Delaware River Water Gap - Train Wreck

[whitefang21]

are you guys checking the weather it is suppose to rain? not worried about getting wet but the viz.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

are you guys checking the weather it is suppose to rain? not worried about getting wet but the viz.

Looked and have been looking - clear until late Saturday afternoon into evening... You have no excuses not to show up...

---------- Post added May 14th, 2015 at 07:34 PM ----------

It is official now - Sunfish Pond management got back to me - NO SCUBA... She checked with the commission - no swimming - no scuba... Boo Hiss...

 

[tridacna]

Even if she said yes, I still don't how you get tanks up there! (Donning Kevlar suit now)....

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Looked and have been looking - clear until late Saturday afternoon into evening... You have no excuses not to show up...

---------- Post added May 14th, 2015 at 07:34 PM ----------

It is official now - Sunfish Pond management got back to me - NO SCUBA... She checked with the commission - no swimming - no scuba... Boo Hiss...

so go freediving... that is not swimming and not scuba...

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

so go freediving... that is not swimming and not scuba...

LOL - I think the goal was to scuba and get it blessed...

 

[Rich Keller]

Here is something else to do the following weekend if you are in the area and want to try vintage commercial diving equipment.

NEDEG - North East Diving Equipment Group Homepage

 

[lowviz]

Yes, diving with them is a totally unique experience for most recreational divers. Below is a photo from Willow Springs several years ago when that was where they used to hold their rallys. You can earn a dive by tending line for them. Great bunch, big collection of really odd gear. I think that the pic below is the Russian suit.

Just believe them when they tell you that there is an increased risk diving some of this old equipment, not all the neck dams are wonderful...

 

[acxc]

I actually dove the train wreck yesterday. I had the day off so had planned to take a run up there, then happened to see your posts. The wreck was REALLY easy to find, get to the base of the river bank (it kind of sucked wearing doubles) then walk on the flat point up where it ends at the curve. I dropped down to 8 ft and swam out from the curve and it was right there. Not terribly exciting, but definitely different and easily worth the cost of the dive (just gas to get there). There was no current and the water was a dark/silty 5-10ft viz. I did swim around a bit and found some nice sized boulders but don't think I made it quite to the wall mentioned earlier. Max depth was 40 ft. My brand new drysuit also completely flooded due to a faulty zipper, so that took a bit of the fun away from the dive. Still managed 55 minutes in the 62 degree water.

I also dove earlier that morning under he I-84 bridge. Viz was better there, probably a brighter 10-15 ft. Cool bedrock formation and a few fallen submerged trees and such, 15 ft max depth. I'm wondering if the river is so slow moving right now that viz is actually worse because of it.

Looking forward to hearing what you guys find. I'd love to meet up for a dive sometime, I've also gotten really into checking out new sites rather than go to Dutch every weekend.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Ok some real quick stats on the dive today. First off it showered a tad on the way to the site but no rain. Then it turned sunny... so it was a good day to dive.
We were supposed to meet at 10 am - and get a dive in - we entered the water at 1:03pm that would be Scubaboard time... Finally the three amigos got their act together and we splashed... It was a casual but a fun easy dive. We parked very close to the tracks and had a short but steep drop to the river bank. The entry was more fun than anyone could describe in a paragraph unless you have dove the site. But either way it is easy to find and I don't think I will forget this dive in a while...

I logged a 36 min dive - avg 14.872 feet with max depth at 23.0 feet. Temp was 64 degrees at the bottom and the viz was an easy 10 feet if not a bit better. I was mucking near the bottom of the train trying to find bottles and could not find a single one... Finally Danny who had given up on finding bottles turned a corner around the train and voila hit the bottle honey hole... So we each took a few and swam back up stream. It was definitely worth diving and meeting up with some SB'ers - we had a doubles BM, a doubles SM and a singles guy with a pony... I took some GoPro but I am not happy with the results - I will try to put together a video but not sure of the results. Good Day - Good Dive.

 

[ffdiver]

That was probably a perfect recap of the dive. Had a great time!