Dive Report: Russian Freighter and Tug Philip 11-27-2009

[MRXRAY]

Well it's a long Holiday weekend so how better to burn off all those Turkey calories then to get your friends together and head offshore for some diving? We started with a very loose plan but it turned out to be two great calls on dive sites as I just couldn't imagine a couple of better dives. The weather was a different story though.....

So we met up a bit later than normal at Recharge's House and loaded the boat, gassed her up, and then met Hetland at the ramp at 9:30. We got Hetland's gear loaded in short order and with Grouper321 behind the helm made good time albeit a bit cold to the Russian Freighter after an unsuccessful search for the Tug Tessie (Anyone know where she is?)

So with Grouper321 happy to bubble watch (Inferiority Complex set in when he saw I brought a speargun) Recharge, Hetland and I splashed at 11:30, and made our way down the 80 feet to depth. I was content with shooting a few pictures here and there as we made our way from our bow anchor point towards the stern. I had saw a small Shark under the boat on the way down the line as well as a fairly big turtle but my efforts to catch up with the turtle for some video were fruitless and when I turned to point the shark out to the boys, it was gone.

Viz wasn't all that it could have been as there was a lot of particulate in the water which cut down on the viz significantly, but I'd still call it at about 20 feet.

So we continued our adventure with Hetland stopping before he even hit bottom to devirgin his new G11! (Can't wait to see the photos). Recharge and I continued aft down the starboard side against a light current stopping to admire the large Barracuda making close passes and the HUGE School of Spades circling above us. I ended up taking two nice sized flounder for our dinner that evening near the aft end of the wreck and just a few more pics.

The action didn't really pick up until we got back to the bow where we were anchored as we saw a few huge rays laying in the sand and a very large Jackknife fish. And as I had stopped to take a few photos and Large Sandbar shark came in to check us out. I did my best to catch up with him while I shot video but I think alas that a shark can out swim me but if you watch the video I did OK for a few moments.....

So after an awesome dive for 44 minutes and a min temp of 66* (It was MUCH, MUCH warmer at depth I'd guess 75*) we headed to the surface to tell our stories..... And to figure out where we wanted to go next!

Pictures and video from Russian Freighter:

Ominous sign at the boat Ramp... I love Arterial Gas Embolisms?

Hetland:

My Shark Video:

 

[MRXRAY]

So after a short discussion of who had been where, we decided to go to Tug Philip as it wasn't far from us and none of have dove her. So away we went.... And we were not at all disappointed.

This like the Tug Heron is a fully intact sitting upright three deck tug with a real nice wheel house. Most of her stern is in the sand and you can only see a bit of her rear deck but her holds are accessible and the stucture makes for some real nice look throughs. Our anchor had drug a long way off the wreck so we didn't shoot any fish and instead just admired the beauty of this wreck and the Warmth of the water at depth. I posted 100' to the sand inside the hold of the boat with a bottom of time of 39 minutes.

I'll tell you that I've never seen so many healthy AJ's in one spot in my diving offshore, I mean HOGS! Just circling us as we made our way to and from the boat along the drag mark in the sand. I'll post a quick unedited video of them, these were the Aj's in front of me as I was swimming toward the wreck ....You should have seen the trail of them behind me!



Here are a couple of Pics:

Upside down Spotfin Butterfly Fish (Swam upside down the whole time I saw it.)

 

[MRXRAY]

The real downer was the trip back in....With wet wetsuits, and bodies and a cooler core body temp it made for a chilly ride home!

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Thanks for the pics and report

 

[Hetland]

Amazing set of dives. The highpoint for me was the encounter with the sandbar shark. Actually two. There was a smaller 5 footer, and another closer to 7. The larger sandbar shark was beefy, I'm guessing over 250 pounds. Truly beautiful creatures.

 

[Hetland]

A few more shots.

 

[walke121]

Very nice. I have had several issues with bull's on the russian freighter before. Glad to see that you only saw sandbars. Thanks for the pics.

 

[MRXRAY]

Man the photos look....AWESOME!!!! So was it worth the $ ?

 

[Hetland]

And some video

[vimeo]7875071[/vimeo]​

As always, it was a pleasure to dive with Barry and Larry. I wished Brandon would have felt up to diving too, but it was nice of him to act as our charter captain, and as always he did a great job taking care of us. Now if we can just figure out a way to warm the air temp up a few degrees between dives

 

[Hetland]

Man the photos look....AWESOME!!!! So was it worth the $ ?

I could not be happier with the camera, but it looks like i might have a partially stripped thread on my strobe, which means I'll get to practice some available light photography until I can send it off for repair. Either that, or I could break out the Biller :uptosome: