SWB (Small Wooden Barge)

 We marked the SWB in November of 2004, and didn't get to dive it until May of 2005.  It wasn't worth the wait.  It's another wooden barge about 200ft. in length and maybe 35 feet wide.  It's in 200 FSW within the dumping grounds and another scuttle job.  It's not totally uninteresting as it's still quite intact, but it has to be more than just a barge to go down 200ft. to visit more than once.

Howie and I found this wreck upright on the bottom, although since the shot line fell away from the wreck, we only had a few minutes to spend before going up.  Jack, Joe, Paul and Slav had more time and filled in the rest of the information for us.  I did a cursory inspection and guessed the wreck was empty before leaving my reel for the rest to follow.  All agreed back on the boat, but nobody bothered to drop stages to go in and see for sure.  The deck had a couple small holes and a single reported hatch.  I found some broken decking exposing some beams near the stern, but didn't see anything worth going in for. 

As opposed to the 2-anchor wreck, this one has a flat bow similar to the two steel barges we've visited.  The deck is completely flat and featureless.  I knew it was a barge as soon as I saw the flat sides, and the deck left no doubt.  The bottom around the wreck is mud, and is devoid of just about everything including tube worms usually found in these areas.  The visibility was surprisingly good in early May when we visited the site.  The SWB was not assessed as worthy of a mooring line, however, and while it was definitely worth a single exploratory dive we don't plan to go back to this one for a while.