Freeport Liberty Ship Reef

Scuba diving is an adventure in experiencing marine life and underwater scenes up close… sometimes really close.

Back on February 1, 1972, at the time of the Benzene Tanker ship, The VA Fogg’s explosion, I was a veteran scuba dive at the age of 20 years old. I was in my spring college classes and also was participating in an “Advanced Scuba Diving Course.” In June, 1972, our final diving adventure was an offshore trip to the sunken VA Fogg.

The Galveston, Texas dive school’s master Scuba Diving instructor was the owner and captain of a flat bottomed shrimp trawler, modified for fishing and scuba diving. It was agreed that the scuba class could get a lower rate price, for the offshore trip to The VA Fogg, provided we agreed to stop on an offshore reef and fish by rod and reel to catch red snapper fish on our way out of Galveston. The captain would later sell the fish to help finance the boat’s fuel costs. We met at the marina around midnight, got underway by 2:00 a.m., and reached the snapper reef before daylight. By mid morning, after fishing for a number of hours, we pulled anchor and continued our voyage to The VA Fogg.

The captain stated that there had been a lighted marker buoy over the wreck which would have been easily spotted as we approached the sight. But since it had been a very stormy and rough spring season, the buoy had broken loose and was probably laying somewhere on the Texas beach, thirty-six miles away. The captain followed his Loran navigation instruments to the latitude and longitude, where the buoy had once been. After reaching the site, it took another hour of doing survey lines back and forth over the area, searching for the wreckage with the depth finder instruments. When the largest portion of the ship was located we dropped anchor and prepared for diving.

As we descended towards the wreck we found the tallest portion of the wreckage, the radio antenna array, atop a masthead which was in approximately forty to forty-five feet of water. We found the main part of the ship including the crew’s quarters, the galley, and the dining area. One side of the ship was blown completely out and the hull was separated with approximately one third of the aft section laying one-hundred to one-hundred fifty feet away. The depth of the bottom was 112 feet. That day we found that there was not the normal 2 to 4 foot sandy murk layer drifting across the sand. The bottom and an assortment of the ship’s debris, could be seen while scuba diving along the ships hull, or rather what was left of the hull.

Since the wreck had happened only four and a half months earlier, there was little to no marine growth on the structure at that time. The ship’s surface paint, the painted deck equipment, and storage container signs were still in good readable condition. Therefore, at the time we dove the wreck, very few fish or other living creatures were seen to be making their homes on board. What a of scuba diving adventure! Especially on such a recent ship wreck tragedy. In the following several months, the U.S. Coast Guard sent demolition scuba divers out to the site to blow up the upper portion of the ship to provide a deeper depth over the top of the wreckage. The modern day adventures can be sought through http://diver-dans-diving.com, which will help place you in contact with http://www.crazyscuba.com/default.cfm?RID=5945&TID=10 to make arrangements for your equipment needs and travel accommodations.

Over the years The V.A. Fogg’s explosion wreck site has been added to by the Texas Parks and Wildlife, Houston Lighting and Power Company Reef, Conoco/Galveston County Reef, Shaw – Liberty Ship, Allen – Liberty Ship, and Star Reef… Further information about the site may be found at the “ Freeport Liberty Ship Reef.”