11-4-08 Double East

Given the great fall weather we've had and the trip reports of great visibility, we decided to try and get out on our boat one more time. They were forecasting fog and 2-4' seas for this morning but we awoke to no fog and a steady 3' sea. We each only had one set of tanks full of air so we were going to do one long dive and then head in for a little striper fishing. Bill jumped in first and tied the hook in and came back with a trigger fish and some mussels. He reported about 30' of visibility. I wish I had my camera but one of the stobes is at Sea Life for a repair so this dive is purely sightseeing. I am not particularly fond of this wreck because when I was in my early 20's and diving on it with Triton Divers, it was loaded with sand tiger sharks and I could never shake that memory. In particular, Bill had a bag of speared fish and was doing his hang while these sharks circled us. They were swimming all around us on the bottom and on the hang. This is my second trip to this wreck this year and I was glad to find that I did not see any sharks on either trip. I did sea lots of black fish, sea bass and a few trigger fish. This wreck is actually quite fun to investigate with all of the giant concrete slabs. It creates lots of nooks and cranies to look in. The water temp was about 57 degrees on the bottom and I had a safe and relaxing dive. I guess in looking back it was a privilege to see those sharks way back then because I have not seen any since.

We didn't have much luck catching any stripers on our way in, but maybe next time. I will be off on another camping/backpacking adventure in Shenandoah, Virginia this weekend. The weather looks excellent for camping and it should be lots of fun. I have one more dive scheduled for November 16th and hope very much to get out for one more dive.