Wow, its been a long time. I've been blown out of 6 dives include 3 trips that were to be once in a life time events that were to wrecks I have yet to dive. Maybe someday I'll get there. Anyways, since there was a lull between fronts, I took the day off which is a huge feat in itself, to go diving! For those whom don't know, I own my own business, Kim Dixon Environmental Consultant LLC, I also work a second job during the winter preparing corporate taxes for a CPA and I take graduate courses at Stockton College. My business is very busy now and my second job just started up so between those two things and the kids schedule, it is like orchestrating a perfect concert in order to escape for a few hours on the open sea.
Well, it was another beautiful day to be out. I was worried that the visibility would not be so wonderful due to the recent double noreasters, but I didn't care, I needed to get out and dive. As we broke out of the inlet we stopped at the bell buoy to decide what wreck to go to. We decided on the Double East aka the Rock Pile, because we also had some numbers for other wrecks nearby that we wanted to check out. When we arrived at the wreck, there was a fishing boat right on the wreck, they were gracious enough to allow us to anchor up and dive. They had already caught their tautog limit and didn't mind giving up their spot.
I was the first one in and had the duty to tie in the anchor. As soon as I splashed the water felt bone chilling cold. I thought, this will be a short dive if I don't warm up. The surface visibility was good but once I approached the bottom the water column was full of particulate matter. The vis wasn't so hot, it was about 10'. Bill again hooked us into a small piece adjacent to the wreck, memories of my previous dive on the Gloria began to flow through my mind. What to do... there was nothing substantial to tie into yet the anchor seemed to not be going anywhere. So I let it be and hoped it wouldn't pull out. I tied off my wreck reel and off I went in search of the wreck, it wasn't too far away only about 30'.
I swam around on the top of the wreck because the visibility was better and that is also where all the fish were. I saw quite a few tautog and lots of porgies around the edges of the wreck. This wreck is covered in mussels and I thought of grabbing some but, I figured I'd leave that duty to Bill. I then found an artifact...it was a bar bell weight that someone used for a drop line. I grabbed it because we are always losing our drop line weights and thought we could use it. I thought, here I am garbage picking on the bottom of the ocean. Speaking of weights, the recent storms uncovered lots of areas on this wreck and there were sinkers uncovered everywhere, more garbage to pick.
"Mussels everywhere"Then that god awful noise came. It got louder and louder until I felt like the wreck was shaking under me and it was going to explode. So much for my peaceful swim with the fish. I knew it was a ship of some sort passing by but it was much louder than I had ever experienced and it kind of spooked me. I decided to head lower and to go down to the sand. I spent the rest of my dive taking photos of some sponges and coral. I found a lonely juvenile sea bass just as I was about to head up at the anchor. He sat there so still, I was able to take about 10 photos of him before he got annoyed with my flash.
My friend the sea bass!!I ended up with a 40 minute dive and the bottom temperature was 65 degrees. I froze the whole dive but with the warm water temp., it must just be me, I am always cold these days. When I surfaced Bill told me a tug went by about 50 yards away...real real close, that explains the noise. Bill also informed me that I just missed a whale swimming by. I said no I didn't, I was swimming right next to it?? Didn't you see me? (haha)
Bill got a rather large lobster and a bag full of mussels. His spear band is shot so it didn't have enough power to kill any fish. During my surface interval I couldn't believe how many jellyfish carpeted the ocean, there were tons of them everywhere. When it came time for dive #2, I was achy and freezing, I am definitely not feeling right, so I opted to skip it. At this point I was dreaming of soaking in my Hot tub at home. We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out some numbers and were able to locate 3 of the 4 wrecks so next time out we will have some more variety.
Our dinner!!
On another note, does anyone have any idea how to figure out what the name of the wreck is when all you have is a few Silver Spanish coins dated 1776-1779? If you do contact me, I've been researching this all year and am getting no where.
Lake Atlantic
I hope to get out a few more times this season but, I am going away camping in the Great Smokey Mountains for a week and that cuts into dive time. Who knows, maybe there will be a few more nice days left this fall.
