St. Augustine's Dorthy Louise Reef, often referred to as the DL barge, is a nearly 200 foot long broken barge resting in 80 feet of water 20 miles east of the St. Augustine inlet. On Labor day TISIRI divers visited the reef to collect imagery for Reefs Revealed. Dive conditions were great with a sea floor visibility of nearly 50 feet but the abundance of schooling fish made it difficult to see at times. See pictures of the reef and marine life below.The usual suspects were encountered including seabass, soapfish, anglefish, flounder, and tomtates. Two medium sized nurse sharks were found resting under a portion of the barge and there were thousands of schooling fish in the area. In fact, TISIRI diver Ed Kalakauskis said this was the most amount of swiming fish he has ever seen on a single dive. Schooling fish included spadefish, almaco jack, barracuda, bonita, and several variety of bait fish. As the divers ascended they were completely surrounded by all of these schooling fish and reported it was a rather amazing experience.
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Jacksonville Florida's Bob Engle Barge Reef Investigation
7-29-12TISIRI divers investigate Jacksonville's Bob Engle Barge Reef to collect imagery for Reefs Revealed mapping efforts. The Bob Engle Reef is a nearly 300 foot barge that was deployed 30 miles east of Mayport. The barge sits in roughly 110 feet of water but provides a...
Read MoreTriggerfish Attack Camera Equipment
During an investigation of aircraft wreckage offshore St. Augustine Florida, TISIRI cameraman Joe Kistel momentarily leaves a video camera recording unattended. The video camera was recording for approximately three minutes. It wasn't until the footage was later reviewed when it was learned what was happening throughout this time period. See the video below:Curious Grey triggerfish thought they should try to taste the camera housing. In particular they were most interested in the lever for a light filter just to the left of the lens. Throughout the video you can hear the lever being chomped on as the fish attack. One particular fish decides to bite the lens directly, yikes!
Read MoreJacksonville Florida Lionfish Round-Up
Unfortunately Jacksonville Florida suffers the same fate as the rest of Florida and the Western Atlantic. The waters offshore northeast Florida are plagued with invasive lionfish. TISIRI and Offshore Dive Charters are coordinating lionfish round-up events to do as much as possible to try to keep the lionfish population in check. See the brief video of one of our lionfish round-up events below.
Read MoreA7 Pilot Besal And TISIRI's Kistel Meet
8-23-12Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Bob Besal and TISIRI's Joe Kistel had the opportunity to recently meet in Charleston. Besal is the pilot of the A7 military aircraft confirmed offshore by TISIRI investigation efforts. The gentlemen had a friendly conversation both explaining their sides of the...
Read MoreOffshore WWII Era Aircraft Wreck?
Capt. Steve Blalock escorted divers to the area and dropped a marker buoy when the vessel reached the location. Divers entered the water and before reaching the sea floor they could make out a large block-like object off in the distance. They divers immediately swam towards it and as they approach each diver new exactly what they were looking at. They were stairing at the remains of a large rotary aircraft engine. See pictures below...
Read MoreMysterious Wreckage identified as a Vought A-7C
On a cold winter day in December of 1974, two A7-C jets collide at 15,000 feet offshore St. Augustine. One of the A7's quickly becomes uncontrollable and falls out of the sky into the ocean below. The other aircraft is able to limp its way home.
Nearly 40 years later, the TISIRI team finds themselves investigating aircraft wreckage off the Coast of St. Augustine Florida. Scuba diving searches of one wreckage site has revealed what appears to be large aluminum metal structures and large tires. Structures that are often associated with military aircraft.
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Kistel Discovers Aircraft Component Data Plate
8-12-12TISIRI divers Larry Davis, Ed Kalakauskis, Nate Tucei, and Joe Kistel continued wreckage investigation efforts at the wreck site previously referred to as "Site 2." Kistel and Davis collected imagery of the wreckage components that you can view below. The goals of the investigation were to capture...
Read MoreTISIRI Raises Aircraft Engine During Investigation
The TISIRI team continued investigation efforts at the two offshore wreckage sites offshore St. Augustine. This post is in regards to wreck site 1, the area that has two Lycoming engines buried in the sea floor. Today one of the engines was lifted out of its buried state with the use of a heavy duty lift bag. This allowed TISIRI investigators to confirm the engine contained a 2 bladed propeller while revealing a stamped number near the propeller blades. Hopefully these features will help identify this aircraft. See pictures below and make note of the stamped number in the propeller picture. Please let us know if you can help us further id this aircraft with this new information.
Read MoreData plate discovered at aircraft crash site offshore St. Augustine.
8-12-12Just a quick update in regards to yesterday's search efforts. At wreck site 2 TISIRI's Joe Kistel discovered a small component with a data plate. See an image of the data plate by clicking on the image below. Can you make out any of the...
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