Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
A new place to get wrecked
Underwater ‘dive bar’ will rest on ocean floor off Pompano Beach
POMPANO BEACH — This dive bar promises to draw patrons from all over the world — and not just for the mermaid bartender and other slippery characters.
You will have to dive to get here — this “bar,” onboard a sunken tugboat, is actually art for an artificial reef project designed to draw wildlife and scuba divers. It will head to the watery depths at a scuttling Aug. 19 just east of the Pompano Pier.
“Most would not think of a dive bar as an attraction, but this is one dive bar we’re looking forward to opening,” joked Sandra King, Pompano Beach spokeswoman. “There won’t be a jukebox or sticky floor, but this just might be the best dive bar in South Florida.”
The 107-foot tugboat, called the
Okinawa when it floated, will join dozens of ships sunk off South Florida in recent years — most in the interest of promoting sea life. But this one will include life-sized sculptures fashioned as a whimsical bar scene, promises Dennis MacDonald, who also designed the casino scene aboard the 324-foot Lady Luck, sunk a year ago not far from where this one’s going down.
“It’s going to be a fun, fun environment,” MacDonald said. “It’s going to be a fascinating place with fascinating, occasionally remarkable characters.”
The city became a partner in the nonprofit Shipwreck Park Foundation to raise money to build attractions that would lure both divers and sea life to the depths of the ocean.
Arilton Pavan, who owns Dixie Divers, a scuba diving company in Deerfield Beach, said the foundation’s first project, the nearby Lady Luck, has become one of the most popular dives for scuba excursions.
“We get people from all over the world who want to go there,” he said. “It’s a great dive.”
The project’s main attractions will be a relatively shallow 45 to 70 feet below the surface; Lady Luck’s are 100 feet down.
As far as attracting saltwater invertebrates, Shipwreck Park Foundation members have seen success there, too.
“Three goliath grouper have been spotted near the Lady Luck,” said Rob Wyre, chairman of the Shipwreck Park Foundation board of directors. “We couldn’t be more pleased.”
The latest art installation has been five weeks in the making and MacDonald anticipates he’ll be tweaking it an hour before its scheduled sinking. He said he doesn’t mind that nature will take over some of the finer points of his sculpture. He’s been watching it happen on YouTube videos that divers post after visiting the Lady Luck.
“You’re going to see nature’s interpretation of what we’ve started,” he said. “On the Lady Luck, the octopus still looks like an octopus and the mermaid is in desperate need of a haircut.”
This will be MacDonald’s third underwater art installment. The first, a re-creation of 15 Easter Islandstyle heads, was set to have been sunk off the coast of Deerfield Beach in 2015. But hopes for the project were dashed when the barge carrying the heads tipped over instead of sinking straight down, with the barge falling on top of the sculptures.
“It ended up as performance art,” he said.
MacDonald said his heart was aflutter as he watched the Lady Luck descend last year. And he’ll be holding his breath again.
Don’t ask him to take a dive, though. He prefers to see what happens via divers’ social media shares.
“I can’t wait to see what nature’s going to do with this,” he said.