Offshore Paddlewheeler 7-25-10

With a 4'-7' offshore forecast, we headed out of Atlantic City Inlet on the dive boat Atlantus to the wreck known as the Offshore Paddlewheeler. There was a ever persistent ground swell of 3'-4' that laid down as the day progressed. On board today was myself, Bill, John Priestly, Brian Roemer, Walt and Capt. Brian Larsen. After a 2 hour nap on the way out, Bill and I splashed first to tie into the wreck. The surface vis was unbelievable, nice blue/green water down to about 90'. Then we went into the darkness and I awaited for it to open up on the bottom. I hit the anchor line chain and realized I was on the bottom and could not see a thing...maybe 1' of vis. I have never had such bad vis conditions offshore. The water temp was 43 degrees at 147' and I sat and waited to see if my eyes would adjust to the darkness and I'd be able to see a little better. That never happened. I did not venture too far and collected a few scallops, took a few macro photos of a scallop and starfish. It was only about 7-8 minutes and I signaled to Bill that I was going up, he tried to convince me to stay down but I said no, its not worth it and up I went. There is nothing worse than doing your hang in water that is so pretty and clear when the vis was nil on your dive.

During the surface interval we debated about moving inshore, but no one wanted to go pop the anchor and sacrifice time for their second dive, so we were staying for 2. Capt. Brian took his spear to some of the surrounding buoy's in search of fish to spear and several of us went for a nice swim. It was HOT out there today!!! I think the heat got to a few of us including me. I do not like the heat and felt tired and weak. I snorkeled for a while shooting pictures of illuminesence and tried to get a picture of Brian Roemer jumping in for this 2nd dive. It didn't turn out...too many bubbles, all I got was his fins. I decided not go on my 2nd dive but, Bill did. He got a bagful of scallops and a lobster. He said I should have gone that the vis opened up and I didn't believe him. I asked Brian Roemer and he said well it was a little better vis but not much. Hence, I was glad I sat this one out. We were not sure where on the wreck we were, and Bill figured out on the 2nd dive that we were about 40' towards the stern from the engines.

On the way back to Atlantic City we went through a monsoon and electrical storm that was pretty wild. I shot a little video of the storm.. All our gear got a nice rinse and it finally cooled off. I have to admit that I was really disappointed about today's dive but, it still was an adventure and better than not diving at all!!

My tanks getting a bath!!

9 Minute Barge & Dry Dock 7-23-10

After a few blow-outs, I finally got out today and was happy I made the decision to go. I have not been underwater since June 20th, which is a long dry spell. I am supposed to dive the Offshore Paddlewheeler on Sunday and in looking at the weekend weather, it does not look good so, I convinced Bill to take a quick run out and dive today. We started out heading for the Glory wreck, Bill dove this years ago with John Slotnick (Captain/Mate of the Sea Robin) and just found some GPS numbers for it. He remembered it being a good dive. Well, the numbers didn't pan out and we couldn't locate the wreck. So, we continued on our journey and went to the 9 Minute Barge. We found it in no time and hooked it on our first try. I was not feeling well in the tummy (thanks to the rollers) soooo, I splashed first and had the job of setting the hook.

The surface vis was this terrible pea soup everyone is talking about and then it went completely black. So I was nervous that the vis would not be so good, boy was I wrong..we had an easy 30' of vis and as I descended I could see the entire layout of the barge. The hook was in a small piece of wreckage and needed to be relocated so with a few throws and some heaving, I got it over to a piece of wreckage that I could tie it into. However, before I could get my sisal around it, someone up above was pulling the hook.. This was not funny and I almost watched the anchor go bye bye. You are not supposed to pull up the slack until it is all set, oh well.. It's not so easy to tie into a low lying barge and I was thinking, this is hard work, isn't it supposed to be relaxing and fun?

Now I was off on my dive, the first thing I noticed was the overabundance of fish, you had to push them out of your way. The second thing was, this wreck had been hit by other divers because there was fresh sisal on it in two different locations. I took some photos and tried to take some video on a different setting. The video came out in better color this time but, it was not focused. Now I have to figure out why. I think it was because there was not as much ambient light on this dive. Some of the pictures I took came out ok. This wreck is wooden and low lying so it is good for both fish and lobsters. It sits in about 70' of water and is a decent size, although I did not get to see the whole thing because I was busy taking video and pictues. In the end I had about 30 minutes on the bottom. The temp on the bottom was 51 degrees and 65 on the hang.





Bill did a long dive and ended up with 2 lobsters and two sea bass. He liked this wreck too. Unfortunately he used up most of his air so he could not make a second dive. We both only had one set of double 80's each, we left our other tanks home since we hope to use them on Sunday. Thanks to my low air consumption, I got to do two dives.

The next wreck is called the Dry Dock. Since I was the only one diving I had to set and pull the hook plus Bill wanted me to figure out what kind of wreck it is. This wreck was in 60' of water and the vis on the surface was worse than the first dive. However, the vis did open up on the bottom to about 20', a little more cloudy on this dive. As I descended all I could see was a ladder. Here I am thinking, what is Bill doing to me, sending me in to dive on a ladder in the middle of the ocean?? How in the world did he find this and hook it. I was starting to say lots of curse words under water but then I figured all right, why is this ladder here? Lets run a wreck reel and take a look around, maybe just maybe there is a wreck down here. The anchor was hooked pretty good in the ladder and I headed in the direction of a large shadow and swam pretty far and hit nothing but me, the sand and the ocean. I went back to the anchor and went in the opposite direction and I did find ribbings of a wreck and some larger pieces but still could not desifer what it was. This wreck is wooden but it is mostly buried. There were some fish on it but not as much as on the 9 Minute Barge. About 20 minutes had passed and I was running low on air and decided to head back, undo the anchor and head up. I am still puzzled as to why the ladder was in the middle of no where and what I actually dove on. Maybe Bill was trying to mess with me...trying to get me back for begging him to take me diving today!! I did take some photos but they did not come out too good.

We were back at the dock by 1pm and I was floating on my raft in the pool by 3pm. I'm glad we went today especially if we don't get out on Sunday. I am keeping my fingers crossed, the weather man is wrong often and maybe he will be this weekend. If we don't make it to the Wheeler on Sunday, we are heading out again on Tuesday and hopefully I'll dive a wreck not a ladder.

After looking through my photos, Bill is trying to tell me that the picture below is an old washing machine dumped on the 9 Minute Barge wreck. He said it's the inside drum that is left. I do not believe him. This was after he told me someone must of dropped the ladder on the Dry Dock wreck...He says people are always dumping junk on wrecks. Hmmmm??? Its been a long day!

Washing Machine

Video of Conway/Wellington

I finally found some time to get my first video together. It is not very good and since I shot it in natural light it is very GREEN. I do not have a video editing program to help with correcting the color as of yet. This was shot with my SeaLife DC500 camera with no color corrective filters and as a result it isn't very clear. I am saving to buy a "real" video camera, housing and lighting and hoped to have it this season but, funds are a little tight so it will be on the back burner for now. I added some actual photos of the wreck at the end of each video so you can see the contrast in color. Please feel free to comment on it and let me know of any programs that are good for editing. Also, if anyone has any information on the Wellington (what type of wreck it was, when it sunk etc.) I would be interested in hearing about it. There is not much left of it, most of it is buried. I am planning on shooting some more video on my next few dives...



There is music so turn up your speakers!

Varanger-Blow Out 7-11-10

Bill and the kids went away camping for 3 days and I stayed home so that I could dive the Varanger today. I have dove this wreck a lot over the years and was looking forward to getting more photos of it. In my opinion, you can never dive the Varanger too much..it is a very large wreck and has a lot to offer from hoards of fish and lobster to great artifacts and history. My dive buddy for the day was going to be Geoff Graham. The forecast was not looking good Saturday night (4'-7') for offshore. When I arrived at the dock, we decided to head out into the Atlantic and see what the sea conditions were. We had a full boat, Geoff Graham, Jeff Heim, John Priestly, Andrew Nagle, Kathy Ondrasik and 4 other divers that I did not get a chance to meet as of yet. Once we broke the inlet there were some rollers but not too bad and no chop. After we drove for a while the rollers grew in size, were closer together and there was some chop. Therefore, it was decided that the sea conditions were not conducive to dive the Varanger. I then thought we'd hit something inshore but, there were several divers that were diving Trimix whom did not want to concede to a shallower dive thus, we did a u-turn and headed back into Atlantic City. We all had a nice breakfast at the cafe next to the dock and called it a day. A bunch of us will meet again as we are heading to the Offshore Paddlewheeler on July 25th. There are so few days to dive, I did not want to give up hope that we'd get out and dive something today. As the saying goes...better safe than sorry!