Block Island Rhode Island July 2005

Block island was amazing. Friday we steamed on over to the U853. Flat seas, great viz. I did one dive checking out the hull, using perforations of the pressure hull to make mental notes of penetration distances. I also popped into the crews quarters briefly and did a swim through from the stern torpedo room to the diesel room. Dive 2 I penetrated again through the large hole in the crews quarters, and swam forward up to the forward torpedos. When I couldn't go any farther I turned and swam through the boat from one end to the other, forward torpedo, crews quarters, control room, diesel room, electric room, aft torpedo and out. Intensely cool stuff. Seeing all the human remains was a bit freaky, with the narcosis adding to the surrealness of the experience. With the conning tower still intact it looks and feels right. We later dove the Lightburne, a neat busted up wreck in 30 or so feet, which still has some decent relief and abundant sea life.

Saturday we headed out to the Bass. I splashed as soon as the mate set the hook. Its a much bigger wreck than the 853, even with the bow blown off. I cruised down the deck at 140, popping down to 155 for 5 minutes to groove on the stern looming over me, the cages for the diving planes, and the screws half buried in the sand. Narcosis wasn't too bad (I was diving air), present but not significant. No penetration, I'll leave that until I am on my rb. Actually the captain had gone in to shoot some pics on his Inspiration and wedged, with his light turning off to boot. Hmm, 150' down, in the dark, stuck - that is when you are glad you are on closed circuit. It took him about 5 min to get unstuck too, must have felt like forever. No real worries though, the mate was on a meg and would have gone down and freed him, they had all afternoon to work it out. Still, gets your heart going though! It was nice on the way up to have surface supplied O2, I had my stage with me but why not breath the big bottle and save it?

Later Saturday we went to the Idene, which is intact and upright in about 100. Very nice, lots of penetration, but I chose to skip the rusty metal and play with the sharks. There was a school of about 3 dozen dogfish swirling around off in the sand, and were very happy to come up within arms length to check me out. I love dogfish, they look like sharks, act like sharks, ARE sharks, but without the menace.

Sunday we went to the Grecian, a huge busted up steamer with boilers probably 10' in diameter. Normally I'm not into junkyards, but this one was fun. I buddied up with Carl Bayer and jumped early (in part to help him rid himself of his pokey reputation.) Good thing too, as right near the line he started pointing to some antenna sticking out of a hole. Normally I don't bother with bugs, as I'd rather just look around, but this thing was huge, and he didn't want to go for it. After a couple of minutes of teasing I managed to slip a hand around its carapace, but not too securely - it was like holding a 2 liter bottle of soda that is trying to get away. I didn't have a bag, nor did Carl. I rather optimistically pulled out my lift bag, but there was no way it was fitting in there. Just then Frank swam by, and after some three stooges conversations he understood it was a hold up, his goody bag or his life. He gave it up pretty graciously, even though he later had to hand his bug off to another guy to bring up. After surfacing and taking pics I decided to send her back, as it was a large female (albeit not gravid) with a hopefully long and (re)productive life ahead of her. I notched the tail so she can't be sold commercially in Rhode Island, and if other divers brings her up maybe they'll realize she was sent back once and will do so as well. It was the first bug I've taken, and may be the last, but it was pretty freaking cool.

The last dive was to the Pinnacles, a truly exceptional dive. Its a tumble of enormous boulders the size of houses, with all sorts of swim-throughs and sea life, and relief from 70' up to 30'. It reminded me of the base of a cliff I used to climb when I was a kid, I could dive there every weekend and be happy. I was the only one who went into the sand on the Idene, and consequently the only one who saw the swarms of dogfish. Fortunately at the Pinnacles they were everywhere, so all the other guys got to enjoy them too.

Granted that we were spoiled this weekend with flat seas and great viz, but this is definitely one of my new favorite places to dive. I anticipate spending a lot of time on chuck's boat next season.