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.