NE Florida’s Newest Artificial Reef

The day began at 3AM for the crew of Anger Management, Salonen Marine’s tug. Leaving from Moody’s shipyard Jacksonville Florida, their destination was the NE Corner of a permitted area known as Floyd’s Folly. Floyd’s Folly sits about 20nm SE of Jacksonville’s jetties (The mouth of the St. Johns river) and 12 miles from the shore of Ponte Vedra. The tug is pushing a barge with approximately 800+ tons of concrete culverts, and pilings which will be used for NE Florida’s newest artificial reef.

The new reef will join two others in the near vicinity placed in 2009 and 2011 respectively creating a triangle of artificial reefs, convenient in location to divers, fishermen and fisherwomen. We are calling the area of the three reefs, “The Triad.”

The Action News 30 film crew, guests, divers and TISIRI depart from the Morningstar Marina on Capt. Dan Lindleys Diamond Diver. Capt Dan Lindley owns and operates Offshore Dive Charter and if ever in the area, look them up. Diamond Diver is a 46′ dive vessel, perfect because of it’s size and accommodations.

We depart at around 7:30AM where we are to meet the crew of the tug Anger Management at the placement site. While at the marina, Joe Kistel, Director of TISIRI provides all divers with the plan for the survey. Ed Kalakauskis provides the safety briefing, while Larry Davis documents the days events on film.

The plan is to arrive ahead of the tug, place the marker buoys at the designated GPS coordinate, and assist and observe. Timing was perfect. We arrived to the tug about 4nm miles away from the placement site. We marked the spot with the buoys and placement started at 09:27AM EST. During the period of placement, we took the opportunity to visit, dive and document our 2009 placement. Upon our return from the dive, we find all material has been placed.

Placement ends at the official time, 11:55AM EST. The tug is ready to move out of position, with the barge, except their torch had fallen over board and they are being held in place by the cables attached to the new reef and the barge. Concrete piling were used as anchors for the placement and they are unable to torch the cable free of the barge. They plan to send a diver down on a hooka to search for the torch. 20 minutes later they decide to grind the cable free from the barge. We communicate our divers will locate and retrieve the torch material on our post deployment survey and return it to Anger Management upon our return. At this point, the tug heads back towards Mayport.

We attach the Diamond Diver to the float line and use it as our guide down to the reef and back to the boat. Divers suit up, gather their survey tools and begin the decent down to the reef for the first look at the newest artificial reef named Fred Morrow Reef by the Jacksonville Offshore Fishing Club.

I, the filmogragher head down first and during my scouting discover the torch. Untangling it from the rubble, I begin carrying it back to the mooring line and helped along the way by Kim Fair. Kim takes the torch and places it near the mooring line. Continuing my investigation and filming, I come to the floats, which were entangled in the steel cable used to moor the barge. I pull out my knife to cut the line free, allowing the floats to ascend to the surface for recovery and find Kim Fair by my side, assisting in their recovery.

Below you will see a small video clip of the days events and more to follow on Action News 30 the week of August 4th.

The Fred Morrow Artificial reef is a good placement with well scattered material, and good profile. It will prove to be good habitat and a great location for both divers and fishermen and women to visit.

Thanks to everyone involved with this placement:

-TISIRI support divers
-The FWC
-The St. Augustine police
-Offshore Dive Charters
-The City of Jacksonville
-White Oak Contracting
-Salonen Marine
-Fox 30 News

NE Florida’s newest artificial reef was and will continue to be a success.




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