Wow! What a weekend! 
Earl, Jason, Emily and I launched Earl's boat out of Falmouth, MA and dove the wreck of the Port Hunter off of East Chop on Martha's Vineyard. It was a 380 ft WWI British freighter carrying supplies to the front lines. It collided with the tug Covington in thick fog and sank on the edge of Hedge Fence Shoal right on the western edge of Nantucket Sound. For those that know the area, the currents in that region are pretty intense, so as you come up on the the wreck, the top of which which lies between 25 and 40 ft you can actually see the surface eddies generate by the current running up over the wreck. We waited until the tide backed off enough to be manageable and then splashed in and pulled our way down the line to the wreck, working our way aft down the starboard side all the way to the stern. There is a very large sand dune that has built up the starboard side amidships and has actually risen to the top of the wreck at around 30ft. The sand then drops sharply to about 80ft right under the stern which is scoured out right around the huge rudder (the huge bronze prop was salvaged). It appears part of the old antiaircraft battery that used to be on the fantail when I first dove the wreck back in 1991 is now sitting in the sand just behind the stern. We then worked our way all the way back up to the point of the bow and back up the line. The deck of the ship has essentially folded, and most of the port side has collapsed so the top of the wreck is a bit of a jumble with lots of swim-throughs. THe wreck is loaded with fish, black sea bass, stripers, scup, cunner and some MONSTER tautog. Best part is that the water was about 73 degrees F all the way to 80 ft! GREAT DAY! It was Earl and Jason's first time on the wreck (Emily just watched the boat), and my 4th time on it.
Not content to leave well enough alone, however, I got greedy and went back out for more diving today with John (Sean222 here on the board), Tampico_Ed, and Don Snyder, one of the main authors of the RI Adventure Diving books. Meeting Don was pretty cool, 75 years old and he is still diving! I hope I can manage that! And as usual it was fun chatting about wrecks with John the RI wreck history encyclopedia! John was nice enough to take us out on his boat to dive the U-853. Vis was probably around 15 ft, a bit of ambient light and a very weak current. Temperature was 51 degrees at the bottom, a bit of a change from the Port Hunter in Nantucket sound the day before! Ed and I splashed down first landed on the conning tower, and then worked forward. I took a detour down into the forward blast hole and did a little poking around for a few minutes then we continued forward and I dropped down off the starboard side and checked out the dive plane and got some pictures of a sculpin tucked under the hull in the sand. Then I checked out that broken piece of the bow in the sand, worked my way back up to the point of the bow.. then we headed aft. We went a bit aft of the conning tower and then it was time to end the dive and head back for home. Great dive! Max depth was 127ft at the sand up by the bow.
After the dive we did a few sidescan sonar passes with John's homemade sidescan towfish and took some sonar images of the wreck. Hopefully we'll be able to share those once John gets it all downloaded.
And last but not least we did a nice shallow dive on the wreck of the tanker Lightburne on the south side of Block Island in about 25-30ft of water. The wreck is huge but heavily broken up and loaded with fish, especially scup and black sea bass. We also saw several very large triggerfish on the wreck. Unfortunately they weren't too cooperative in letting us take pictures. Water was 71 degrees and the vis was probably 15ft.
I'll post some pictures later once I go through them all. I didn't bring my camera on the Port Hunter though so no pictures of that, but I do have shots from the U-853 and Lightburne. And of course Ed had has camera.
Earl, Jason, Emily and I launched Earl's boat out of Falmouth, MA and dove the wreck of the Port Hunter off of East Chop on Martha's Vineyard. It was a 380 ft WWI British freighter carrying supplies to the front lines. It collided with the tug Covington in thick fog and sank on the edge of Hedge Fence Shoal right on the western edge of Nantucket Sound. For those that know the area, the currents in that region are pretty intense, so as you come up on the the wreck, the top of which which lies between 25 and 40 ft you can actually see the surface eddies generate by the current running up over the wreck. We waited until the tide backed off enough to be manageable and then splashed in and pulled our way down the line to the wreck, working our way aft down the starboard side all the way to the stern. There is a very large sand dune that has built up the starboard side amidships and has actually risen to the top of the wreck at around 30ft. The sand then drops sharply to about 80ft right under the stern which is scoured out right around the huge rudder (the huge bronze prop was salvaged). It appears part of the old antiaircraft battery that used to be on the fantail when I first dove the wreck back in 1991 is now sitting in the sand just behind the stern. We then worked our way all the way back up to the point of the bow and back up the line. The deck of the ship has essentially folded, and most of the port side has collapsed so the top of the wreck is a bit of a jumble with lots of swim-throughs. THe wreck is loaded with fish, black sea bass, stripers, scup, cunner and some MONSTER tautog. Best part is that the water was about 73 degrees F all the way to 80 ft! GREAT DAY! It was Earl and Jason's first time on the wreck (Emily just watched the boat), and my 4th time on it.
Not content to leave well enough alone, however, I got greedy and went back out for more diving today with John (Sean222 here on the board), Tampico_Ed, and Don Snyder, one of the main authors of the RI Adventure Diving books. Meeting Don was pretty cool, 75 years old and he is still diving! I hope I can manage that! And as usual it was fun chatting about wrecks with John the RI wreck history encyclopedia! John was nice enough to take us out on his boat to dive the U-853. Vis was probably around 15 ft, a bit of ambient light and a very weak current. Temperature was 51 degrees at the bottom, a bit of a change from the Port Hunter in Nantucket sound the day before!
Ed and I splashed down first landed on the conning tower, and then worked forward. I took a detour down into the forward blast hole and did a little poking around for a few minutes then we continued forward and I dropped down off the starboard side and checked out the dive plane and got some pictures of a sculpin tucked under the hull in the sand. Then I checked out that broken piece of the bow in the sand, worked my way back up to the point of the bow.. then we headed aft. We went a bit aft of the conning tower and then it was time to end the dive and head back for home. Great dive! Max depth was 127ft at the sand up by the bow.After the dive we did a few sidescan sonar passes with John's homemade sidescan towfish and took some sonar images of the wreck. Hopefully we'll be able to share those once John gets it all downloaded.
And last but not least we did a nice shallow dive on the wreck of the tanker Lightburne on the south side of Block Island in about 25-30ft of water. The wreck is huge but heavily broken up and loaded with fish, especially scup and black sea bass. We also saw several very large triggerfish on the wreck. Unfortunately they weren't too cooperative in letting us take pictures. Water was 71 degrees and the vis was probably 15ft.
I'll post some pictures later once I go through them all. I didn't bring my camera on the Port Hunter though so no pictures of that, but I do have shots from the U-853 and Lightburne. And of course Ed had has camera.
