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Click To Enlarge
From Tom Pritchard . . .
Disarming the Enemy. Vern Heagy, Jim Brown, Ron Lobb, James Zimmerman, Nate Brommer, Chris Mayo, Bryan Palmer, Scott the Rock, Gerhard Maree and yours truly were on the Surface Interval Sunday diving the Jacob Jones, a WWII destroyer sunk by U578 - the same U-boat that sunk the RP Resor. It was overcast and 2 ft seas for most of the day. By the time the rain came, the last divers were on board and we were heading back to the dock. We were tied into the mid-section of the wreck, which wasn't very large so navigation in the 40 ft (dive #1) and 25 ft (dive #2) viz was pretty easy. But it was scattered mess down there, so we ran reels. Six lobsters were pulled on the trip; GMan and I had two. Rock and Bryan speared some sea bass and tog. The first bug we grabbed was hiding under a plate about 10 feet from the anchor line - so even if you're the last divers in the water, as we were, start searching at the anchor line. The second bug was hiding deep within a large valve, also neat the anchor. This bug had a great defensive position, which Gerhard found out the first time he stuck his hand in. I heard this loud, AHHHHHHHHH-OWWWWWWW!!!!!! through his regulator. All Gerhard had for hiss trouble was a torn glove and a sore finger. We told everyone about this bug during the surface interval and a few hearty souls took a shot at him. On our second dive, when we were last in again, Gerhard more determined than ever, reached in for the bug. The bug clamped down, and GMan pulled out the offending claw. With the lobster now partially disarmed, GMan brought the rest of the bug out. There was some current on the wreck and random snarls of monofilament that were worth avoiding. Gerhard cut himself out of one mess and I tore up some line that grabbed me. A bit more problematic was the 1/8" inch thick plastic fishing line that grabbed my goody bag. Too strong to be torn loose by hand - that's why we carry knives. Max depth 112 fsw.
From Rick Huck . . .
Early Saturday morning I drove down to the Dina Dee moored in Pt. Pleasant, NJ. The boat is a 42’ dive “taxi”. The captain gets you there and back with a little help from his mates.. It’s pretty Spartan compared to most of the boats that I have been on. This was my first time on her and I didn’t know what to expect. It’s easy loading and unloading since it sits just a few steps from the street. I liked that after my last ocean dive on the John Jack. That was at least a mile hike with gear. The charter belonged to Scuba Venture up in Reading. There were 12 divers on board with 6 of them from Jersey. Our destination was the Arundo at 130’, a wreck that I really wanted to dive again. It has two locomotives, truck and jeep parts and lots of cases of beer! As we headed out the winds increased so a poll was taken to see if we wanted to dive the Tolten at 95’ instead. The captain said it would be a smoother ride home. The Tolten was a Chilean freighter sunk by ….that’s right….a U-boat! It is 280’ long and pretty much a pile of wreckage. Still a cool dive. Although two Jersey guys that I was going to be diving with (one was from England doing his last East Coast wreck dive before returning home) and I opted for the Arundo we went along with the masses. Besides I have never dove on this wreck before and a new wreck is always exciting. After a 2 hour trip (the Dina Dee isn’t the fastest of boats) my new buddies and I hit the water with entries similar to that off the Seeker. No giant strides here. There’s nothing like being the first on the wreck, excluding the mates of course. The freighter is pretty much in a straight line with lots of nooks and crannies for our little “bug” friends. As always there were the usual hordes of fish were present. I spotted some very good sized pouts bigger than I have seen before. We did about a 45 minute bottom time. Vis was good, about 20’ with barely visible hunks of the wreck just beyond that. Bottom temps were a balmy 54 degrees, surface temps were in the 70s. After a long surface interval trying to decide whether or not to fight the seas that were getting rougher I thought “just do it”. I met my buddies on the bottom and since I was last in decided to do only a 20 minute run. It was a good day of diving on a charter that had a wide mix of divers. On the way in the captain stopped to check his lobster traps! That took over 45 minutes in even nastier seas. Needless to say the boat was rockin’! When the mates surfaced they brought with them the traps. This just added to the ol’ factory pleasures of being on the sea. After a long day on the seas it took awhile before my land legs showed up!!
From John Gross . . .
This is my report from the July 24th & 25th weekend: First I want to say that having Jim & Pete along was great! Every time I looked around they were there and doing what I wanted them to do before I even asked. Guys Great JOB!!! You can help with my classes anytime.
As you know Jenna wasn't able to do her OW dives because of her stitches in her toe. The other six diver, Cheri, Donna, Jeff, Dave, James, and Jill did a fantastic job on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we went to access A and Sunday we went to access B. I had an experience on Sunday that I never had before. On the last dive Sunday I had just finished the "Remove, Replace, and Clear Mask Skill" and was ready to have two divers do their hover and U/W Compass skill. I was in the center of the platform and the students were around the edge of the platform when I heard a noise and saw Peter's eyes give a look I never saw before. He seemed to be looking over my shoulder so I thought someone had fallen off the platform. When I turned to look behind me I saw the rope to the surface was slack and getting slacker. I looked up to see the surface only 5 feet above me and rapidly coming down on top of me. I immediately laid face down and spread out on the platform until it surfaced. I had fish flopping around me as they too were caught by the rising platform. Apparently the cable that holds the platform at 17 feet broke and the platform did an uncontrolled ascent with me on top of it. The students and divemasters had bailed out as soon as the platform started going up. I was the only one caught and unable to get off due to the speed of the rising platform. Upon reaching the surface I checked with the DM's and students and found everyone was ok. Jim Brown and Ron Lobb (Ron had stopped by to dive with us) tied the platform to another structure to keep from floating towards the east end of the quarry. When we had time to consider what had happened we all realized we were only minutes from having a buddy team doing their UW compass skill. Can you imagine how surprised they would have been, including their DM, if they returned from their compass navigation and the platform, with everyone on it, had vanished.
Pat, Pete, Betty Glatfelter and my students threw me a surprise birthday party between dives 1 & 2. Thanks to everyone as I was surprised and I really appreciated it.
From Bryan Palmer . . .
I headed down saturday to camp with Scott the rock and Family. Sunday came to quick,we loaded and got underway a little ahead of time, with about 12 divers. Scoot and I were paired as dive buddies as we were spear fishing, I ended up with 3 Black Sea bass and 1 Lobster, first time trying to get the lobster a piece of the wreck about 6 inches by 15 inches fell on me so i dropped the lobster and got out of there. went and got another Sea bass and then took a quick look for the lobster again. Got Him ( he was a good for dinner when I got home last night). Scott ended up with 2 Sea Bass and a Nice Tautog.
Second dive saw I had one Nice Sea Bass & a scallop, and a Sliding door lock vintage 1915 from the destroyer. nice vix 20-30 feet and high 40's on the bottom I had a max depth of 111' with run times of 30 minutes apiece on the bottom mostely at 105-110'. John Sutherland another diver on the boat came up with a few Caps and 1 cap & timer from the destoyer, as well as one ringoff the warhead. All and all about 8-10 lobster brought up and scott and my 7 fish.
From Darth Vern . . .
What a great dive day we had on Sunday. Jim Brown showe dup at my house at 3am in the rain. After about a 10 min conversation on whether we should actually go or not, we headed out for Indian River Inlet. We arrived at 6:15 [I was not driving fast for once] after a brief WaWa stop to get lunch we hit the marina at 6:30 to cheers from the crew for actually being early for the first time. The 1:45 min ride out to the Jacob Jones was uneventful [since I slept the whole way] and we splashed in to find average EC viz, about 20 feet or so. Most of the boat patrons were digging, with most of our divers either spearfishing, catching bugs or taking pics. Me and Jim Brown did about 45 min bottom time on both dives. Got some good pictures with my new favorite subject - Ocean Pout and a great pic of a Monkfish. See the first image at top, Jim Brown got a great jellyfish shot with some wreckage in the background.
I received an email from Trish on Monday concerning Smokeys Divers and I thought I wold share it with everyone: "You have a wonderful entertaining and fun group, by the way. Nice when people have a sense of humor. For the most part people are there to have fun, but we do get the occasional "stick in the mud". Don't think that's possible with the Smokey's group. :)" This is exactly our adopted mantra for East Coast Wreck diving - VERY FUN BUT SAFE!!!!!!
Also check out the Dive Report from Chris Sanders and Dave Barnhart from the Belize Aggressor!!!
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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