After sitting on the beach a few days this week and enjoying the flat calm aqua green water, I decided that I needed to go diving this weekend and not allow a weekend of 2' seas to pass me by. I signed onto dive the Sam Berman with the Independence II. The Sam Berman was sunk as part of the Shark River artificial reef in 1987. It is a 160' long navy tanker that sits in 125' of water. This wreck is not dove very often and is within 1/2 mile of the Stolt Dagali. It is known for good visibility and today would not be an exception.
As we anchored up the visibility looked at least 50-60' on the surface but when I splashed the great surface visibility lowered to about 30' on the bottom. There was lots of silt that easily stirred. I swam around the bow and noticed that this wreck was covered with lobster traps. They were strung across the wreck and out in the sand too. The wreck seemed to move with the abundance of summer flounder, they were everywhere along the edge of the wreck. This wreck sites upright and is easy to penetrate although I did not venture into the decks below. There were also lots of lobsters on this wreck that were not even in the traps. There was basically no scallops and the few token scallops found appeared to be very old with growth on them.
On the surface a lot of lobsters and fluke were brought up.
During my second dive the visibility improved to about 40' and I found a Sea Raven on the deck and I was determined to get a close up picture of it. This little guy played a nice game of chase with me. Every time I got close he'd take off before I could take a photo. This went on for a while and eventually he turned around and came at me! I got a few pictures but not the shot I was looking for. The rest of this dive I swam towards the stern and looked in the huge holds that were full of marine life. This artificial reef wreck was not bad, better than the popular Algol.
More, fluke, lobsters, a monkfish and a cod were brought up on the second dive. Most of the divers on board today were heading offshore to the Carolina tomorrow. I sure wish I had planned to go along, I never dove that wreck and would like to someday. I hope they all have a safe and prosperous dive! I am looking at trying to dive the Oil Wreck next weekend. Sean is promising to take me to get some floor tiles, time will tell if I am up to the challenge..
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| Photo of me coming up from my dive by Brandon McWilliams |
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