployed in person, it’s really cool to me and gives me a lot of ideas on topics that I can write about until I’m finished with this program. So that’s pretty awesome.

And there you guys go, 103 feet right out of the bow of the ship. So again, another huge Thank you to Alex Fogg and his team and the Okaloosa County for committing all their resources and funding from the tourism tax revenue to put these artificial reefs down in the Gulf of Mexico because these things are attracting the fish. The fish are attracting the fishermen. The wrecks are attracting the scuba divers. So it’s a win-win.

If you sink it, they will come. That’s my motto, and I’m sticking to it because I wholeheartedly believe in what his team is doing out here. For generations to come, this stuff is going to be awesome. All right, so I’ve made it up to the bridge of the ship. I’m going to come on through this door, really big opening, even through the window is a really big opening. So if you get in here and you need to get out, there’s a whole lot of swim-throughs to make it out.

Really big open area with access to go downstairs. You can take it if you want. Once you get down the stairs, you can see the opening on the other side. So it’s not far. It’s not super dangerous. But again, if you feel comfortable with doing it, do it. If you don’t feel comfortable, then don’t do it. But as you can see as I come down, and right as I peek the bottom of the stairs, you can see the opening back there. And this is on a bad day. So on a clear day, you would definitely be able to see it a lot better.

A couple of rooms off to the side, don’t really lead to much, at least not that I explored. And then once you come back out, you’re right at the back of the ship– well, midship. You got to remember, I’m diving at the end of January, so the water temperature is pretty cold. Down here at the bottom, it was about 65 degrees. A little chilly, I was in a 3 mil. I mean, I was comfortable for about a 30-minute dive, but anything more than that, it would have been pretty bad.

The safety stop was a little bit colder, so plan for that. Here I am, 95 feet, nine minutes left until I hit deco, so I’m going to swim around for a little bit longer, show you guys up around the tower and the crow’s nest. But here we go, up to the crow’s nest. 79 feet right at the base. And here I am, swimming around it for a second. That’s pretty cool.

Hey, don’t forget, we’re just moments away from you guys seeing the very first fish that’s calling the Deep Stim its home.

[BUBBLING]

[BREATHING]

– Ah.

– And if this isn’t a true testament of how invasive this species is, I don’t know what is. This wreck has been here for 30 minutes and a lionfish has already found it and claimed it as its home. If that one found it within 30 minutes, imagine how many lionfish are going to be on this thing within a year. It was pretty upsetting that I didn’t have a pole spear with me, but who would have thought to bring out a pole spear on a wreck that’s only been on the ground for 30 minutes? Not this guy.

I’ll tell you, though, next time I come here, I guarantee you I’ll be armed with the pole spear. And here’s a massive cutout that’s at the back of the ship that I was talking about earlier. So you can come down here. There’s a couple of doorways that lead to some stairs and stuff, so it’s pretty cool. It’s also another place that has a bunch of nooks and crannies that’s going to hold a lot of fish. So when you’re out here spearfishing, come check this area out, because it’s going to have some little hiding spots.

[BEEPING]

All right, you guys. That’s the end of the dive. I’m running out of deco, I’m running out of gas. I got to get out of here. But again, a huge thank you to Alex Fogg and his team for putting all these wrecks down in the Gulf of Mexico. You guys hit up Shark Quest, tell them you want to go out and dive some of these wrecks. They’ll take you guys out there, have a good time.

And if you guys like this wreck video, check out this other wreck video that just popped up on the bottom of the screen. This one’s also awesome, and now it’s holding a lot of cool fish.

Fish.