Tolten July 4 2007

The forecast was gloomy, but the Gypsy Blood still had a full charter out to the Tolten. I had never been to it, and was excited to check out something new. A Chilean freighter, she was torpedoed by the U404 on March 13, 1942, during what the u-boat commanders called "The Happy Time." Wire dredged, and then wire-dredged again, the ship is largely a debris field, with a bow portion (strengthened for breaking ice) still standing about 20' off the bottom.

As per usual I was geared up and tapping my toe waiting for word that the pool was open. Mike did quick work tying us in, and Mike Bender and I splashed together. Visibility wasn't bad at all, a solid 20'-25'. Denise had given me beta on a large lobster near the bow, and in my excitement I forgot to even turn my strobe on before dropping to the plates. I never did find the beast she described, but was happy to bag up a perky 2# almost immediately. The layout of the debris is pretty ideal for catching lobsters, and even with some fairly heavy traffic of late it still produced. Mike took off after a half hour, so I took his reel from him, ran that one out, then clipped mine into it and kept going. I was pleased to bag up a few scallops, which was an unexpected boon in only 90' of water. I tend to keep a collapsible pole spear bungeed to my bailout, and several times I thought about putting it together for a nice Sea Bass or Tog. Ultimately though I was focused on bugs, and just used one segment of it to tickle them out. After nearly two hours I had 5 scallops and four bugs, and made my way back for a half hour of deco.

It seems, though, that I owe the divers and crew of the Gypsy Blood an apology. When asked to cut our dive times a bit short, I cut a half hour off my planned 3 hour run. On deco though, with the anchor line bouncing about, and all by myself, I had time to contemplate that perhaps the others had splashed and returned sooner than expected. The end result was that they endured a fair amount of bouncing while I finished off my dive. So, sorry guys. Its just so hard to cut a dive short with unlimited gas, minimal deco, and a wreck filled with bugs!