Arundo October 22 2006

The heavens augured well for our trip to the Arundo, as not one but two brilliant shooting stars fell while I drove to Belmar (either that or we were going to burn up upon descent, however I chose to view them in a more positive light.) Based on how empty the parking lot was at 6:30, I think the wheat has definitely been separated from the chaff diver-wise, but we had a full boat for the Stingray. 60 degree water, 60 degree air, sunny, flat seas? What's not to like?

Despite the crowd I managed to find space to curl up down below, and snugly wrapped in my down undies I slept the ride away. On my first dive I caught three lobsters plus a bagful of fish and squid. One of the lobsters was a slipper lobster, which are native to the Caribbean. After I got back on board it began first running around the boat, then flying around the boat under its own power, chasing a school of brightly colored flying fish. Henrik poked his head down and asked what kind of soup we wanted, bisque or a clear broth with noodles and asian vegetables, and would we like pinot or chardonnay with it? With that I realized the score and woke up. I mean, come on, a dive boat that offers your choice of soup and wine? Let’s not be ridiculous. Mostly I was just relieved I didn’t have nightmares about Henrik’s Underwear of Damocles, which were hanging precariously over my bunk on a fishing pole.

Ernie did a fine job of tying us into the bow at 105’, and I quickly started poking about. The Arundo sank on April 8th, 1942 when the U-136 rerouted her cargo of locomotives, trucks and beer from North Africa to the Mud Hole.. It’s a great wreck, with all sorts of marine equipment to suss out, as well as a huge debris field for hunting bugs. Visibility was outstanding, 30’-40’, and clouds of Pollack, butterfish, and LSJ’s created an umbra over the wreck (the LSJ is related to birder’s LBJ, Little Brown Job, but is silver.) Sea bass flitted in and out of the wreckage, and some brazen hussy of a Tautog flaunted her voluptuousness at my spearless self. Biggest damn ‘Tog I’ve seen in my life too. A quick trip out for scallops came to naught (too muddy, they like sand), but I did find an interesting brass handled piece, perhaps from a locomotive. I caught several nice size bugs but with berries, and then a few more that were just a hair undersize. Eventually I realized this is just a Massachusetts dive, lobster lobster everywhere nor any bug to keep. The decking was interrupted by debris piles, but was still intact enough that I could follow it all the way to the stern. Actually, I initially thought it was the bow I had reached, but my comprehensive grasp of naval architecture told me that that spinnie dealie meant it was the stern. The decking and hull had folded over to make a very enticing cave, so in I went. It was beautiful, simply beautiful. Three Northern Red Anemones, which I love and have never seen so far south, were interspersed on the ceiling with a hanging garden of hydroids. An enormous school of shrimp darted in and out of my light, their eyes burning like embers, and at the sloped intersection of ground and metal was a menagerie of ling cod and lobsters. An enormous bug tried to menace me by waving its enormous claws - how misguided was that? - before slipping back into sanctuary.

My drysuit still has a seeping leak, and between that and the long deco I had accumulated it was time to return. I paused long enough to recover Dan Belz’s tickle stick (Anyone know him? That’s the name on it), which I tucked next to my other one on my bailout. Deco was long, soggy, and uncomfortable, but fortunately not too too cold (pop quiz: given a horizontal diving position, legs up, and chest slightly inclined up, where does the water pool? Yep, definitely an increased sperm count today.) I had a pain in my left shoulder come on at my 50’ stop, and was much relieved to have it disappear by the 20’ stop. Darned helium. 60 minutes on the bottom dragged out to 60 minutes of hang, and I even considered the unthinkable: skipping dive two. I was saved from this rash decision by the smell of grilling meat, which reached deep into my Neanderthal heart and gave me fortitude to return to the hunt. Nothing like burgers and brats to buck one up. I was still gearing up for dive two when a pod of 18 or so dolphin swam right up to the stern, leaping clear out of the water in pairs. Grabbing my mask and fins I jumped in to see their grayish-brown bodies zipping by the divers on the line, then circling back again.

I was on a mission this dive to return to the stern and ambush Mr. Fat and Sassy Bug. Nothin’ doin’, he’d seen that trick before, but I did bag up a pretty decent 2.5 pounder on the way back. I felt comfortable enough with the wreck to go down the opposite side and then cut across to where the line ought to be. The debris field wound up being broader than I anticipated, but I played it out to where I thought the line should be and there were the friendly flashing strobes. The plan was for me to check that Nick and Frank had ascended, pull the hook, and then ascend on the line for my deco. Unfortunately Reality and The Plan were not on speaking terms. The seas had gone from nothing to 4’-6’ers, and it was all I could do to safely free the hook on the troughs. As I feared, it immediately skyrocketed upwards at a 45 degree angle. There was no way I was getting pulled up like that, so at 85’ I let go, sorted out my buoyancy and loop, then bagged off. I have a brand-spanking new 10’ lift bag I wanted to try out, but in the heat of battle it just made more sense to use my tried-and-true rather than going with a new piece of kit. So, up went my trusty red bag, with me following and ticking off the stops for a half hour of decompression. I was a little concerned that I didn’t hear the boat, but worrying wasn’t going to do me any good, so I compartmentalized and concentrated on the task at hand. Upon surfacing there was a brief Oh Shit moment when I spun in a circle and didn’t see the boat, but on the second pass I saw it was right in front of me. I shouldn’t have been so blasé, back onboard I found out they HAD been distant, enough that they had lost sight of me. I really regretted not sending up the bigger bag, from now on it will be my go-to bag under the circumstances. I was even sorrier to see the other dive team on O2, when I had gone out of sight they had come back onboard to finish their deco on deck (the wild ride from 60’ to 20’ hadn’t been the safest either.) We had an assembly line of semi-drained rebreather and stage O2 bottles going, and by the end both had completed 45 minutes on O2 without incident. Definitely a learning experience for all involved, with many lessons as to how we can avoid having that happen again.

Things were really kicking on the ride back, and we were tempest toss’d on the wine-dark sea, with some lunch toss’d as well. There were also many Starsky and Hutch moments of men getting thrown together, but we managed to make the long ride back with our dignity intact. Or at least with as much dignity as we started out with.

Canada Redux October 2006

The Thousand Islands is just the most amazing place, and crossing over the bridge to Canada always takes my breath away. Lush woods, warm clear water, beautiful rocky islands, friendly folks and some of the finest manors of the Gilded Age, all can be found in abundance. One of my goals for the year was to go ccr tech diving here, in particular on the Jodrey and Oconta, so I jumped at the opportunity to tag along with a class. Some good friends from the local diving club were taking a rebreather decompression procedures class with some good friends who teach at the shop I used to work with. In all we were Carl Bayer, Sunny Longordo and Stephan Francke, with Dan Stocker and Jay Fisch teaching (plus Dave Oldham, who showed up Friday night.) Before I even filled my tanks I knew it was going to be a great trip.

First out of the box was the Roy A. Jodrey, a St. Lawrence classic. A relatively recent wreck (especially considering the age of the wrecks up there) it sank in 1974 after hitting a shoal, and now lies between 150’ and 240’. Dan and Jay had been on it just four days before so they had the approach, which can be devilish, dialed in. Diving the bow starts with jumping off a cliff. It’s an underwater cliff, starting at 100’ or so, but a cliff nonetheless, and into high flow to boot. I like it, but I can also see why some people find a bit unnerving. In truth I was a little apprehensive but for different reasons: I hadn’t been on my kiss unit in a while (the prism is on its way to Florida), plus deep dives are nothing to take lightly. This vanished 5 minutes into the dive though, as I was taken with how perfectly silent and serene we three were underwater, with not so much as a solenoid to break the silence (that is, until our exhalation tubes filled with condensation, at which point we sounded like a pneumonia ward.) I was content this dive to follow Jay and Dan as they spiraled down, around, through, and back up the superstructure, ascending after 30 minutes on the bottom. I always dive two computers with tables with backup, while everyone else on the trip ran straight tables. It was interesting to see how the run times worked out. Pretty much across the board I completed my deco + five minutes about 15 minutes before they did. I spent my time on several stops just swimming along and grooving on being neutrally buoyant. I’ve been a bit concerned of late that my buoyancy skills might be slipping, since so often my wreck diving involves going up and down the anchor line, or else hauling a goodie bag. There is not much time (or need) for fine-tuned, precise buoyancy control, but I knew I didn’t want to become one of those classic northeast wreck divers who can only crawl around, never float. It was relief to see they haven’t left me, and I was perhaps inordinately pleased to just hover dead-on at my stops.

After a sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time, roast beef and rye kind of surface interval we came back to hit it a second time. This go round we decided to dive the stern, which I had never been on. You start by pulling on a line by the Coast Guard station there, which goes a good 200 yards out into the center of the channel. First the current pushes you (in the form of an eddy) then it ignores you, then it blasts you full in the face. Not for the first time this trip I thought how you could really get yourself in trouble if you aren’t used to this kind of thing (and in fact there have been a string of fatalities on the Jodrey through the year.) I was missing my strobe on the last dive, so this time I clipped it off high on rope and headed to see the stern proper. I had heard that the prop was pretty interesting, and eagerly looked forward to seeing it myself. At the stern rail Dan and Jay peeled off to go penetrate, so flipped over the rail and pulled myself around the massive curve of the hull. The farther I went the more intense the flow became, until by the time the prop came into view it was a full-blown mask-rattling hurricane. It was well worth it though. The prop was gigantic, all of 8’ per blade, with a 15’ or so rudder. Holding onto the edge and flapping in the breeze was a real endorphin high, and I was laughing and whooping like Slim Pickins riding the bomb in Doctor Strangelove.

The Kingshorn and the Keystorm were on the menu for Friday. The Kingshorn is fairly interesting the first time you dive it. This was my fourth time - 'nuff said? In 90' of water, it lies intact and upright, and has some interesting holds to swim through. I brought my digital camera, and proceeded to recklessly waste ones and zeros while trying to figure out my ass from my f-stop. There was a fair amount of particulates in the water, and my strobe arms aren't all that long, so I decided to shoot using natural light. Translation: more jiggling than Pamela Anderson with a jackhammer. Next time I'll bring the tripod. For some nicer pictures than mine check out http://www.scubaq.ca/ontarioscubadiving/kinghorn.htm

After lunch we cruised over to the Keystorm. This 256' long steel ship was built in 1908, sank in 1912, and lies in 20'-120' of water on its side against a shoal. I always have fun here, lazily swimming in and out of the holds. This time I wiggled into the engine room, which like all ships' up here is largely intact. I particularly liked that the skylight over the engine rooms still has glass in it. Two masts still exist as well, stretching out horizontally in the lee. I was feeling sort of ok about the pictures I had taken until I saw these, all shot on the same weekend I was there. Then I became despondent again.

That night at the resort another Jersey diver came and joined us, Dave Oldham. He has been vigorously logging hours on his Kiss Unit, and had his ccr trimix class on the Jodrey last August. We've rubbed shoulders online, but it was nice to be able to shoot the breeze in person. I slept in my Westfalia in the parking lot, with the kind permission of Mark, Caiger's owner. Nevertheless I woke up at 4am to flashing lights. "Great, time to talk to the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police)," I thought. Then I realized they were white lights, and figured I'd have to wave off some overzealous tow truck driver. Eventually I came out of my torpor enough to discover the flashing was coming from inside. As unlikely as it seems, my strobe had cooled and contracted internally just enough to make contact with the battery. Tres bizarre. Good thing the OPP didn’t really stop by, it must have looked like some kind of party going on from the outside.

We weren't the only ones planning on diving the A.E. Vickery on Saturday. Besides our six, there was another boat of 14, then another boat of 30, then a zodiac with a half dozen more. What a zoo! Good thing it’s worth it. Built in 1861, this 3 masted schooner sank in 1889. Captain Massey had quite a bit of experience with the river, but thought it best to pick up a pilot in Clayton anyways. Bad move, 15 minutes later he put them right into a shoal. It almost cost him his life too, the Captain chased after him with a pistol in his hand and murder in his eye. Fortunately for all involved the mate (who was also the Captain's brother) grabbed his arm so the round went into the deck, then wrestled the pistol free and threw it overboard. Who says history is boring? We were the first boat there, so I rolled in immediately and had the wreck to myself for 45 minutes before the hordes descended. I can only imagine what those holds looked like by the time everyone left. Its almost unimaginable that you can visit a mid-19th century schooner that has lay underwater for 117 years and is still in such pristine condition.

Our surface interval was spent a stone's throw away on Rock Island, which is a pretty little acre or so with a boarded up Victorian home and lighthouse. I especially liked how the lighthouse has a doorway 20' up, from when they lifted it and put a bigger base below it. I felt like a snake sunning myself on the warm rocks. The game plan had been to then dive the Oconta across the channel, but Jay and Dan decided the class could use another go on the Vickery before heading to depth. I appreciated that they took me over and dropped me off, since one of the big reasons I had come on this trip was to revisit the Oconta. This propeller-driven steam ship sank in 1886, and lies between 130' and 180'. Finding it can be a little harrowing in the high current, so I was glad to see that a line stretched down to it from the concrete light abutment on the shoal. Descending, I saw two open circuit divers at 80', and hooted and hollered at them until they looked up (no sense in startling them, if they let go of the rope they'd be blown away.) I regretted leaving my strobe on the surface, so I improvised at the tie-in point by hanging a normal back-up light. It’s not nearly as bright, but it was a comfort to look up throughout the dive to see it swaying there. When last I dove the Oconta I had used a fairly stiff helium mix, but still was narked. This time I was clear as a bell. Good thing too, as there were so many places to play, and so many things to check out. Several ships have come to misfortune on the same spot, and there is speculation as to whether there are one, two, three or more wrecks here. For my part I'm satisfied there is just one (ok two if you count the 10' rowboat at 160'), but it is busted in half and bent on itself. The bow lies pointing down, anchor still in place at 180 feet, and its hull provides a welcome break from the relentless flow. 40 feet upstream the stern is turtled and open, with a fantastic engine room stretching back 60 or so feet., and ambient light glowing from under the gunnels. It is all very peaceful and very serene, and I was sorry to leave it after 40 minutes.

The plan had been to hang out on the shoal until the boat could come back for me, but upon surfacing I was hailed from a small boat and invited me to climb aboard. It was the two OC divers I had passed on the line before, with Louis driving the boat. It seems he dives a Kiss unit too, so we fell to chatting, and quickly discovered a number of friends in common (in fact, we would have met earlier if I had been able to join Ron Benson for his Lake Superior trip in August.) Nice man, it was pleasure meeting him.

That night I strained my eyes scanning the sky for the Aurora Borealis, which was supposed to be making an appearance. It never did, but I did enjoy how the sky was so clear, and the moon so full, that the contrails of the jets were visible as they passed silently overhead.

The J.B. King is a 140’ barge located off Brockville. Its time and place in history are at the confluence of the seaway, the shallower Brockville “narrows”, a whole lot of dynamite and a bolt of lightning. The dive plan was to get dropped off upriver and drift for 12 minutes onto it. Well, the best laid plans and all of that, or as Jay said, “Whoa. And let me just add: Whoa.” Still, we all made it there in fairly short order, with plenty of time to play and explore. The wreck is blown to matchsticks all over the shoal, with lots of areas to crawl through, and all manner of winches and drilling equipment still in evidence. We moved up the wall during our deco, and I managed to find a couple of bottles, one old, one not so. The not-so I amused myself with by dropping it onto the group from the surface while they were still at 20’, provoking great stupefaction and much finger pointing (also a muddy leg for Carl, who forget to empty it before slipping it into his pocket.)

This was a very wet trip for me. My trusty dry suit, which has kept me dry for hundreds of dives, decided this was the weekend to breach in two separate places. No sooner did I patch up Friday’s hole then I sprung a leak again, and ended the dive on the King floating around inside my suit. Fortunately I had a backup set of underwear, because I was soaked to the bone. I was fortunate too that my suit is a trilaminate, because by the time I was ready to get into the water it was pretty much dry inside.

The Henry C. Daryaw is a 219’ steel freighter that hit the shoal, capsized and sank. She lies in the channel with ferocious flow pouring over her, but also has ample lees to duck into. It is one of the more popular wrecks, as evinced by the flotilla of boats sharing the two moorings when we showed up. I had my back to them chatting when it was pointed out that the diver about to roll in was wearing a prism. At a glance I didn’t recognize anyone, which didn’t surprise me since there is a growing community of prism divers in Canada. Then I heard them talking, and exclaimed to Dave “My God, that’s not Canadian, that’s the beating heart of Long Island there!” Looking more closely I realized it was Billy Gambrel and his boat, along with Bob Porter that I had met in Roatan earlier in the year. It was nice to see them, and we sat on our respective gunnels catching up and talking diverese.

I have been all through the Daryaw’s cavernous holds, but had yet to explore the more cramped engine room. Dave and I splashed together excited to do so, though at 6’6” he warned me he might sit out some of the tighter stuff. I had gotten good beta from Jay on how to enter it, and was able to descend the line, curve under the hull to the aft superstructure, and pop right in. It was cramped and silty inside, but still very cool, with all sorts of gauges and equipment to explore. Around the curve I could hear Billy and his buddy, and was cracking up at how I could still hear their accents through their dsvs. The Daryaw is one of the only ships I’ve seen where you can access the holds through the engine room, so I squeezed through and enjoyed them in all their cavernous glory. I especially like how, if you go up to the keel and look down, the open hatches look like swimming pools below. At the bow I found a shoulder-width opening, and by going head-down into it I found a small forward compartment. It was silty and clear, which always gets me going because it means no one has been in there in a while. Some sort of eel-like creature peered up at me through a tunnel 8” into the silt, and a catfish swam by looking ludicrous with a silt beret streaming behind him. I thought about, and even attempted, squeezing through a really small hatch onto the deck, but the clearance was only a couple of feet to the bottom. Eventually Reason prevailed, or more accurately brow-beat me out of it (“What are you, stupid? You want to get stuck in here?”) Dave and I regrouped, then clawed our way up to the bow for the classic screaming ride on the current to the stern.

Somehow Murphy had struck again, and Dave and I passed the class only just descending as we finished up our hang. I wound up pulling on my fins and swimming back to see the prism divers, including Jerry Milmoe, whom I had done my initial training with. The clock was ticking on my time outside the country, so I stuck my smokes and a lighter in a pelican case and brought them with me, to the amusement of most everyone. Hey, I’ve got to get them in while I can, as soon as I recross the border I’m a non-smoker.

The zebra mussels have been taking a hit from another invader, the Gobis, with a consequent drop in visibility. I doubt it will return to the 6’ visibility I used to see in the 80’s, but it has gotten a bit murkier lately. Whether you are a novice, or Poseidon himself, get in as much Great Lakes/St. Lawrence diving as you can, because this is truly the Golden Age.

Mako Mania September 30 2006

Saturday was as perfect a day on the ocean as you are likely to ever see. Dead calm seas, sunny skies, air in the 60’s, a wreck on the agenda and a fine bunch of divers to share it with. What could be better?

Out on the Stingray was Ernie, Stephan, Bruce, Jim Wood, Greg, Gary, and myself, plus Henrik at the helm of course. The Shark River Reef was the scheduled destination, somewhere in the 130’ range. Instead of just heading to the Stolt again, as we have done so many times this season, we elected try the less traveled path and go to the Mako Mania. The beauty of the day was not lost on others, and as we approached the wreck I asked Ernie in mock-naivete why they call this area the parking lot. Everywhere you looked were boats, dozens of them. Less than a ¼ mile to the north was a large fishing charter tied up on the Algol. A mile to the east was the red hull of John Jack, pointed 180 degrees from everyone else and looking very contrarian with its stern tie-in.

Rolling over the gunnel, I was delighted to see 60’-70’ of viz, beautiful blue water with just a touch of green. The last time I was on this wreck was 2003, when the viz was 10’ or so and below 60’ was a night dive. A lot has changed since then in terms of my diving, my equipment, my skills and my general understanding of wreck diving, and it was interesting to see the wreck from a new perspective. I clipped my strobe to the line at 80’ and descended to the sand in search of dinner. The Mako Mania is kind of an ugly kid sister to the much bigger and more famous Algol next door, which worked perfectly for my purposes. 5’ off the wreck I started picking up scallops, and tying off my reel I ran out 250’ into the sand. It’s really interesting to me how the topography can be so different even though the wrecks are clustered. The Stolt, like so many others, rests on muddy sand, whereas the Algol is on some weird kind of muck that scallops want no part of. The Mako Mania, on the other hand, is on kind of a mossy plain, with small green plant life about a half inch long growing on it. The light penetration even at 130’ was amazing, and the whole scene was very bright and soothing.

I wanted to do more than just bag scallops on this dive, so after 15 minutes and two dozen scallops I headed back to the wreck. The cargo holds are crammed full of enormous truck tires, with a few more scattered over the deck. The first one I looked into had a fine two pound lobster in it, but I had to do some work to get him out. I didn’t want to pull off my bailout bottle, so I had to sort of wedge myself in and invert. The only problem was that when I did that my loop would start to fill with diluent, my PO2 would drop, and I’d start to rise! No matter how I twisted myself it kept happening, so finally I just turned off my diluent, bagged Mr. Bug, then twisted it back on. The next tire had another beautiful bug in it, but she was a female that showed signs of having been gravid, so I left her. Up on the bow several fish were schooling, including an enormous tautog. I noticed a diver near the ladder for the bow superstructure, but didn’t realize my faux pas until later: Jim had been hanging out for minutes, speargun in hand, waiting for that Tog to come just a LITTLE closer, until my appearance scotched his plans. I think it speaks to Jim’s restraint that he didn’t then poke his next-best target of opportunity. I also found some booty, in the form of a goody bag labeled BL (could it be a coincidence that Bruce Levinson was onboard? Hmmm…)

After an hour I began my way up, surfacing at an even 90 minutes. I learned that there is an unspoken rule on the dive boat, Don’t Follow Rob, which Ernie ignored to his detriment (only 12 scallops.) On the other hand Jim did bag up the female I had elected to leave, which I suppose was his due since I blundered into his hunt. When I was on the Stingray three weeks ago Barb and I were down at the shore celebrating our 6th anniversary. Two weeks ago I was out again, this time on Barb’s birthday. This time it happened to be on the actual day of our anniversary, which led Henrik to speculate that I must be in possession of very large…gifts to have such a free hand at diving. Really though, isn’t the 6th anniversary the Bivalve, Crustacean and Fish Anniversary?

Jim had been careless enough to mention that he had seen some tires off in the sand by the bow, but was smart enough to make damn sure he got in the water before I did. I helped give him a good head start too, when I rolled over and promptly went legs up. I spent some time thinking I had too much air in my boots, until I looked at them and realized they were surprisingly stubby: no fins. I was completely helpless, it was impossible to put my legs down, or even just to roll face down. My adv kicked a bit of dil into my loop, so I took the time to fill it with O2, since with 10/50 in my dil bottle it wouldn’t be hard to pass out. Eventually they threw me a line and pulled me in, where I rekitted, rebooted my brain, and retumbled over the side to much better effect. The viz had clotted up a bit, more like a hazy 30’ now, but nothing to complain about. My trials weren’t quite over though. At 80’ I heard the sound of bubbles coming from my left side. I checked out my newly-repaired power inflator but it was functioning fine, as was my bailout, and except for the manual O2 line there is nothing else there to bubble. I turned off my dil, turned it back, and no bubbles, which Stephan confirmed when he came down the line. Strange, I very nearly turned the dive then, but everything seemed in such fine fettle. Jim did swim under me briefly, and all I can think is that some bubbles got caught in my gear and then trickled out from under my cowling.

Jealousy is a poisonous emotion I refuse to engage in, and I was genuinely happy for Jim when I saw a pair of enormous claws sticking out of his goodie bag, and a porthole in his hands. Great finds both! I still went up to the debris at the bow to poke about, and we were all much happier that I did. The first fine artifact I picked up was a dive light, and still turned on! This made Jim’s happiness complete. A 3# bug lurked in one of the tires and quickly went into my bag, as did 30 more scallops and some funky tooth-looking bone I found out in the sand. I’ve never bagged up a more bitter and vindictive bug, twice he pinched me through the mesh bag with that big ripper (catching a light and a glove but fortunately not flesh.) After another hour I pulled my strobe and rose up the line. Pulling myself over the ladder inevitably sets off a chain reaction of cleaning scallops, sorting and hauling gear, driving home, cleaning gear, cooking food, and all the tasks large and small that accompany diving. For now though, for this half hour of decompression, it was just me and the jellies floating blissfully in the water, weightless and serene in the warm afternoon sun.

Wreck Valley to the Stolt September 17 2006

Woody Allen once said he owed all his success to showing up 15 minutes early. I can't quite claim the same, but I did make it on the boat trip by showing up early for the 7am departure that was really 6am. Oh well, a frenzied load-in, Mario Andretti-style parking and the Wreck Valley charter cast off for the Stolt.

Besides Captain Henrik, we had Ernie and Nick crewing, and for passengers Jack, John, Carl, Sunny, Tony, Bruce, Elliot, and Dan, with me rounding it out to a still-not-cramped 11 divers. Bubble watching was Ann, Nick's Significant Other. At the last minute Jon had to bail on us, but his spirit was with us (his spirit also got its chops busted rather mercilessly, and could be seen slinking below to hide.) Wetsuits, drysuits, single tanks, double tanks, rebreathers, ponys, stages, air, nitrox, trimix, you name it, we were quite the cross-section of northeast diving.

The sun was so strong you'd hardly believe autumn was four days away, and the seas were only a foot or two. It didn't matter, this group meant business, with seasickness patches spotting the necks of nearly everyone onboard. A number of folks had never been to the Stolt before, so it especially nice for them to experience it under such pleasant conditions. The surface current was pretty fierce though, and Ernie found himself being promptly pushed to the stern when he rolled over to tie in. I like how Henrik handled it though, he just reversed enough that Ernie could grab the grappel line, and then reduced the scope after we were secure. Slick as shit through a goose, I was impressed. In my eagerness I rolled over before the carolina line was in, and can attest that I had to work hard to get to the bow. I appreciated them throwing it then, as I was resting with one hand on the keel wondering how I was going to make those last exposed 6 feet (I appreciated even more not getting that big-ass lead weight in the back of my head.) Viz was very respectable, 30' at least (which was about 3 times what I was expecting.) I would urge all rebreather divers to splash as early on as possible, there as so many fish that scatter when open circuit divers hit the wreck. Case in point, a school of dozens of pollack surrounded me as I descended to the rudder, their silvery 3' bodies reflecting the light in flashes. Tying off to some debris by the propeller, I swept out into the sand, bagging scallops as I went. There weren't too many, but I managed to fill my bag with 2.5 dozen, as well as a decent size bug. I found an abandoned trap about 300' out with two more in it, one huge, the other tiny; unfortunately the wrong one was dead. I was also amused to come across one of the newest artifacts on the Stolt, the broken lights from the Stingray we had cut down and pitched off the previous week. Someday a diver will be excited to come up with genuine light from the Stolt. There were four or five nice size bugs under the hull at the stern, but I didn't have a tickle stick long enough to tease them out, and was looking at 39 minutes of deco at that point anyways. There was quite a queue heading up the line, divers everywhere but all getting along. The seas had the occasional roller coming through, and when they did it looked like the Nurnberg rallies ("Sieg!" - line goes slack. "Heil!" -everyone's right arm shoots straight out.) Returning to the stern, I was surprised to see an underwater tag line extending out, but all made sense when I saw the Independence sharing our mooring.

Back on board Henrik fired up the grill, and we chowed on sausage, steak and burgers while swapping stories. Carl and Sunny are starting to enjoy the full benefits of diving ccr, and had a combined runtime of 2.5 hours for the day (which, combined with their Saturday at Dutch, put another 6 hours in their logbooks.) Bruce was also diving a Kiss unit, and hunkered down for a while to photograph the cunner up close and personal. Several divers made penetrations, and Nick came up with tiles from one of the heads. John unfortunately had an equipment problem and decided to bail, a difficult decision that I respect him for making. Bruce too had an issue, in the form of his regulator cap disappearing - not the dust cover, but the threaded metal part that protects where you adjust the intermediate pressure. Dive gear failures are like Tolstoy's unhappy families, there are just millions of ways for them to express themselves.

I began dive two by going out into the sand by the cut and scooping up another 3 dozen scallops. I then caught and released a nice bug, totally by accident. Those 2#-ers know the value of twisting and thrashing while you are preoccupied with getting the bag ready, and when I turned around he was gone gone gone. After swimming through the engine room I exited by the stern, and interrupted my ascent long enough to dart into a hatch and come out with two more bugs. Later on the line I had a visitation from Murphy myself, when my fizzy lpi started to burp out a bit more vigorously. Eventually I just unplugged it, but was astonished to see I had 50 psi left in my diluent tank. Good thing it was on ascent, it would have been a pain in the butt to have to blow gas into my loop and bc from my offboard bailout. Doable, but far from preferable.

We didn't leave the Stolt until after 3, and the ride back was a busy one. Several divers brought up mussels. Lots and lots of mussels. More mussels than there were clams on the Beth Dee Bob. There was a while there when I was cleaning scallops that I began to fear for my life, as the wolves were definitely circling (I think Dan's offer to "help" with his dive knife had two meanings, if you catch my drift.) We had quite the mussel cleaning assembly line there for a while, cleaning and bagging them to drag behind the boat. There were so many in fact that the last bag didn't come back aboard until we were crossing the jetty for the inlet. Somehow though we still managed to fit in the Gentlemens' (and Lady's) Cigar Smoking Club on the transom, which is swiftly becoming an integral part of the Stingray dive experience (rather to Henrik's dismay I'll bet, the poor guy quite two weeks ago.) My suggestion that load out be the mirror image of load in (ie Carl and Ernie help haul my gear) was grossly misinterpreted to mean I should carry their stuff off, so I shut up fast.

There are no dues for Wreck Valley, but that does not mean we are without responsibilities. So please, call me and take some of these mussels before refrigerator collapses.