Guba
Contributor
It took me about a week to get this one filed, but it's been a busy one.
My brother captained his boat for me and a buddy last Saturday in order to cruise the Hell's Gate area. My friend loves to "treasure hunt" the area commonly used by party boaters. It's shallow and murky, but usually a lot of fun. We got four dives in, and it was quite an adventure, actually. Dives one and two were both about 45 minutes, temp at bottom (20-25 feet) was about 65 degrees, but--of course--vis was about three feet. We were tethered with floating line and cruised the west side of the bay about 150 yards inside the main Gate. Dive one we found one pristine 20-pound anchor wedged under a root, a water cannon (water gun...which we used to "attack" my brother upon re-boarding the boat), and a few pair of sunglasses. Dive two, we found another anchor almost identical to the first (still had sale tags on it), and a full bottle of red wine! We shot home-made markers on both anchors and used the boat to pull them up later. Toward the end of the afternoon, my brother weighed anchor and we puttered among the fifty or so boats that had accumulated in the area. Some were just ski boats, some were pontoons, but there were quite a few huge cruisers.
"RESCUE" number one...(well, the attempt, anyway)
It was toward a line of about ten of these behemoths anchored side-by-side that we ventured, just to get a closer look. Upon approaching, a fellow on the stern of one of them waved at us and pointed down into the water. As we neared, we asked if he needed help, and he told us his wife had dropped her prescription glasses and asked if we could take a look. David and I shrugged into our gear, made a brief plan, and dropped in. We made expanding circles for nearly a half hour with no luck. Either their boats had drifted a bit, the glasses had sunk into the soft silt, or we just missed them (quite possible in the deteriorating (?) vis conditions. We surfaced and found that another dive boat had arrived. We were amused to learn that the owner of the boat had called a local dive charter/service before we had come on the scene. When we showed up, they assumed we were with the dive shop! Upon learning we were merely recreational divers who had just volunteered to help, they seemed amazed and tried to pay us for our time. We turned that down, of course, and explained that this was what we did for fun.
"RESCUE" number two...
While we had been searching, though, a kid on a jetski had approached my brother's boat. He told of another boat on the other end of the cove that had a stuck anchor and asked if we were "rigged up for diving". We decided to see if they needed help, and puttered that direction. It took a bit to locate the stranded boat, but we arrived to find four adults and three little boys in a beautiful, large ski craft. They had been stuck for quite some time, and the driver was very anxious not to have to cut the anchor chain and leave the anchor (The driver said "This is my dad's boat and he will KILL me if we lose that anchor!"). It was one of those fishhook shaped, stainless-steel varieties and he was certain it was pretty expensive. David and I went down the chain in about 45 feet of water. Sure enough, the anchor was hooked firmly on a big log and root. I had to brace my feet against the log and pull to dislodge it. We carried it free to a flat area and dropped it and returned up the chain. The owner had seemingly burned out the winch motor earlier in the day, so we helped him haul it up by hand. The family was overjoyed to be free. They tried to pay us too, and they also had trouble believing we were just doing this for the fun of it. By the way, we priced the anchor and 50 feet of chain later...all told, it totaled about $500!
All in all, a fun day of diving. You know, one could probably pay for their trip just going around the cove free-lance diving for tips on busy days like that one. By the way, the vis on the last dive (on the north end of the cove) was considerably better than in the shallows. We descended through a thick layer of murk for the first 20-25 feet, then the vis opened up to about 15-20 under that. However, down there it was considerably colder than anything we saw earlier...probalby about 55 degrees or so. Brrrr.
Sorry for the long post, but we had a BLAST! Gotta do it again sometime soon.
My brother captained his boat for me and a buddy last Saturday in order to cruise the Hell's Gate area. My friend loves to "treasure hunt" the area commonly used by party boaters. It's shallow and murky, but usually a lot of fun. We got four dives in, and it was quite an adventure, actually. Dives one and two were both about 45 minutes, temp at bottom (20-25 feet) was about 65 degrees, but--of course--vis was about three feet. We were tethered with floating line and cruised the west side of the bay about 150 yards inside the main Gate. Dive one we found one pristine 20-pound anchor wedged under a root, a water cannon (water gun...which we used to "attack" my brother upon re-boarding the boat), and a few pair of sunglasses. Dive two, we found another anchor almost identical to the first (still had sale tags on it), and a full bottle of red wine! We shot home-made markers on both anchors and used the boat to pull them up later. Toward the end of the afternoon, my brother weighed anchor and we puttered among the fifty or so boats that had accumulated in the area. Some were just ski boats, some were pontoons, but there were quite a few huge cruisers.
"RESCUE" number one...(well, the attempt, anyway)
It was toward a line of about ten of these behemoths anchored side-by-side that we ventured, just to get a closer look. Upon approaching, a fellow on the stern of one of them waved at us and pointed down into the water. As we neared, we asked if he needed help, and he told us his wife had dropped her prescription glasses and asked if we could take a look. David and I shrugged into our gear, made a brief plan, and dropped in. We made expanding circles for nearly a half hour with no luck. Either their boats had drifted a bit, the glasses had sunk into the soft silt, or we just missed them (quite possible in the deteriorating (?) vis conditions. We surfaced and found that another dive boat had arrived. We were amused to learn that the owner of the boat had called a local dive charter/service before we had come on the scene. When we showed up, they assumed we were with the dive shop! Upon learning we were merely recreational divers who had just volunteered to help, they seemed amazed and tried to pay us for our time. We turned that down, of course, and explained that this was what we did for fun.
"RESCUE" number two...
While we had been searching, though, a kid on a jetski had approached my brother's boat. He told of another boat on the other end of the cove that had a stuck anchor and asked if we were "rigged up for diving". We decided to see if they needed help, and puttered that direction. It took a bit to locate the stranded boat, but we arrived to find four adults and three little boys in a beautiful, large ski craft. They had been stuck for quite some time, and the driver was very anxious not to have to cut the anchor chain and leave the anchor (The driver said "This is my dad's boat and he will KILL me if we lose that anchor!"). It was one of those fishhook shaped, stainless-steel varieties and he was certain it was pretty expensive. David and I went down the chain in about 45 feet of water. Sure enough, the anchor was hooked firmly on a big log and root. I had to brace my feet against the log and pull to dislodge it. We carried it free to a flat area and dropped it and returned up the chain. The owner had seemingly burned out the winch motor earlier in the day, so we helped him haul it up by hand. The family was overjoyed to be free. They tried to pay us too, and they also had trouble believing we were just doing this for the fun of it. By the way, we priced the anchor and 50 feet of chain later...all told, it totaled about $500!
All in all, a fun day of diving. You know, one could probably pay for their trip just going around the cove free-lance diving for tips on busy days like that one. By the way, the vis on the last dive (on the north end of the cove) was considerably better than in the shallows. We descended through a thick layer of murk for the first 20-25 feet, then the vis opened up to about 15-20 under that. However, down there it was considerably colder than anything we saw earlier...probalby about 55 degrees or so. Brrrr.
Sorry for the long post, but we had a BLAST! Gotta do it again sometime soon.
