lanes 6/14

[reefseal]

Sunday AM, despite the forecasted showers, did a couple great dives off Lanes Cove.
I was wondering what the conditions were going to be as I was driving through torential downpour on the way to Cape Ann. When I arrived Cape Ann Divers, the rain had stopped briefly which was a a good sign. The rest of the morning we had occasional light passing showers. We were both diving wet so did didn't mind the occasional shower. No thunder/lightning which was a good sign.

The winds were very light and seas were flat so most sites in would have been divable. We headed north having had a good experience at Lanes last time, decided to try again. We did drive by Folly Cove and plenty of divers suiting up and coming out. We ruled out as the tide was way out. Folly's really a great dive during high tide moving up and down the left side of wall. We didn't want to deal with parking.

Statistics

Dive 1
10:05 out 11:03
50 fsw max, 58 min bottom time
Temp at depth 53 but on swim back and on surface 55-57*. I surprisingly wasn't cold by my buddy did get a bit cold during the dive.

Surprisingly,vis not bad. I would say 20-25 fsw?
Slippery entry as was going in at low tide
Huge lobzilla's, sea raven, occasional flounder. I totally swam right over the sea raven by my buddy's good eyes caught it.
We again headed pretty much North, more NE (to the right of the cove)

47 min SI

Dive 2
in 11:51, out 12:44 (53 min)
Max depth 54 fsw
Again, my buddy's sharp eyes fixated on huge sculpin. This is definately site for finding cool critters and lots of bugs.


Comment about Lanes Cove.. This is a sight that there have been known altercations with local fisherman. There is a reason this site is not advertised on CAD list of dive sites. Of my years diving off Cape Ann and Lanes, I have never had any incidents (car tires slashed, key scratched on car, etc,. ) I purposely keep a low profile (no dive flag stick on car for this reason). I keep noise down. The mini wall where we do most of diving is directly under the path of boats to get into the cove marina. I've heard of lobsterman dropping bricks on divers, pulling up divers flags, etc,. I've even had a US Postal worker tell me "you know you're not supposed to dive here".. I politely let her know I had as much right to dive here and asked the letter carrier to focus on her job.

It's a great dusk / night dive and a great dive regardless of tide, (low or high)

 

[fencingfish]

I concur, two really great dives. Instead of heading out straight from the entry and then following the wall, we angled to the right and then ventured right along the wall where there were a lot of craggy places for lobsters to hide. Vis was much better than expected, ~20-25'. I was thinking that the rain and the run off would muck vis up, but it didn't affect the vis at all. Very slippery entrance and exits as low tide on the rocks.

Reefseal swam right over the sea raven, so close he could have touched it (in his defense, it was the same color as the rocks)! I was behind and looked down to see the big fish eye staring at us, unperturbed. We saw some pollock, lots of bugs, many of them oversize, I saw an ocean pout swimming away from us, but when I turned around to get my buddy's attention it was gone. There were decorator crabs everywhere, to the point where you'd put your hand on a surface and three or four would scuttle away.

The second dive we saw a ginormous lobster. We thought the ones we'd seen in the first dive were big, this one could have eaten them for breakfast and still been hungry. And I was very excited to see the shorthorn sculpin. I could hear reefseal laughing at me getting excited over the sculpin. I did my undergrad thesis on the longhorn, so sculpin have a place in my heart in all their slimy uglyness.