CT-Rich
Contributor
I was up at Wetherill on Sunday. Got in two dives in the afternoon. My 14 y.o. daughter convinced me that we should make a morning side trip. She wanted to visit Biomes Marine Biology Center in North Kingstown, RI, so we stopped there first. Many of you have seen Lou from Biomes seining for tropicals in the Sandy Cove Side of Wetherill. I was really impressed with Biomes and would recommend it if you would like to see the extent and breadth of marine life around coastal New England. Because Lou is collecting several times a week all summer, Biomes has a really excellent collection of fish. They have a beautiful tank of matured tropicals that were collected over the last several years, including several of species I was completely unaware of ever getting this far North. In addition to the Spotted Butterflies, and the infamous Lion Fish, there are Angel fish of several types and the extremely venomous Stone fish. My daughter and I spent almost two hours looking at there collection before heading down to Wetherill. Biomes is certainly was worth the admission of $11 for adults and $9 for children. If I lived locally it would be on my list of places to get an annual membership.
The first dive I did was from the West Cove (on the East side) entering the water about 2:00 PM. I dropped down to 30 fsw and swam out to the tip of the outermost rocky point. I haven't done that dive this year and it was pretty good. The visibility was around 10' on the East face of the rocks going out and dropped down to 5' for the swim back into the Sandy Beach Cove side. What I have forgotten was how ripping the current can get as you come around the point and head West. It must have been going close to two knots and I burned through more air than I would have liked swimming against it before I started going hand over hand against the current. On the way in I came across a string of eel traps. Inside one of them was a group of what I identified in the video as look-downs, but on re-examination of the video, think they are just some juvenile scup (Biomes fired my imagination, I guess). You can checkout the video at the end of this report.
The second dive I decided to see if I could spot some tropicals, so I hung out in the West Cove, it had much better visibility. I stayed mostly in the North and West side of the cove and did some a little toodling around over the mud towards the middle. I did come across two little butterflys. But in addition to that I also was seriously impressed by the amount of fishing line that is strewn all over the bottom. Almost immediately I came across a dead cormorant that was reduced to a Halloween skeleton in a classic dive pose, a very sad sight. Later I came across a spider crab that was trying to crawl across the mud dragging a mass of fishing line. I got to try out my Zeagle line cutter for the first time and it made quick work of it. When I tried to exit the water I found I had also picked a sizable amount of line. I cut most of it clear of me but my float line was such a mess I cleared the rest of it in the parking lot.
If you haven't seen any of my videos, don't judge me too harshly on this one, not my best production. I will add a separate video of the tropicals when I get a chance to go through the footage. Comments are always appreciated.
[video=youtube;y6hVcLY6Zjs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6hVcLY6Zjs&feature=youtu.be[/video]
The first dive I did was from the West Cove (on the East side) entering the water about 2:00 PM. I dropped down to 30 fsw and swam out to the tip of the outermost rocky point. I haven't done that dive this year and it was pretty good. The visibility was around 10' on the East face of the rocks going out and dropped down to 5' for the swim back into the Sandy Beach Cove side. What I have forgotten was how ripping the current can get as you come around the point and head West. It must have been going close to two knots and I burned through more air than I would have liked swimming against it before I started going hand over hand against the current. On the way in I came across a string of eel traps. Inside one of them was a group of what I identified in the video as look-downs, but on re-examination of the video, think they are just some juvenile scup (Biomes fired my imagination, I guess). You can checkout the video at the end of this report.
The second dive I decided to see if I could spot some tropicals, so I hung out in the West Cove, it had much better visibility. I stayed mostly in the North and West side of the cove and did some a little toodling around over the mud towards the middle. I did come across two little butterflys. But in addition to that I also was seriously impressed by the amount of fishing line that is strewn all over the bottom. Almost immediately I came across a dead cormorant that was reduced to a Halloween skeleton in a classic dive pose, a very sad sight. Later I came across a spider crab that was trying to crawl across the mud dragging a mass of fishing line. I got to try out my Zeagle line cutter for the first time and it made quick work of it. When I tried to exit the water I found I had also picked a sizable amount of line. I cut most of it clear of me but my float line was such a mess I cleared the rest of it in the parking lot.
If you haven't seen any of my videos, don't judge me too harshly on this one, not my best production. I will add a separate video of the tropicals when I get a chance to go through the footage. Comments are always appreciated.
[video=youtube;y6hVcLY6Zjs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6hVcLY6Zjs&feature=youtu.be[/video]
