How a Cold War-era Navy ship was sunk to become famous diving spot off Florida Keys

Local dive operators like Spencer Slate and Rob Bleser, and noted underwater photographer Stephen Frink, had been working behind the scenes for almost 10 years trying to procure the ship in hopes it would become a Florida Keys underwater attraction.
“It was a wonderful ship, and so we said, ‘This is the one. Now we have to find a place to sink it.’” Frink said during a presentation in Key Largo this week on the sinking held 20 years ago.
The mission was eventually accomplished. But the Spiegel Grove’s journey to the ocean floor was fraught with obstacles, mishaps and adventures. “It is a story that you couldn’t make up,” said Dave Score, a retired rear admiral with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who, at the time of the sinking of the Spiegel Grove, was Upper Keys manager of NOAA’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.