The Dykes, July 26, 2014

I cannot believe that it is the end of July and I am finally making my first North Atlantic Dive of the 2014 season.  As some of my fellow divers know, I have had some health problems that precluded me from diving for quite some time and in the future I intend to share the story in an effort to help other divers know how important it is that you DO NOT dive unless your health is 100%.  That being said, I am so happy to finally be able to get out and dive again.  On board the Independence II we were destined for the Resor but, due to the weather forecast we opted to stay closer to shore and dive the Dykes for fish.  I personally was happy with this choice since it is a tad shallower than the Resor which made for an easy relaxing dive for my first ocean dive of the year.  I did dive 4 dives in the quarry last week to make sure everything was A okay and also to remind myself how lucky I am that I don't have to dive the quarry often.

I have actually only dove the Dykes one other time and it is not a bad dive.   The Dykes was a five masted steel schooner built in 1919 and sunk as part of the artificial reef program in 1983.  This wreck is rather large yet easy to navigate if you follow the keel through the center of the wreck.  On my first dive, after I splashed I was following the Carolina rig and realized the wreck was in view at about 20' down.  The wreck sits in 65' of water although I believe I didn't get any deeper than 63' in the sand, most of the dive was at 52'-54'.    I quickly explored the stern and then followed the edge of the keel and ribbing along the sand towards the bow.  The wreck is covered in mussels and there is a decent amount of sea bass, tautog, and flounder on it.  I did not see any lobsters and there were no lobsters brought up by other divers.  The visibility was great, about 30', although is still quite cold on the bottom.  I kept my bottom time short, at 30 minutes and headed up for the surface.

The Independence II attracts a lot of re-breather divers and as a result, most of the divers do one long dive. In fact Igor was down for 180 minutes.  I often wonder what you do down there for so long but, when they come up with lots and lots of fish or lobsters, I guess I see what they do with their time.  I did a short surface interval and went back in for dive #2.  On this dive I followed the opposite side of the ribbing and collected some sand dollars.  I enjoy painting and usually can't pass up nice sand dollars or sea shells that can be used for later projects. In fact, I spent most of the winter painting with watercolor and I am almost done with a painting that has the Indy II in the painting, I will share this on my blog once it is completed.

This trip ended with us back at the dock before noon.  There was a lot of fish to filet and we all had fish or mussels to bring home for dinner.

Sean Martini with his catch for the day, Looks like Igor is jealous in the backround!

Next week is the trip to Cape May for the week, time and weather will tell what wreck I may or may not end up diving..Be Safe!!