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From Mike Nast . . .
On Friday night, I drove down to the Tuna Seizure in Little Egg Harbor. Arriving at 11 pm, I climbed into the warm cabin, woke a sleeping diver, and encamped in my bunk. Up at seven, I loaded my gear on the boat, conditions were good, seas 1-3, and about 40 degrees air temperature.
I had a three egg omelet at the marina's diner. This would not be the last time I would see this omelet.
We left at 8 am, with three other divers, wreck students, a mate, and an instructor. We steamed at 25 knots to the Southern Lillian, a large wreck in 120 fsw. It was my job to set the hook, so I jumped in, and about at 60 fsw, I saw the whole wreck below me. It was like being in the Caribbean it was so clear. I had never seen anything like it before in NJ. The boiler was below me and and I could see scallops 60 feet below.
The hook was really in the wreck, but I tied it off just to be safe with sisal, and let the bottle loose as a signal to the other divers that it was safe to jump it.
I began my exploration of the wreck, I didn't even use a reel it was so clear. Viz was easily 70 feet or more. I just looked for my strobe blinking away on the anchor chain. First I grabbed a bunch of scallops. Then it was lobster time, I got four, but two had eggs and remained on the bottom. I found one claw, about 10 inches long. This must have come from a 12-15 lb lobster, but I couldn't find its owner. There was so much to see and do, that I wished I had more time. I was diving 30% and was a bit narced, I wish I had blended 30/30 to take the edge off. My scheduled BT was 30 mins, which went awfully fast. After about 10 mins of deco on 65%, it was back on the boat.
We then went to an unnamed wreck called the Whopper. This is in 80 fsw, and there is a huge anchor that everyone dreams of recovering, but no one can figure out how to do so.
My surface interval was spent trying not to throw up. I could hardly wait to get back in the water, so again I went into set the hook.
This time the grapple was only hanging by one tine, barely in there, and the seas had kicked up to 5 feet. There wasn't much scope in the line, and I could see that the hook had to be moved to a more secure location, but it was being tugged hard from above. I pulled and tried to move it 3 feet away to piece of machinery, but couldn't do it, and was ended up hanging on it, flying across the sand, looking for another piece to snag. A big wooden beam loomed ahead and I got it securely under there with much relief, but got my hand stuck between the hook and the wreck, ow!
But then I see that the boat is pulling the beam up off the bottom. Now it's time to give up, I pull the hook, foul it in the chain so it doesn't snag, and begin my ascent up the drifting anchor line.
Then, I hear the hauler going, and look below me to see the anchor being pulled up! I get out of the way and am now drifting in 35 feet open water with nothing to hang onto, doubles, deco bottle, and all my other equipment.
This is a problem. I unzip my drysuit pocket, pull out my Halcyon SMB, find my reel, and attach the reel to the SMB, all the while watching my depth. I put the first breath in the SMB, and my reg free flows, I turn the lever to predive on my Apex, and it stops. One more breath, and I send the SMB up and took a drifting ascent.
The dive boat picked me up and we were then able to rehook the wreck. The viz was less, only about 20 feet. I saw a huge lobster about 7 lbs, and made a desperate grab for him, but just barely touched him, and his hole was way longer than my arm.
I got back on the surface, revisited my omelet, felt a lot better and took a nap. A great day on the ocean. The moral of the story is ocean diving is a lot of work, but way better than the quarry any day.
From Bob Hanna . . .
Saturday October 25 At Dutch Springs - 12 y.o. Patrick Beck and 62 y.o. Bob Hanna set off for Dutch Springs to see if we could top last weeks Pumpkin Carving Contest. On our first dive Patrick did succeed in setting and swimming a compass course to the Sikorsky H-37 helicopter. (Patrick will have no trouble with the Advanced Course he will take next Spring) We were aided by excellent weather and 50+ feet of Viz. Hopefully the camera he brought with him took great pictures.
We then swam S W off the helicopter to the island with the little airplane, then S along the W side of the Island to the crane which we did not descend to, back N along the W side, over the Silver Comet and exiting the Quarry after 35 busy minutes.
We cooked burgers, fed some of Gerard Snyder's friends, and resumed diving.
We visited and swam through the School Bus, followed the Rope to the East side of the quarry, visited a fire truck, and returned. This was a 30 minute dive.
Young Patrick has completed in his first 5-6 weeks of diving 12 dives. Four of those dives were his Basic check Out Dives, and the others were all with Smokey Dive Masters and Instructors.
Patrick now has his own Dutch Springs, I Flew A Sikorsky H-37 Underwater At Dutch Springs shirt. Since he slept much of the way back, I am unable to add his comments about the day.
From Mark Myers . . .
Yes, I actually was wet again this weekend – although it was just in the pool. The “moron” factor kicked in. When I got my gear out of the truck planning to take pictures of John’s and Kathy’s classes, I had the video camera, I had the still camera, I had two tanks, I had mask, underwear, fins – I just didn’t have my drysuit shell, so I ended up sitting on the beach.
Sunday night found me in the pool with Shawn Canady and Rick Huck doing a discover scuba for a bunch of very enthusiastic Penn Manor high school students. They – the students, not Rick and Shawn – were very fun to be with. OK, Rick and Shawn are OK too…
From John Gross . . .
On Saturday I was at Bainbridge access "B" along with my open water students Vivian Galebach, Diana Sholl, Brian Snavely, and Bill Graham. My divemaster was Pete Bohling and I had two DIT's, Bryan Palmer and Nate Brommer. We entered the water from the floating platform. So of us did forward rolls and some did more conventional giant strides. Our first dive was on the platform to get acclimated to the water and full wetsuit. From the platform we proceeded to the pickup truck and the bathtub. Viz was so good that I could see the unmarked boat that is north of the pickup. That boat is about 30 feet from the pickup. Once around the boat and back past the pickup truck onto the safe, motorcycle and typewriter. Not bad for their first open water dive. After logging our dives and warming up we went back in to the water. After doing their skills on the platform we proceeded to the airplane. Once around the plane and back to our exit point. Everyone got to see some fish and jellyfish. We logged our gear and packed up and headed for home.
Sunday found us back at Bainbridge but this time we were at access "A." Vivian couldn't make Sunday as she had other obligations at church. So Diana, Brian and Bill joined me, Pete, Nate and Bryan at access A. We were also joined by four of Kathy's students. Kathy was unable to dive so I agreed to do their last two training dives. Kathy's students Odessa Armstrong, Jackie Brenton, Kyle Van Helmond, and Katie Vogel are all E-town College students. Our first dive of the day found us on the platform next to the dolphins. Everyone did really well with their skills. Kathy did a really good job of training her students and it was a pleasure diving with them. After the skills the skills Pete took two of Kathy's students down to the cement mixed and Ralph took two of Kathy's students on a tour that I believe included the cement mixer. I took my three students and the two DIT's, Nate & Bryan, down the line to the boat at around 40 feet. From there we went to the cement mixer. On the way to the cement mixed Diana gave me the cold signal. So it was past the back of the cement mixer and up the road. At 15 feet we did our three minute safety stop and then up the hill for some sunshine. After lunch we were back in the water for final certification dive. Everything proceeded smoothly until we got to the underwater navigation. Almost everyone had to do at least two attempts until they got. After the skills almost everyone was cold or low on air so most of the tours consisted of following the bottom or shore line back to our exit point.
Everyone did well and we now have 7 new open water divers. If you get a chance remember to say hello to Diana, Brian, Bill, Odessa, Jackie, Kyle and Katie. Good job to everyone! I hope to see you all out diving soon.
I have some Open Water students to finish on 11/8 & 11/9 and I think Diana and Brian will be coming along on those dives so if you see us at Bainbridge stop by and say hello. I also have an Advanced class that is starting on 11/9. Cindy's boy Josh, along with Diana, Vivian and Mark Snavely will be doing this Advanced class.
From Jess Zellers . . .
Thursday- We assembled a mass of vehicles, a mass of divers. Messed around with gear a bit. Dave entertained the crowd. Sat around and chatted a while. And then, we got the combo and could go in past the gate. Once in, gear was promply assembled and used for its intented purpose. And one diver, I won't mention his name, got to realize a life's dream and go diving in women's underware. I'm pretty sure reality didn't quite match the fantasy, but he seemed pretty happy 'hey I got Jess' underware!'. End of the night I got my skull cap liner back all wet, but at least there wasn't any teeth marks! Tom and Gerhert insist that there is some kinda cool structure along the east wall of the bowl. So Kulp and I headed out there since we didn't know of any structure there. Well we started at the wall by the mixer and went the whole way around the airplane, staggered up the side of the wall. We both think Tom and Gerhert were narced on the dive they allegeitly saw a structure in the area, or they were horribly disoriented and where actually somewhere else. Cause all we saw were two really huge coy and a ton and half of big perch. They we all had chilli.
We're at myerstown every week, and now that it's getting cold again we're taking full advantage of the world's largest wood burning stove! I know you've all heard of the large man-eating crowds at scenic myerstown But this week's gonna be a good to avoid all that, there's more than a few Irregulars being irrgular this week and doing other things. So plenty of room at pinic tables!
Get Out and Dive and Live The Adventure!!!
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