We decided to head out and dive the Conway first today. It has been at least 15 years since I have been on this wreck. It is an old wooden clammer. We hooked into the dredge on our first try. Bill splashed first today to secure the anchor. When he surfaced he had speared 8 large sea bass and got 1 lobster. Not bad!!! I splashed second and was going to check out the wreck, take some pictures and maybe shoot some video. There was a little bit of a current on the surface, which made that swim to the anchor line a little tough but, there was 0 current on the bottom. This wreck sits at a depth of 59' and the vis was a cloudy 20' or so. That prevalent green water is still here. It was definitely loaded with sea bass and I could see how Bill did so well spearing them. I swam along the dredge tubing over to the actual dredge and then along the pipes to the larger part of the wreck. Most of the wooden decking is no longer visible, all that is left is the steel parts of the dredge. There was not a lot of growth on this wreck, just some white hard coral and the occasional sea anenome. I shot some video of this wreck and as soon as I can figure out how to edit it I will post it. The bottom temp was a toasty 52 degrees and the surface was even warmer at 66 degrees. I had fun on this dive watching all the fish chase each other around and ended up with 34 minutes on the bottom. At the very end of my dive I spotted a small sea bass with a large lobster attenae sticking out of its mouth??? Did the fish try and eat the lobster....it was pretty funny to see. I then decided, to try another wreck for dive #2 so, I had to lug the anchor over two of the dredge pipes to get it out in the sand to avoid it getting hung up when we pulled it up. This was a little hard but I managed it...Up, up and away I went.
Clam Dredge
Dive #2 was a little closer inshore on the Wellington which is a low lying wood wreck. We hooked this wreck on out second try and ended up tying in right by the boilers. Just like the previous dive, Bill went in first and he ended up with a very large sea bass and 2 lobsters. He said that the vis on this wreck was cloudier than the first. I decided to bring the camera even though the vis wasn't so hot and I'm glad I did because the pictures came out ok. This vis was still decent 15'-20' but just cloudier. This wreck sits at a depth of 54' and I had a bottom temp of 56 degrees. There were not as many fish on this wreck and most of them were smaller. I swam around the boilers and to the stern and then turned around and headed towards the bow which was more or less buried in the sand. There were some brass spikes sticking up out of the sand and it would be worthwhile to hit this area with a scooter. I kept following the pieces of the bow out into the sand and all of a sudden I realized I was lost...it got me a little nervous but I found my way back. I again had the task of moving the anchor away from the wreck and as I did I found another piece laying out in the sand. I was low on air so I will have to go back and check out that piece another day.
Boilers
It was a real nice day to be out diving while the kids were in school and made it home just in time to pick them up. Bill totalled 9 sea bass and 3 lobsters...that is a good day!
I'm sure with this NW wind, the water should clear up nice in the next day or two. Well, it better because I am heading back out on Sunday to the Southern Lilian on the Atlantus. Can't Wait!!
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