After the successful deployment of the USCGC Mohawk off Sanibel Island on July 2, 2012 the team who brought you Southwest Florida’s new top dive site is working on an encore for 2013.
Mike Campbell of Lee County’s Marine Services Program is working together with Reefmakers, Inc. and Chris Wojcik’s Art as Reef project to bring a new artificial reef to the waters offshore Lee County, Florida.
The project entitled “Tarpon Reef” will combine the work of this multi-talented group of people to create a large steel and concrete sculpture of a school of tarpon and place it in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef. Lee County Senior Environmental Specialist Mike Campbell described the plan; “I have a reef project I’m working on: Tarpon Reef,” he said. “What I’d like to do is get a large barge, 100 feet, and build a steel sculpture of a school of tarpon on it. The tarpon would have huge mouths that fish can get in.”
The plan calls for the sculpture to be created on a barge which will be towed to a site 16 miles off Sanibel Island and sunk to create an artificial reef. The barge will be moored near downtown Ft. Myers while the sculpture is completed. “People would be able to watch the sculpture being built.” Mike Campbell stated. In discussing the value of the project Campbell said, “It would be a piece of art and an artificial reef, something cool for the art community and a draw for divers.”
The idea is similar to Wojcik’s large sculpture of a Horseshoe Crab sunk off the coast of New Jersey in 2012 and requires an estimated $500,000.00 budget to be raised mostly from private contributions.
This new project involves fund-raising, permitting, sculpting, engineering, and deployment. This team has worked together successfully in the past so we’re looking forward to another fantastic event in the New Year.
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