Proteus

The Proteus was a large British tanker torpedoed by U-172 in August 1942, and she went down fast enough to preserve enormous sections of superstructure sitting upright in 130 feet of water northeast of Cape Hatteras. Her sheer size — nearly 500 feet long — means a single dive covers only a fraction of the wreck. The engine room and holds are accessible to cave-certified penetration divers. Bull sharks are a consistent presence here alongside sand tigers, and in summer the water column above the wreck fills with massive schools of barracuda and amberjack riding the edge of the Gulf Stream. This is one of the deepest sport diving wrecks in the Outer Banks and is strictly for advanced divers comfortable with planned decompression.