industrious95
Contributor
On the Venture 3 out of Belmar, NJ.
We hit three spots today. I was concerned about about the bottom being churned up by the long swells from Hurricane Bertha, and visibility ranged from "NJ Good" to "a little bit challenging."
The ocean was very choppy with a lot of whitecaps as we left Belmar, although the wind calmed down and so did the seas as they day went by.
Our first stop was the Sea Girt wreck, one of my favorites. About 15 feet of viz, but quite a bit of particulate in the water. Clear viz was only about 10 feet. Quite a few bugs and Sea Bass were found. Bottom temp was 52. That's pretty cold for August, but we had 3 wet suit divers and 2 dry suit divers and nobody complained.
Second stop was a low lying rock pile in 80 feet. Captain called it "East of the South East rocks - I guess you can't get more meaningless than that. Viz was closer to 7 or 8 feet here. I saw a couple of smaller winter flounder, but I don't take em unless they're big enough for dinner for two. I did find a nice fluke that weighed in at 8 lbs.
The fluke was lying over a rock, and there was a lobster peering out of a hole a few inches away. After bagging the fluke, I went for the bug but he had moved way back out of reach.
Third stop was "something interesting" that Captain Hepler had found on the sonar. Viz on this site was about two feet. The site itself was mostly pipes. Maybe someone else has been there and can tell me what it was; it's hard to judge when the biggest thing you can see is 12 inches away.
Thanks for reading and if you're local and interested in joining our group on a future dive, PM me and we can exchange contact info.
We hit three spots today. I was concerned about about the bottom being churned up by the long swells from Hurricane Bertha, and visibility ranged from "NJ Good" to "a little bit challenging."
The ocean was very choppy with a lot of whitecaps as we left Belmar, although the wind calmed down and so did the seas as they day went by.
Our first stop was the Sea Girt wreck, one of my favorites. About 15 feet of viz, but quite a bit of particulate in the water. Clear viz was only about 10 feet. Quite a few bugs and Sea Bass were found. Bottom temp was 52. That's pretty cold for August, but we had 3 wet suit divers and 2 dry suit divers and nobody complained.
Second stop was a low lying rock pile in 80 feet. Captain called it "East of the South East rocks - I guess you can't get more meaningless than that. Viz was closer to 7 or 8 feet here. I saw a couple of smaller winter flounder, but I don't take em unless they're big enough for dinner for two. I did find a nice fluke that weighed in at 8 lbs.
The fluke was lying over a rock, and there was a lobster peering out of a hole a few inches away. After bagging the fluke, I went for the bug but he had moved way back out of reach.
Third stop was "something interesting" that Captain Hepler had found on the sonar. Viz on this site was about two feet. The site itself was mostly pipes. Maybe someone else has been there and can tell me what it was; it's hard to judge when the biggest thing you can see is 12 inches away.
Thanks for reading and if you're local and interested in joining our group on a future dive, PM me and we can exchange contact info.
