5/30/09
Dennis, Sue and I headed out to dive the wreck of the tugboat P.T. Teti south of Newport, RI in Dennis's boat Cetacea. After we'd arrived and hooked in, our friends John, Eduardo and Red showed up in John's boat and tied off our stern. The water temperature at the bottom was an even 50 degrees F at the maximum depth of 100 ft. Ed, Red and John saw a lot of dogfish feeding at the surface on the way out and we saw handful down on the wreck as well. The visibility was about 15 ft.
For dive 2 both boats headed over to the wreck of the fishing vessel Neptune II. After a few attempts where we bounced the hook off the wreck, Dennis decided we should just drop the hook on the coordinates with a marker float as a shot line (not tied to the boat), and then send me down the shot line to manually tie the boat in. Once I had done that, the plan was for me to shoot an SMB up the line to let the boat know it was okay to grab the marker and tie off.
We deployed the float and I rolled in. As soon as I hit the water I felt the cold trickle of water coming in the right wrist of my drysuit. Grumbling in my regulator, I decided to go ahead and descend anyway. The hook was sitting several feet off to the side of the wreck so I brought it up to the deck, tied it in and shot the SMB. With my job done, I decided to see if I could find the leak in my wrist and saw a rush of bubbles was coming out where the seal joins the cuff. I kept my arm below me for the rest of the dive to keep the water from leaking into the torso of my suit and went ahead and finished my dive. When I returned to the boat I examined the location of the leak and found that the glue holding the seal to the cuff of the suit had parted (probably when I pulled the seal on) and the gap was large enough to put my whole finger through it.
The water temp and visibility were nearly identical to that on the Teti. Once again a few dogfish were swimming around the wreck as well as the usual suspects (Black Sea Bass, Tautog and cunner). Maximum depth was 83 ft.
6/2/09
Rather than take my drysuit to the shop (the shop had done the glue job that parted about a year ago) I decided to try putting new seals on myself. I had done my own neck seal before and figured that a wrist seal had to be a lot easier, which it was. After I installed the seals I decided to use it as an excuse to do an after work night dive to test it out and perhaps also find a lobster or too. I went to Bull Pt/Ft Wetherill. My seal repair held up perfectly. I went down to 61 ft, visibility was about 10 ft and the minimum water temperature was once again an even 50 degrees. I saw quite a few lobsters but none were keepers. A couple of the lobsters also had very advanced shell disease.
6/7/09
Earl, Brian and I with my fiance Becky as a bubble watcher (she doesn't dive yet) headed out to the Grecian in Earl's boat. The forecast was calling for 4 ft seas but the winds were only forecast to be 5-10 kts so we were hoping that this meant longer period swells from offshore which are a bit more boat friendly than 4 ft locally generated wind waves. Sure enough it was an 8-9 second swell so it was actually a pretty smooth ride out to the Grecian from Pt Judith. When we arrived we were excited to see a mooring on the site.
A couple of minutes after we picked up the mooring we saw the charter boat Sea Turtle from Montauk coming up on us. We offered to drop the mooring so they could tie in. They'd put the mooring there, plus they were the bigger boat so it only seemed fair and then we'd just tie off of them. Unfortunately, that didn't work out because the wind and current was causing the boats to lie in a way that we all agreed wasn't safe so we cast off of the Sea Turtle and set our own hook (the Grecian is a very easy wreck to grab anyway).
The visibility was about 20 ft, which is probably the worst I have seen on that wreck, as strange as it may sound. The maximum depth was 93 ft, with a temperature of 45 degrees. There were big schools of stripers on the wreck, lots of dogfish, tons of pout and hake as well as congers, cunner, black sea bass, tautog, sea ravens, crabs, lobsters, northern red anemones, frilled anemones, winter flounder, a couple of pollack and even a few small sea scallops.
For dive 2 we headed over to the Idene. The temperature was 46, maximum depth was 88 ft and the visibility was about 15 ft. Once again there were lots of dogfish around. This wreck also had quite a few large winter flounder on it.
When I surfaced I got into a school of dogfish at about 50 ft. The school followed me up the line all the way to my safety stop at 15 ft and then stayed with me until I got out of the water. It made for a more entertaining stop than the usual routine of sitting there watching the numbers tick away on my computer.
If I wanted it to sound a bit more exciting, I suppose I could tell people I was diving in shark infested waters, and was circled by dozens of sharks which were pursuing me during my entire ascent. There is nothing technically inaccurate about that statement. Does it really matter that the sharks were only 2-3 ft long?
Dennis, Sue and I headed out to dive the wreck of the tugboat P.T. Teti south of Newport, RI in Dennis's boat Cetacea. After we'd arrived and hooked in, our friends John, Eduardo and Red showed up in John's boat and tied off our stern. The water temperature at the bottom was an even 50 degrees F at the maximum depth of 100 ft. Ed, Red and John saw a lot of dogfish feeding at the surface on the way out and we saw handful down on the wreck as well. The visibility was about 15 ft.
For dive 2 both boats headed over to the wreck of the fishing vessel Neptune II. After a few attempts where we bounced the hook off the wreck, Dennis decided we should just drop the hook on the coordinates with a marker float as a shot line (not tied to the boat), and then send me down the shot line to manually tie the boat in. Once I had done that, the plan was for me to shoot an SMB up the line to let the boat know it was okay to grab the marker and tie off.
We deployed the float and I rolled in. As soon as I hit the water I felt the cold trickle of water coming in the right wrist of my drysuit. Grumbling in my regulator, I decided to go ahead and descend anyway. The hook was sitting several feet off to the side of the wreck so I brought it up to the deck, tied it in and shot the SMB. With my job done, I decided to see if I could find the leak in my wrist and saw a rush of bubbles was coming out where the seal joins the cuff. I kept my arm below me for the rest of the dive to keep the water from leaking into the torso of my suit and went ahead and finished my dive. When I returned to the boat I examined the location of the leak and found that the glue holding the seal to the cuff of the suit had parted (probably when I pulled the seal on) and the gap was large enough to put my whole finger through it.
The water temp and visibility were nearly identical to that on the Teti. Once again a few dogfish were swimming around the wreck as well as the usual suspects (Black Sea Bass, Tautog and cunner). Maximum depth was 83 ft.
6/2/09
Rather than take my drysuit to the shop (the shop had done the glue job that parted about a year ago) I decided to try putting new seals on myself. I had done my own neck seal before and figured that a wrist seal had to be a lot easier, which it was. After I installed the seals I decided to use it as an excuse to do an after work night dive to test it out and perhaps also find a lobster or too. I went to Bull Pt/Ft Wetherill. My seal repair held up perfectly. I went down to 61 ft, visibility was about 10 ft and the minimum water temperature was once again an even 50 degrees. I saw quite a few lobsters but none were keepers. A couple of the lobsters also had very advanced shell disease.
6/7/09
Earl, Brian and I with my fiance Becky as a bubble watcher (she doesn't dive yet) headed out to the Grecian in Earl's boat. The forecast was calling for 4 ft seas but the winds were only forecast to be 5-10 kts so we were hoping that this meant longer period swells from offshore which are a bit more boat friendly than 4 ft locally generated wind waves. Sure enough it was an 8-9 second swell so it was actually a pretty smooth ride out to the Grecian from Pt Judith. When we arrived we were excited to see a mooring on the site.
A couple of minutes after we picked up the mooring we saw the charter boat Sea Turtle from Montauk coming up on us. We offered to drop the mooring so they could tie in. They'd put the mooring there, plus they were the bigger boat so it only seemed fair and then we'd just tie off of them. Unfortunately, that didn't work out because the wind and current was causing the boats to lie in a way that we all agreed wasn't safe so we cast off of the Sea Turtle and set our own hook (the Grecian is a very easy wreck to grab anyway).
The visibility was about 20 ft, which is probably the worst I have seen on that wreck, as strange as it may sound. The maximum depth was 93 ft, with a temperature of 45 degrees. There were big schools of stripers on the wreck, lots of dogfish, tons of pout and hake as well as congers, cunner, black sea bass, tautog, sea ravens, crabs, lobsters, northern red anemones, frilled anemones, winter flounder, a couple of pollack and even a few small sea scallops.
For dive 2 we headed over to the Idene. The temperature was 46, maximum depth was 88 ft and the visibility was about 15 ft. Once again there were lots of dogfish around. This wreck also had quite a few large winter flounder on it.
When I surfaced I got into a school of dogfish at about 50 ft. The school followed me up the line all the way to my safety stop at 15 ft and then stayed with me until I got out of the water. It made for a more entertaining stop than the usual routine of sitting there watching the numbers tick away on my computer.
If I wanted it to sound a bit more exciting, I suppose I could tell people I was diving in shark infested waters, and was circled by dozens of sharks which were pursuing me during my entire ascent. There is nothing technically inaccurate about that statement. Does it really matter that the sharks were only 2-3 ft long?
