caruso
Banned
Now that summer is finally here in the NE, I'm out on Smithtown Bay off Long Island exploring the artificial reef which includes several barges.
I'm finding dozens of boat anchors left behind by unlucky fisherman who hooked the wreck and could not retrieve them. Some have been down a while and are encrusted but there are some newer ones down there as well, including a larger version of my own spade anchor which will probably work better than mine does. Why pay good money for an anchor when there are so many just sitting down there?
The problem is that these anchors have some thick chain and line on them and they're entangled to the wreck and other debris. Simply lifting the anchor off the bottom causes a huge silt cloud and visibility almost immediately drops to zero.
Here's my plan to retrieve some of these anchors on an upcoming trip, please advise if any changes should be made.
Find the target anchor during the dive, deploy my SMB and clip off my finger spool to the anchor to mark it. Finish the dive with enough reserve gas for the upcoming "recovery mission" (or bring a second tank), return to my boat, motor over to the SMB, drop down again, with a heavier line with a hook at the end of it, tie it off to the anchor, and on a prearranged signal such as 3 tugs on the line have someone on the boat lift the anchor until they can't pull it any more due to entanglement.
Since the anchor will be free of the bottom, hopefully by 5 or 10' or even more, vis shouldn't be too bad and I am free to work on cutting the rope wherever I can get a knife into it. Once the crewmember feels the line free up they can slowly pull the anchor to the surface with me holding on, my SMB is also attached to the anchor and will be retrieved at the same time.
We're talking depths of 35-50'. The only issue I see is that if the anchor chain is entangled (rather than just anchor line) then it will not be recoverable at which point I'll unhook the rope from the boat, untie the SMB and surface.
I'm finding dozens of boat anchors left behind by unlucky fisherman who hooked the wreck and could not retrieve them. Some have been down a while and are encrusted but there are some newer ones down there as well, including a larger version of my own spade anchor which will probably work better than mine does. Why pay good money for an anchor when there are so many just sitting down there?
The problem is that these anchors have some thick chain and line on them and they're entangled to the wreck and other debris. Simply lifting the anchor off the bottom causes a huge silt cloud and visibility almost immediately drops to zero.
Here's my plan to retrieve some of these anchors on an upcoming trip, please advise if any changes should be made.
Find the target anchor during the dive, deploy my SMB and clip off my finger spool to the anchor to mark it. Finish the dive with enough reserve gas for the upcoming "recovery mission" (or bring a second tank), return to my boat, motor over to the SMB, drop down again, with a heavier line with a hook at the end of it, tie it off to the anchor, and on a prearranged signal such as 3 tugs on the line have someone on the boat lift the anchor until they can't pull it any more due to entanglement.
Since the anchor will be free of the bottom, hopefully by 5 or 10' or even more, vis shouldn't be too bad and I am free to work on cutting the rope wherever I can get a knife into it. Once the crewmember feels the line free up they can slowly pull the anchor to the surface with me holding on, my SMB is also attached to the anchor and will be retrieved at the same time.
We're talking depths of 35-50'. The only issue I see is that if the anchor chain is entangled (rather than just anchor line) then it will not be recoverable at which point I'll unhook the rope from the boat, untie the SMB and surface.