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.