The Wreck I’d Dive Again Tomorrow | The Denver Diver
Deep water, strong current, incredible visibility and a full-size gun still sitting on the bow. C-56 Juan Escutia was the wreck dive we’d do again tomorrow. No question.
Why C-56 Juan Escutia became our favorite wreck dive near Puerto Morelos. There are dives you enjoy. And then there are dives where, somewhere in the middle of it, you realize: This is really, really good. C-56 was one of those dives. We were diving with Eduardo from My Deep Life off Puerto Morelos, south of Cancun. The wreck sits upright in roughly 90 feet of water, with the upper structure beginning around 65 feet. And on the morning we dove it, the current was moving. Not enough to cancel the dive. Enough to make you earn it. Getting Down to C-56 There was no leisurely descent into the blue. We went down the mooring line against a pretty stiff current and, once we reached the wreck, immediately dropped toward the deck to get some protection from the moving water. That first view was fantastic. C-56 isn’t a pile of wreckage scattered across the bottom. It’s a ship. You can see the shape of it. The deck. The superstructure. The bridge.And sitting right there on the bow, the gun. The Gun on the Bow That may have been the moment the wreck really came alive for me. Still mounted on the bow was the ship’s full-size deck gun. I had seen naval guns in photographs and museums before, but hovering just a few feet away from one underwater was completely different. The scale surprised me. In a photo, it can look like just another feature on the wreck. Up close, you understand how substantial it really is — the barrel extending out over the bow, the mount beneath it, the whole thing still sitting where sailors once operated it. For a few minutes, the artificial reef disappeared. This was a warship. And I was floating over its gun. That sense of scale and proximity is one of the things wreck diving does better than almost anything else. You aren’t looking at history through glass. You’re swimming through it. Unfortunately, this was also about the time our camera decided it had done enough for the day. It hadn’t fully charged the night before and died during what would turn out to be one of our favorite dives of the trip. Of course it did. Into the Current Our route around the wreck made the dive even better. We started along the starboard side, swimming directly into the current. Normally, fighting current isn’t exactly the highlight of a dive. But here it worked. We stayed close to the wreck, moving forward along the hull, using the ship itself for protection when we could. And because we were doing the work on the way out, I knew what was coming. Eventually we crossed over the top of the wreck. That’s where C-56 really started showing off. From above, you get a completely different perspective. Instead of swimming beside a ship, you’re looking down onto one — seeing the deck, the gun and the structures beneath you while the Caribbean moves overhead. Then we moved to the port side. And now the current was ours. Going Inside C-56 This is where C-56 separated itself from the other wrecks we dove. There are several large swim-throughs cut into the ship, and we moved through multiple sections during the dive. One took us through the superstructure and bridge. For me, that changes a wreck dive completely. I love swimming around a wreck. I love seeing the scale of it from the outside. But moving through one creates an entirely different connection to it. For a few moments, you’re no longer looking at a shipwreck. You’re in the ship. Light comes through openings in the structure. The blue water outside frames doorways and passageways. Fish have replaced sailors. Coral and marine growth have taken over surfaces that were never meant to spend decades underwater. And then you emerge back into the Caribbean. That’s wreck diving. The Ride Back After working our way into the current on the starboard side, crossing the wreck and exploring the interior, we came back along the port side with the current behind us. Now we could relax. The same water we’d been fighting earlier simply carried us along the ship. And the visibility was fantastic. There was marine life everywhere around the wreck, but strangely, that’s not what I remember most. I remember the structure. I remember looking across the deck. I remember the gun on the bow. I remember going through the bridge. I remember the combination of depth, current and visibility making the wreck feel enormous. And I remember thinking: I could stay down here a lot longer. At 90 feet, of course, the dive computer eventually has something to say about that. A Little History Under 90 Feet of Water C-56 began life as the USS Knave (AM-256), an Admirable-class minesweeper built during World War II. After its service with the United States Navy, the ship was transferred to the Mexican Navy and eventually became ARM Cadete Juan Escutia C-56. In October 2000, it was intentionally sunk off Puerto Morelos to create an artificial reef. More than two decades later, that decision has worked extraordinarily well. The wreck remains remarkably intact and has become both an artificial reef and one of the area’s standout deep wreck dives. But knowing its history underwater gives the dive another dimension. This wasn’t built for scuba divers. It wasn’t built to become a reef. It was built for war. Now divers swim through its bridge while fish move through the spaces where sailors once worked. And that gun is still sitting on the bow. I love that transformation. Is C-56 Worth Diving? Absolutely. After diving C-55, C-56 and C-58 on this trip, C-56 made an immediate case for being our favorite of the three. I’ll compare all three separately because they’re very different wreck experiences. But C-56 has a combination that’s hard to beat: An intact wreck. Depth. Current. Excellent visibility. Marine life. A full-size deck gun still on the bow. And enough accessible structure to make you feel like you’re exploring rather than simply circling a sunken ship. This is not the dive I’d choose for someone looking for an easy, lazy morning underwater. That’s part of why I liked it. You descend into current. You work. You pay attention to your depth and bottom time. You move around and through a piece of history sitting nearly 90 feet below the Caribbean. And when everything comes together, it’s spectacular. Would I Dive C-56 Again? When we got back on the boat, Trista summed it up perfectly. “I’d do that dive again tomorrow. No question.” That was exactly how I felt. C-56 had everything I want from a wreck dive — depth, current, history, huge structure, swim-throughs, incredible visibility, and that full-size gun still sitting on the bow. No hesitation. Tomorrow.
Home · Published articles
Enable JavaScript to use signup forms and interactive features.