Today was my best 1st dive of any given dive season ever!!! The early spring is noted for rough seas, cold water, and bad visibility. Today we had glass for seas, at least 25' of visibility on the bottom and probably closer to 30' on the top of the wreck, the water was a tad warm for this early at 47 degrees top to bottom, and little or no current. I have never had such awesome conditions this early in the year and I loved it!!
We were originally destined for the Arundo but, afternoon storms and winds predicted lead us to the Stolt. I used to not really enjoy diving the Stolt because I never had decent visibility on her and with the wreck lying on an angle I was always left disoriented and could never easily navigate the wreck. In the past 10 years however, I have had several great dives on the wreck and more or less memorized the layout so that I know where I am in all conditions. For a history on the wreck and a video, see my post from 9-16-12.
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| Some old Stolt photos from 2012. |
Today was everyone's virgin dive for the 2016 season. As we anchored up to the wreck we were accompanied by the Tenacious dive boat. The Stolt is pretty big and can easily accommodate two dive boats. As I was shuffling to the ladder to splash today, I tripped on the rubber mat and fell (I never said I was a graceful diver!!!). On my way down to the deck, my camera hit the rail and the ball joints of the strobes popped out. I should have sat back down and spent the 10-20 minutes it would have taken to fix it but, I figured that it was wishful thinking to have good viz and opted to just leave my camera topside. As soon as I was under I could see pretty far and it was not long and I could see the wreck. I was very upset that I did not have my camera. Not only could I see as far as I wanted to see, there was no green layer blocking the sun so it was bright on the bottom which would simply make the photos that much better. Oh well, I swam the entire wreck, checked out areas that I had not noticed before and marveled at how pretty the wreck looked this year with less mussels on it and more sea anemones, I even saw a lone medium size star fish and some microscopic ones on the wreck which makes me hopeful that they will make a comeback this year.
I did not see a lot of life in terms of fish, scallops or lobsters. I did see lots of bergols pecking at the mussels and swarming around a single mussel hoping for a piece of the meat and I saw a small school of Atlantic Pollock which I do not usually see in the summer. Up on the surface, there was one flounder taken and a few scallops too. All of us were thankful for such a great dive with awesome visibility. If this is a sample of what the year will bring, I will be one happy diver!!!
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| I think this is Capt. Dan from a few years ago on the Stolt. |
This next weekend is the new wreck that the Indy located last year, given the great conditions this weekend I may just head back out again... I have to close with one more sea lion photo, miss the fun of these awesome creatures!
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