There were a few divers on board that wanted to spear fish so, we were destined for the Yellow Flag which is always good for flounder. Upon arrival, a fishing boat was already occupying the wreck so we diverted to the Chaparra. It has been a very long time since I have dove the Chaparra, could be as long as 15 years... The Chaparra is a freighter that was sunk on October 27, 1918 when it struck a mine laid by a U-boat. The wreck lies on its port side and is broken up quite a bit and it sits in 80 feet of water. Capt. Roger drew me a quick map of the wreck so that I could see how I can easily swim from piece to piece.
My buddy for my first dive was Kyle Chud and our plan was for me to shoot photos and he was going to spear fish. The upper 40' of the water column consisted of that pea soup green water that has such horrible viz but, on the bottom there was a good 25' of viz. We were anchored into the extreme stern of the wreck so when we got on the bottom Kyle tied off his wreck reel and we were off. Of course one of my strobes was not firing so my pictures were not coming out that great but, there was a ton of sea bass down there and I enjoyed watching them flea from Kyle. He was trying to spear them and they all would swim right to me... I floated in and around the boilers and then onto the higher pieces of wreckage. I forgot what a nice wreck this was.. I actually looked back in my log book and I dove this wreck on July 7,1991 and I wrote that the wreck was covered in huge starfish and that the water was so clear that you could see way into the insides of the wreck. Well there are a few starfish on the wreck today but, they were few and far between, and were not large at all. After about 30 minutes I brought Kyle back to the anchor and sent him up and I remained down another 10 minutes taking photos in the stern. The water temp on the bottom was about 52 degrees and on my hang it was 58 degrees. I had my heated vest on so I was toasty the entire dive.
These days as I age, I typically only do one dive. However, the conditions were great so I chose to do a second dive today. I went in a little after Kyle and his Dad, John and more or less swam along the edge of the wreck and ventured a few times out in the sand to find some flounder to photograph. I did not find any flounder in the sand but ended up finding one near the boilers. I harassed him for a while trying to get real close to him for a close up shot. I did not spot any lobsters although other divers did find some. In addition to the abundant sea bass were tau tog, ling cod, cunners, and ocean pouts.. definitely a wreck for fish.
We had a new diver, Brian, from Lake George on the boat for his first ocean dive and he did great. I think he is hooked! Thanks to Capt. Roger and Mate Gary for such a great day of diving. I could get used to these Friday dives all summer!!
2 comments:
Glad to see you finally got out Kim, we've been diving Fridays so far this year, flat seas and no competition on the wrecks. beats the weekend fiasco!
Weekday diving has its perks for sure!! I will most likely go out again this Friday. Still hoping to come to North Carolina with you all this year, waiting to hear when Rebecca has to go back to school for her Varsity Equestrian training, she really wants to come diving with us again.
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