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...