It’s difficult to describe how enormous the 510-foot Spiegel Grove is, but try this on for size: imagine three Olympic-size swimming pools laid end to end. If you paid attention to the briefing, you understand that the only way you can take in its entire length is if you’re zipping along in a DPV.

“Even coming down the mooring line, it’s hard for people to see the whole wreck,” says Dan Dawson, owner of Horizon Divers in Key Largo, Florida. “It’s just a huge ship.”

Since an Advanced Open Water (AOW) certification is recommended for divers making a dive on the Spiegel Grove, Horizon Divers offers an AOW course that includes diving on the wreck. “In the AOW class, we almost always do the deep part of the course and the Wreck Diver specialty on the Spiegel Grove,” Dawson says. He also recommends choosing nitrox as one of the three specialties you must complete. While many divers are content with the AOW recreational diving experience, Dawson says that some divers become inspired to start technical dive training.

Talk about wreck diving with Dawson and it’s clear that when he’s exploring a wreck, he’s in his place of total Zen. How lucky for him, then, that his business and passion is located in Key Largo, the unofficial wreck diving capital of America.

“That’s why I settled here 20 years ago,” Dawson says. “I have dived all over the Caribbean. I’ve been in the Pacific. I’ve done Bikini and Truk Lagoon and they’re cool places to go for a vacation. But the Keys are a place you can come back to time and time again.”

On the Spiegel Grove (as well as other deep wrecks such as the Duane), Horizon Divers offers a two-tank “double dip.” Once the boat ties off on the mooring, their guests make both dives on the wreck.

“It sparks a lot of interest,” Dawson says. “They want to stay down longer to see different things or even to travel to different places in the world like the Philippines. Key Largo is just a great training ground.”

The training is challenging, says Dawson, but the rewards are tremendous. “We’re trying to make our students better divers. We put a lot of effort into that. When they walk out of here, they’ve earned the certification, but they’ve had fun, too. With each level of certification that you add, you become a more confident and capable diver.”

Horizon Divers also offers a range of technical diving courses, from the PADI TEC 40 course to advanced nitrox, wreck diver, trimix and rebreather. The Spiegel Grove—in depths ranging from roughly 70 feet to 140 feet at the sand bottom—is just one of the sites that Horizon Divers uses for technical training. Others include the wrecks of the Duane, Bibb and Eagle as well as the Vitric, in 300 feet of water.

“I’ve done almost 2,000 dives on the Spiegel Grove over the last 20 years,” says Dawson. “I still see things that are from a little different perspective almost every day. The marine life changes a little bit. Where the fish hang out changes. What you see is just different every single time you dive it.”

Contact Info

Horizon Divers (horizondivers.com)

Phone: (305) 453-3535

Email: [email protected]