afternoon diving in nc

[yardpro]

The weather was crappy here today, spotty rain, so a friend in the grading business and i were able go get away early and do a little diving.
As i was at the dive shop i heard on the radio that vis at the offshore wreck was 10-15'...so we decide to try an inshore site.

as we were heading out we saw TONS of "sea apple" jellyfish (also called cannonball jellyfish... I MEAN TONS.. i have lived here my whole life and never seen them this thick.... we saw 3 manta rays breech on the way out the inlet, and lots of baitfish action at the surface... we thought we would have a good afternoon spearfishing..

we went to Senateur Duhamel first, about 14 miles out the inlet... We get drop the grappel and get hooked in. we see a big sea turtle surface and check us out. We were about to jump over and almost jumped on a big moon jelly.. WOO HOO we figured with all the life we were seeing we were getting lucky... NOT,, vis the surface was only about 15 feet... by the time we descended the line down to the wreck, we could barely see our hand in front of our face.... it was so bad we had trouble unhooking the grappel..

so we head up and head to the novelty.. (ar320). It is about 6pm and we still have some light left, so weran the 12 miles over there.. It was my first trip there, so i was excited.

we get there, and again have no trouble hooking to the structure...and again, a lot of activity at the surface, lots of bait fish jumping....then i see the fin... yep, shark... i get a little nervous..
so we hop over and check it out...

visibility was much better there. 20-30 feet at the surface..so we start down. My buddy say a wig barracuda on the way down. I missed it, but did see something big turn away and a large fin flip out of site... i am thinking it was the shark...
visibility was 20 feet at the top of the superstructure, 10m-15 at the bottom. we swam around and looked for flounder, but had no luck...

again while we were coming up i just caught sight of a big fin flipping away from us...

I had a great afternoon playing hookey

 

[RickyF]

Sounds like fun. Thanks!!

 

[Recneps]

Those jellyfish you mention....those the ones almost perfectly round and about the size of a baseball? Mid August we dove out of Wilmington and saw tons of them. Those little suckers are heavy!

 

[dmcutter]

Too bad you didn't get to see the shark attached to the fin. I dove the Hyde in July when we were on vaca at the beach and there were 5 or 6 good sized sand tigers swimming with us. Not huge, I'd guess 6-8 ft. The guys at the shop said there was a 12 footer there on Memorial Day. I got some good pics, I was maybe 3 ft away from one and got a real good close up. It's fun to show those pics to non divers.

 

[yardpro]

vis was not good enough to see him, just the tail...
My buddy say a large tail when we were under the bridge looking for flounder.

Those sea apple jellyfish are pretty solid... they won't sting you, so when we were kids we would throw them at each other..

Although i am not scared of sharks, the thought of seeing one just as it turns away is unnerving..

I dove the morehead waterfront Tuesday at dusk.. the sun was just setting and my friend finally got there with his boat. I am letting him use my mooring until i bring my boat back from the hurricane hole marina next month. I wanted to check the ground tackle after the hurricane. We had a few boats break loose and were blown right across my ball into the marsh.. so i wanted to make sure everything was sound.....

Well as i was diving the viz was a few feet as normal there. And the setting sun was not helping, so i fired up the light.. as i was descending i suddenly realized that I was going in right a feeding time.... also mu boat is right across from the head boat "the continental shelf), and a hundred yards from the "carolina princess" as well as several dozen large charter sports fishermen..

They caught a 12 foot bull a few weeks back a few hundred feet from my mooring, and many smaller ones are caught there frequently. The sharks have learned that the fishing boats clean their fish and throw over lots of table scraps....

I noticed that i was starting to breathe faster, and had to get a hold of myself and keep reassuring myself that "sharks are friends, and Bruce would never bother me..LOL....
I am new to diving but grew up in the water here, so i know ti swim with sharks frequently, but actually KNOWING one is near SOMEWHERE still makes me nervous.