Sunday, August 5th, Scuba Steve and I decided to skip our dive trip planned to Devil`s Den in Williston, Florida- instead we headed south to Vero Beach, Florida.

The forecast for 1-2 foot waves and barely any wind held true. We arrived at the site just after 7am, and saw we were not alone on our endeavor. There must of been about eight other divers suiting up that had the same idea as we did.

The Boiler wreck is located just off shore, and the visibilty is usually 0, except for the awesome days with no waves, no current, and a little surge. Shore diving this far north in Florida is usually less than ideal, thus we decided to seize the moment.

Once we got past the first reef, the vis. was only 5-8ft. We were on hand to hand communication. There wasn`t much to see on the kick out there: a few small coral heads. plenty of sea urchins and the occasional little fish.

Crossing over our last patch of sand, with the wreck only about 10 feet away, a giant sting ray suddenly leaped out of its sandy hiding spot and scared the living day lights out of us. Its wing span was at least six feet across. Watching it swim away was absolutely beautiful, and probably our favorite part of the whole dive.

The wreck itself is at least fourty years old, yet the hull is still in tact-- an amazing fact considering the many hurricanes that have swept across this area so many times. The debris of the wreck is a bit scattered. In every nook and cranny there was some form of life-- either eels or urchins. The wreck is located in only about 12 feet of water, so you can`t really swim over it, or else you would be scraping it, and swimming on the surface. We actually used the bit of it sticking out above the surface to get our compass heading before embarking for the big swim of shore.

After about ten minutes of swimming around the wreck, we headed back to shore. We used the surge to propel us back to where we started. Doing so, we conserved a lot of energy.

It was successful dive since we did in fact see the wreck. It was a good swim out, but well worth it.