Towering Uncertainties 2009
Standing at the southeast end of Cape Fear’s shoals, the Frying Pan Tower has served as a navigational marker for mariners and a giant place marker for anglers since it was built in 1966. The tower’s location, atop a hard bottom area of the shoals in 50′ of water and surrounded by even more hard and live bottom rising into the 40′ depths from the 80-100′ water nearby, creates a hazard for deep draft oceangoing vessels at the same time it attracts scores of pelagic and bottom dwelling gamefish.
Fortunately for mariners, modern electronic navigation equipment has meant that the Tower hasn’t needed to be manned and lit for many years, but the surrounding bottom structure means that it is far from obsolete for many local anglers. The structure’s proximity to the Gulf Stream and surrounding live bottom attracts great numbers of baitfish, which can be seen swirling around the legs of the structure in great clouds, and serve as a great lure for offshore pelagics like king mackerel, dolphin, wahoo, tuna, and occasionally billfish. The living sea floor beneath the structure and in the surrounding area harbors perhaps the greatest piscine diversity of any area in NC, and many species previously unheard of this far north have been found in the area. The fact is, with a very few exceptions, at the right time of year it’s possible to catch virtually every offshore gamefish swimming in NC waters within a 15 mile radius of the Tower.
However, in stark contrast to the teeming ecosystem below and around, the Tower itself isn’t too healthy. Having been neglected for nearly 30 years, the Tower is also uninhabitable and in a seriously dilapidated state. A glance at the spiral staircase leading up to the structure from the water gives anglers a hint of the general condition. Were it not broken off halfway up to the living area, it’s so rusty that even seabirds seem to give it a second look before perching there.
Government officials have talked for years about their plans for the structure, and until last year the apparent conclusion was that it was to be torn down and sunk in slightly deeper water offshore as an artificial reef. This was met with mixed emotions from anglers, most of whom, of course, are in favor of reef building, but who also enjoy fishing around and looking at the Tower where it sits. For many, it’s just nice to see the Tower simply to give a sense of directional bearing far from sight of land.
Apparently, the cost of cleaning the Tower up and sinking it was also too great a burden for the government, so earlier this year it was announced that the Tower would be sold at auction to the highest bidder.
This sparked a bidding war for the structure, to many people’s surprise, as it will take some serious coin on top of the purchase price in order to make the Tower habitable and useful for anything other than a giant fish attractor. Ultimately, the South Carolina company Shipwrecks, Inc. placed the high bid of $515,000, and many in the angling community wondered what that portended for the future of the structure.
It may not portend much, as the sale has not yet been made final.
“I don’t know if this thing’s going through or not,” said Dr. Lee Spence, founder of Shipwrecks, Inc. “They haven’t let us onto the Tower to inspect it yet. I put up $5,000 at the beginning of the bidding process, but they want 10% of the purchase price, $51,500, before they will let me onto the structure. When bidding, I fully expected to be able to inspect it as part of my due diligence before handing over the money, and I won’t do it until I can take a look at it.”
The situation should be resolved soon, as the government’s deadline for Spence to put up the 10% expired in early April.
“The deadline passed today,” Spence said in a telephone interview last week. “The last communication I had with the GSA, they told me to go out and look at it, but they want the $51,500 before they will give me an official letter allowing me on the structure, and I can’t get a helicopter pilot to land on it without that letter.”
After it become public that Spence was the high bidder for the Tower, speculation ran rampant in the fishing community over just what he would do with it. Obviously, it needs some serious rehabilitation before anything can happen on it, which Spence is prepared for.
“They tell me it’ll take around $2 million to fix it up, but I don’t know until I can get out there and take a look at it,” Spence continued. “If it’s $2 million, that’s not a concern. I’d consider it a good deal if that’s all it would take.”
Spence’s first plans for the structure, should he end up purchasing it, revolve around the commercial diving school he operates out of Charleston, SC.
“It would be an ideal platform for the diving school. We teach underwater welding and other skills used by oil rig divers, and the substructure of the Tower would be a perfect place to train.”
Spence also plans to place a hyperbaric chamber on the Tower, which could help out many more people than just those attending his diving school. The chamber is necessary to treat hyperbaric disorders like “the bends” that occur when divers fail to properly decompress before surfacing. Currently, the nearest chambers are at Duke Hospital in Durham and the marine base Camp Lejeune, but a Tower-based chamber would be far more practical for divers in the Cape Fear region.
“Every bit of time that goes by with a hyperbaric injury, the damage gets worse and worse,” Spence explained. “And you really don’t want to fly anyone in that condition if you can avoid it, because the lowered air pressure can accelerate the injury.”
There have also been rumors that Spence planned to turn the Tower into a charter fishing/diving destination, but those are further on the horizon than the diving school uses.
“I’d love to see that happen, whether I end up with it or someone else does,” he explained.
Whether Spence ends up with the Tower or not, private, commercial, and recreational fishermen and divers can rejoice in the fact that it will remain standing for the foreseeable future, and should Spence end up with it, access to the area will not be limited.
“Our plan for the Tower would be for there to be continued access for all groups using it now. We want very much for recreational and commercial fishermen and divers to keep using the area.”
