Astra, June 22, 2012

I spent the last two days at the beach with my friends in this awful heat, looking out at the flat calm sea conditions and admiring the schools of dolphin that played in the waves.  This made me so antsy to go diving.  My dive this past weekend to the N. Lilian was cancelled due to the rough sea conditions and I do not have a planned dive scheduled for several weeks.  Capt. Brian of the Atlantus had called earlier in the week to ask if I wanted to go diving on Friday and I considered it but, knew I had too much work to do so I was destined to do the responsible thing and skip diving and go to work.  But the desire to dive grew and grew and I decided last night to call Capt. Brian and take him up on his offer.  On my early morning drive down to Atlantic City, I knew I made the right decision, you only live once always comes to mind.

There were five of us divers on board today and we voted on hitting the Astra.  The Astra was a freighter that sunk in a collision with another freighter, Steel Inventor, on March 30, 1951.  The wreck sits on a sandy bottom in 85 feet of water.

The ride out was short as we caught up on our hunting and skiing stories from this past winter.  After we were tied in I splashed first since I was planning on a long run time.  The surface vis was not so hot, the recent nor'easter brought in the green water and it was loaded with that cloudy algae.  I kept hoping it would clear up below the thermocline but, that did not happen.  I suppose the vis was 10', not the best but workable.  I tied off my wreck reel and began swimming.  I found some portions of wreckage that rose about 20-30' off of the bottom and decided to try and shoot some macro on these since it was up higher out of the cloudier water that plagued the bottom.  As I was taking photos, the bergols were coming up and kissing my lens and I was trying to get them to stay still long enough to take some macro shots of them, easier said than done...One thing I did notice is the water is very warm and as a result, 35 minutes went by and I still did not have the slightest chill.  I could not make out where I was on the wreck but, I really did not care, I was underwater and happy!

I thought this was a concrete block but now I am not so sure...

Closer view of the unknown block..

Back up on the surface the other divers speared some nice fluke...  Mike found a cool jar that was probably used for cold cream.  I was not planning on a second dive but it was so hot on the boat I decided it is better on the bottom than sweating on the surface.  After a short surface interval I was in for dive #2.  I basically swam around and tried to recognize where I was on the wreck.  I never figured that out but, I had fun exploring.  We were back at the dock by l pm  and Capt. Brian was gracious enough to give me some fluke for dinner.  I fried it up and made a homemade peach salsa to put on top of it and it was delicious.

I used to dive this wreck quite often on the dive boat Horizon in the early 90's.  Diving it again today brought back fond memories of the divers that I used to dive with in those days and the good times I had on that boat.  I looked in my log book for some reports and found my first dive to this wreck was on August 26, 1990 (22 years ago, gosh I feel old).   I had gotten a small lobster and I sent up my first lift bag as part of my Wreck Diving objective.  I wrote that it was difficult to send up my lift bag and took a long time because I got all tangled up in fishing line.  I also sent the bag up far from the boat and wrote how tiring the swim back to the boat on the surface was.  Well some things never change after all these years, I still cannot perfect sending up a lift bag.

Well there will be no diving for me this weekend because my daughter is finally going to learn to scuba dive! I will be at her class for the next 4 or 5 Sundays.  My daughter has wanted to learn to dive for quite some time now but, I kept advising her as the "cautious mom" to wait a few years.  I finally gave in..  We all know that diving in the N. Atlantic is not for everyone but, I hope when I bring her down to her first NJ wreck she will absorb the passion to dive wrecks that I have had for so many years.  It appears to me that there are many children of divers that learn to dive but do not have that passion and drive to excel much beyond learning to dive.   I hope that is not the case with my children but, again, I am aware that this sport is not for everyone.  This will be quite the journey for me...

Dutch Springs 6-6-12 & The Resor 6-9-12

Dutch Springs June 6, 2012

Everyone knows how much I dislike going to Dutch Springs but, there are times when I simply have no choice...  We went to Dutch on Wednesday, June 6 to complete some skills for a NAUI Trimix course that I am currently enrolled in.  Choosing a Wednesday was a great choice because we hit no traffic and there was only one other group of divers besides us at the quarry which was real nice.  The skills were pretty basic and were all things that I have done before but, it had been a real long time since I practiced them.  I had trouble with two of them so to speak...One was swimming around the wreck with no mask on.  I forgot how cold the water at Dutch can be and when I took my mask off, it gave me the most unbelievable ice cream head ache.  All I could do was over my face with my mitts and work through the pain.  Boy was it painfully cold!!!  The other skill was deploying a lift bag while in mid water column and lets just say that there was a lot of laughing at my expense.  I am the first to admit that I am not coordinated but in the end, I stayed calm and did not give up and eventually completed everything just fine, although it was not graceful by any means!  Now that the skills are out of the way its time to go diving which I am confident that I can do without any trepidation.  My old instructor once told me I am self sufficient and capable, I will never forget that compliment!  I hope by the end of this course that my Trimix instructor feels then same way about my capabilities although I am pretty sure he already does.

The Resor, June 9, 2012

  The R.P. Resor was torpedoed by the U-578 on February 28, 1942 with a terrible loss of life. It burned for days before finally sinking. The U-578 then went on to torpedo the destroyer USS Jacob Jones as it searched for survivors.

On a beautiful June morning I ventured out on a very full Independence II dive boat to the Resor.  The Resor continues to be one of my most favored dives because it has so much to offer between, photography, scallops, lobsters, and artifacts.  I believe we have a  backing plate or two from the Resor somewhere in my garage from years ago.  Since we had such a full boat, I let most of the divers splash before me.  There is one thing that I have found over the years is that I do not like to be on a crowded line while decompressing so, going in last typically leaves me alone for the hang..which is very peaceful. We were tied into a familiar spot closer to the bow than the stern where the wreck rises high off of the ocean floor.  There was little or no current today which made for much nicer conditions than when I last visited this wreck under high current conditions last year.  The visibility was about 30-40' with plenty of ambient light and the bottom temperature was 50 degrees.  I went to work shooting some photos and started following some beams out towards the stern.  I never quite made it to the gun or the stern but I had fun trying to take photos.  There was a lot of bioluminescence in the water column that caused a lot of back scatter in my photos.  Towards the end of the dive I notices that the marine life was real pristine inside the wreck so I went in to shoot a few photos and of course those photos did not come out the way I had hoped. In addition to the bioluminesence, I was  having a problem taking pictures because the Bergall's were so abundant that every time I took a picture they would be on my lens and hence in the middle of the photos.  So many pictures did not come out do to these pesty little fish!

As I ascended, I came upon one diver hanging on the line whom came at me with a regulator in their hand.  I signaled are you ok and they said no and was coming at me holding out their regulator.  I immediately backed away for a second to assess the situation because I was afraid they were going to grab at me and grab my regulator.  In looking at the diver I realized they were breathing on a rebreather but was holding out their regulator for their bailout/deco bottle.  I then noticed the problem was that their mouthpiece was missing from the regulator on their bailout bottle.  I was in deco myself and needed my deco bottle to safely complete my deco and I did not know what mix the diver required so, I signaled to the diver that I had a short hang and I will go up and send someone down to help.  Once I was on the surface we sent someone in with the same mix bailout as the diver was using and eventually found out that this diver had plenty of back gas to complete the deco but without the bailout or deco bottle, their hang would have been much, much longer due to the long time they spent on the bottom.  All was well and it reminded me of last year when a similar problem happened to me when my regulator on my deco bottle would not stop free flowing and therefore was unusable.  It is very important to plan your dive so that you can complete your deco on your back gas just in case there is a problem with your deco bottle.  Lesson learned twice:))

On the surface the bags of scallops began coming up on lift bags along with some very nice sized lobsters.  Everyone was happy with the good visibility and warm water.

I splashed for my second dive to find the visibility to be better and brighter since the sun finally came out.  Once on the bottom I went for the long swim to the gun to take some photos of it given the good conditions.  I shot a few photos on the way and when I got there all of a sudden my memory card was full.  Boy was I upset...I had forgotten to delete old photos off of it from last year.  So I spent the rest of my dive swimming around looking for scallops and I did not find any but I did find and oyster cracker and some big Tautog which were pretty skittish.  I thoroughly enjoyed my dives but my time was up.  This time when I ascended it was just me and Captain Dan, peaceful and relaxing.  On the ride in we all talked about the awesome dives planned for this summer...I am really looking forward to it.  If you have not looked at the Indy schedule, check it out, they really do have a great schedule for wrecks set up for this year.

It was a long day that ended with a few Summer Shanty's on the dock....being a scuba diver is a tough life! Next week I'm off to the Northern Lilian...