Captain Joe Glenn was a key player in the sinking of the Adolphus Busch. (He also built Looe Key Dive Center and owned it from 1978 to 2005.) Looe Key Diver scored an exclusive interview with Captain Joe. Here's his story...

Looe Key Diver:How did you get involved in the Adolphus Busch sinking and what was your role?
Captain Joe Glenn: Well, it’s a long, strange story that started in 1978…

For many years, dive operators in the Lower Keys had wanted to sink a ship to provide an artificial reef for divers and fisherman. We formed a non-profit group, FL Marine Sanctuaries, Inc which did buoy maintenance on Looe Key Reef.  A few years later, we decided to get serious about finding and sinking a ship. We visited The Marine Reserve Fleet in Beaumont TX and found a ship but we needed money. Lots of it. We returned home, held some bake sales at Looe Key Dive Center and raised… $1500. Not nearly enough. And the logistics of preparing the ship for sinking were close to impossible.
It was discouraging.

But then, I enlisted the help of Adolphus Busch III (of Anheiser Busch fame.) You see, he was a patron of the Looe Key Tiki Bar. One night at the bar, I told him, “Look, we’d like to sink a ship but we need money.” He asked, “How much?” I told him, “$250,000.”  He gave us $250,000 in Anheiser Busch stock and we went looking for a ship to sink!

First, we went to Trinidad – found a ship but it had no paperwork. Then we heard about the Ocean Alley in Port-au-Prince Haiti. This turned out to be our ship. We re-named it the Adolphus Busch, in honor of Mr. Busch III.

It cost $60,000 to buy the ship and lots more to pay a Haitian company to prepare it for sinking. The prep took two months. Then, it had to be towed to Miami for inspection. But we couldn’t do that for another three months because the insurance company wouldn’t allow it to be towed if there was a named storm in the Atlantic Basin. Finally, the Adolphus Busch arrived in Miami. I marked all the areas on the hull where cut-outs would be made - to flood the ship for sinking and for diver swim throughs.  After  passing the many inspections by various U.S. regulatory agencies (NOAA, FKNMS, etc. etc) we were ready to tow the Busch to her final site and sink her. This was a bit tricky because we weren’t allowed to use explosives, as is normally done when you sink a ship. We had to flood her compartments so that she would be upright on the bottom.  She was sunk at about 12:30 on Dec 5th , 1998. We even had an underwater camera on the ship to record the sinking.

LKD: Wow. What an epic! What was the most difficult part?
CJG: Working with Monroe County (aka Moron County) and NOAA. During the concept stage, the county was very receptive to the idea of sinking a ship. But when it came to actually doing it, they seemed to come up with one obstacle after another. Then NOAA required that the sinking site have no coral within 500 ft in any direction – it took several days of diving to find such a spot. Then they wanted a magnetometer study to ensure that there were no pre-historic wrecks beneath the site. We also had to pay for a “20 year stability” study to show that the wreck wouldn’t move for 20 years, even during a hurricane. Then, just three days before the sinking, they wanted a “100 year stability study” plus an agreement that we would maintain the mooring buoys on the wreck for five years! Are you starting to see where that $250,000 went?

LKD: Yeah. After all that, what was the most memorable part?
CJG: Being the first person to dive the AB, right after it was sunk.

LKD: How many dives do you have on the AB?
CJG: Oh, probably somewhere between 100 and 150. It’s been a year since I last dove it. I heard someone put an American Flag on the wheel house.

LKD:In your opinion, what’s the outlook for getting additional artificial reefs, like the Vandenberg,  in the Lower Keys area in the near future?
CJC: Not good. There were so many difficulties with the Spiegel Grove (in the upper Keys) and now the Vandenberg has run into problems with cost over runs. Back in the '80’s, a 400 foot ship might cost $400,000 total- $300,000 to buy the ship and another $100,000 to clean and sink it. Now it’s way more than that. Plus, everyone now wants to sink bigger ships, which cost even more.

LKD: So it might be a while before we get any new wrecks. What can divers do to maintain the Busch so that it continues to be a healthy artificial reef that attracts divers and sea life?
CJG: Not much to do really. Next time you dive it, polish the plaque that’s mounted on the front of the wheel house – there’s a brush fastened next to the plaque.