El Aguila or Eagle Wreck is a 75 meter long cargo boat which was separated in three sections by hurricane Mitch.
| Name Dive Site: | Aguila, Eagle Wreck |
| Depth: | 22-108ft (7-33m) |
| Inserted/Added by: | subway_watersports |
| Rated: | Rated 3.0, 6 votes |
| Specifications: |   |
| GPS: | N16°19.645', W86°34.693' |
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El Aguila, Spanish for 'The Eagle', is 75 meter long with a dual-deck cargo area. Its final voyage, according to Samir Galindo, General Manager of Anthony's Key Resort, was a run from Puerto Cortes to Haiti, carrying a cargo of concrete. It ran aground near Utila (there was speculation sabotage was involved) and was there for several years, partially submerged. Rocky Jones, from Utila, salvaged the ship and towed it into the harbour. A passing storm pushed the ship onto the reef, where Jones again salvaged it, this time intentionally sinking it partially so it wouldn't be vulnerable to future storms.
At the time, the only wrecks accessible to north shore dive operators were two wooden-hulled vessels sunk (naturally, not intentionally) years before, and the wooden hulls were quickly disappearing into the sea. AKR had been looking for a ship to convert into a wreck dive, and El Aguila proved a perfect choice. About 5 weeks passed between the purchase of El Aguila, the clean up (including removal of the original cargo – tons of now-hardened concrete) the towing and finally, the sinking. Galindo commented that sinking El Aguila was "a real challenge", but the ordeal helped make the Odyssey experience such a well-organized success.
When El Aguila sunk in 1997, it was upright in 110 feet of water. In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch arrived and battered the north shore, breaking it into 3 pieces. Galindo says with all the salvageable metal removed from the ship in Utila, the hull was structurally unable to resist the stress created by relentless current and surge. But Mitch provided a service to the wreck divers of Roatan. The 3 pieces created extra nooks and crannies to investigate. El Aguila sits a short boat ride from the AKR dock, protected by garden eels and one large but curious green moray eel.
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Name: native_sons
The Aguilar Wreck was sunk intentionally by Anthony's Key Resort in 1997, broken into 3 by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and further rearranged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. The 210ft cargo ship sits on the sand at 110ft and is a great dive. As you go down you are met by huge friendly groupers and blue parrot fish. There is a resident eel and some wonderful coral has grown on the ship. Don't forget to check out the garden eels covering the deep sand as far as you can see. We usually do this dive as a drift, starting at the wreck and then decompressing in the shallows and gradually making our way to Pillar Coral, to the west. For some reason there is an area between these two sites where there are so many fish, Bermuda Chubb, black durgons, groupers, schoolmasters, all hanging out at the top of the wall. What a great place to do a safety stop!
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