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From Huck . .
THE JELLIES ARE BACK!!!
I called Scott "The Rock" on Saturday night to see if he wanted to dive on Sunday. He said it wasn't a problem but he didn't have any tanks that were filled. I said that it wasn't a problem because I had lots of air! No comments on that please. I thought that we could do a Hurricane Charley dive. Nothing like diving during a hurricane, even if it was just wind and rain. As you know Charley never really hit us. But we dove anyway. There were a few classes going on but not much else. Scott and I had the same dive plan in mind....deep boat, step van, water tower and search for the so called "tool box". Great minds think alike! No comments here either please.
Vis was ok but not that great. I navigated us to the dozer then down to the boat, but we missed it and hit the "hole". Oh well, we came up the wall to find the line to the van. We searched the area but couldn't find the tool box. We headed for the south wall and ascended to about 25'. Out of the poor vis I saw something dark looming. As we got closer it turned out to be the tunnel. As our lights illuminated the darkness we discovered easily over 100 fish hanging in the tunnel. There were sunnies, blue gill, some small bass and catfish. We never saw anything like this. I ventured in as the fish darted all around me. I headed all the way back to the air space at the far end of the tunnel. There was nothing much to look at once my head broke the water nor did I take my reg out of my mouth. Who knows what kind of bacteria was hiding in there. As we headed back to our exit point I spotted some jellies. I couldn't believe it. This is pretty early for these little fellows. They don't usually show up until the end of September or early October. We were surprised. It must be all the rain and the odd conditions that we've had over the summer.
Scott and I had a good time diving as we thought about the crew that are presently in Mexico. Who wants to dive there when we have Bainbridge! You can't beat it!!!
From Darth Vern . . .
Well since it seems like I will forever be to busy to dive [imagine that] I found a cool link to check out. This is all about a the Giant Humbolt Squid. Tell me running into this thing underwater wouldn't scare the crap out of ya!!!! Since most of the regular contributors are off to Isla Majares in Mexico I figure I will throw you an dive report from Trish and the gang of the Surface Interval. A charter boat we dive off of often. Also we are setting up a "Newbies East Coast Wreck Dive" since the last one got blown out. We need to gauge interest for a mid September trip, email me here if you are interested! I have plenty of interested divemasters ready to help out!!!!
From Trish Boyer and the Surface Interval . . .
After much agonizing over the marine weather forecasts, we blew out Friday dive to the Moonstone with predictions of Bonnie. It turned out to be "not so bad". Bonnie was a dud in our area. Friday we waited anxiously for the mid-afternoon forecast, which finally came in just before 5 p.m. I counted the diver phone calls - over 30 (we only carry 16). I ended up calling a bunch of shocked people back to tell them it was a "go". I know there were many dubious people who thought we'd lost our minds. "Charley's coming!" Well, we took that window of opportunity between storm systems and found virtually flat seas with a 4 ft. swell that was very minor. We even caught sunshine now and again all during the morning. Everyone was thrilled.
We made the 29 mile ride in just under an hour and a half to the Arthur T. Hall, the 165 ft. buoy tender sunk as an artificial reef a few years ago. She sits upright in the sand, still perfectly intact, and is a true mutli-level dive. Most of our divers loved it, as they rarely see intact wrecks in this area. Capt. Clay tied into a porthole in the wheelhouse, which can be reached at 80 fsw. The visibility was about 15 ft and dissolved to about 5 ft. on the bottom at 120 fsw. The big shock was the water temperature, which had dropped back to the 50 degree level. That warm water was nice while it lasted, but I suspect it will be back again soon.
The Hall is completely blanketed with a carpet of mussels. Hubby Capt. Darryl selectively picked some for tonight's dinner. The recipe is a winner I coaxed out of Robert Maluso, a diver and the executive chef at MBNA headquarters in Wilmington. It features liberal white wine, butter, garlic, shallots, parsley and heavy cream. Served over pasta, it's to die for.
We took votes on whether to stay there for two (some takers), go to the scheduled Saetia (some takers) or head 9 miles closer to home to the H Buoy in case storm winds came on strong (they never did). The latter choice won out. The viz was about 15-20 ft. Jay Alberghini was tickled to have caught two huge bumphead seabass by hand. The local divers were amazed to see Eiichi Hondo catch a seabass, chop off his head underwater, come up and eat him raw with gusto while kneeling on the back deck. He's Japanese and it's a sashimi thing. The Asian culinary culture is catching on here, but we had never seen a decapitation underwater before. The hand fishermen all said that the seabass were sticking up their spines and making it hard/impossible to get them out of the holes. Eiichi's prey didn't count on decapitation as an extrication method!
The surface entertainment for the day was an enormous leatherback turtle who came to the surface spraying a big spout. The chatter started, "Is it a whale?" "No, it's a turtle." "Nah, it's a shark." Subsequent and closer spottings verified a large leatherback. Clay dropped in last to pull the hook and do a quick dive. He limited out with his homemade gig on 4 nice flounder and said he saw dozens more.
While a gentle rain welcomed us back to the dock, it didn't dampen anyone's spirits. All in all, it was a terrific day. For the current charter schedule, see this link!
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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