Ancient Mariner

Ancient Mariner

Fort Lauderdale Dive Sites

The Ancient Mariner was formerly known as the USCG cutter Nemesis which in her latter years had been converted into a well known restaurant.

Ancient Mariner the USCG Nemesis
Fort Lauderdale – Wreck Diving

The Ancient Mariner was built in Port Pleasant; West Virginia in the 1930′s and was launched as the USCG Nemesis.

Her early duties as a coastguard cutter was to patrol the coast and carry out lifeguard duties before being drafted into the war and used for convoy duties both in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Atlantic hunting down German submarines with some success.

In later life she was used as a floating restaurant but this business later became bankrupt and the ship ended up in the hands of the South Florida Divers Club who donated the cutter to the Broward County Artificial Reef program.

She was sunk in June 1991 still fully fitted with the extravagant fixtures used to convert the ship to look like a three tier African steamer. When she originally settled on the bottom in 70 feet of water this 165 foot cutter looked a mess. However Hurricane Andrew helped remove the superfluous fittings and the cutter looks like a ship once again.

With an average depth of 50 feet around this wreck there is plenty of bottom time and plenty to see and explore.

Fort Lauderdale Scuba Videos

One of the attractions of Fort Lauderdale scuba diving is that you will be able to take underwater photographs or underwater videos such as the one below.The waters are warm and clear so you will be able to get some good shots.

This video was taken at the Ancient Mariner or USCG Nemesis and you can see she remains intact and is great to explore. This video also gives you an idea of what to expect when scuba diving in Fort Lauderdale. (Press the button second right on the bottom of the video player to see it in full screen)…

Terence’s Log:

When originally sunk this would have been one of the most unusual wreck dives you would have done. However after the hurricanes much of the superficial structure was torn away leaving the wreck of the Ancient Mariner as it should be with plenty of penetration points.

The wreck is located just 1 mile from shore inside the third reef line and has great visibility as you can see in the video above.