Stolt Dagali June 25 2006

This was a good way to spend a friday, wreck diving and coming back with dinner. Seas were calm, the company was fine, temps were cool and the sun was shining.

One thing about having a rebreather, since you don't have to come up you just don't want to. What I do is either splash right after the tie-in, or when I'm on the Stingray I usually splash and help set the hook. After a couple of stops and starts we were well-grappled in, and Jim Wood and I went down to wrap it up, which on the Stolt is a piece of cake. Waving goodbye to Jim I headed down to the sand to see if I could load up my goody bag. The scallops weren't too thick on the ground, but after 20 minutes I had nearly 3 dozen. I also found a bug in some debris, and even bagged it. Upon reflection though I decided it was probably too small, so I freed it to make room for more scallops. Returning to the wreck I nearly knelt on an enormous monkfish while untying my reel - neither of us would have liked that. I ascended to the engine room, and did my deepest penetration of it to date. If you haven't gone all the way to the keel, and are comfortable with it, I'd encourage you to go check it out. It is very open, with lots of catwalks, ladders, stairs, machinery, etc., and all within the light zone. When I got back to where the cut was there were feelers everywhere. I grabbed a hapless and unwary one, but my bag was too full of scallops to fit it. Ok, I'll just carry it up. But then I saw an even bigger one, and grabbed that. This put me into a 3 stooges type situation, with a bug in each hand – all that was lacking was one pinched onto my nose. I swam outside the wreck for a while hoping for somebody with room in their bag, but at an hour and 15 minutes I knew I was down there by myself. Fortunately, as I ascended the cut I found the perfect live pool. It was a little box on a vertical wall, big enough for the lobster to get into to, but not so big that I couldn't pluck it right back out. After a 17 minute hang I was back onboard, with a run time of 90 minutes and dinner on the table.

The monkfish was a little deep for Mike's mix, so when he passed on it mate Jim stepped right up. Fortunately directions to it were easy, as it was hanging out right by some landmarks on the stern. For dive 2 I offered to show Mike some of the engine room, and to go grab some of the bugs I saw. It was vital that Mike have a bug, as apparently the rewards in the Bender household for a manly and successful hunter are, well, the kind that all guys really appreciate. As Mike said, bug 2 was still right where I left him, and was easily relocated. When Mike and I split up in the engine room I went back to where I had been, and sure enough the bugs I had spotted before were more or less in the same spot. The 4-pounder startled me when I grabbed him by grabbing back, and got a nice grip on my rebreather exhalation hose. I was very thankful that I have covers on them, and that he hadn’t pinched it closed. After a little tussle I pulled him off and bagged him, then did a little rodeo twirl to force them to the bottom of the bag. There was still time to put a bunch of mussels on top of the two, as well as to do a little more penetration down a passageway around 70 feet. Someone had run a bunch of orange cave line through the wreck, and I followed it for a while in the hopes I would find a reel at the end of it. No soap, as it dropped down deeper, but maybe next time I’ll follow it to the end.

The plan had been for me to pull the hook at one hour. Right on time Henrik gave me slack, the grapple obliged me by coming off easily, and I went off on a wild, better-than- 45-degree-scope ride. Fun stuff. The boat ride back was the way I like my rides back, with lots of cleaning and sorting.

I told Mike I wanted an assist for the score.