Tried but my son was not digging in so I pushed him to a support and then we spoke and told him to swim to the side - all went well but could not tow him and I to the side. But once on the other side the current let up.
Honestly it was not the slack as much as I told him not so close and sure enough we were too close -
. Lesson learned and no one got hurt.
---------- Post added June 9th, 2014 at 07:44 AM ----------
-always wondered about that. The current can really get ripping under the bridge, no possible chance of out-finning it...
Do you need to drag a flag if you stay between the warning buoy and the bridge? I need a 'tame' place to test my bad ear once it heals. The RR bridge is so much 'cooler' than L street.
lowviz - there was a chance to fin out and I could have had it just been myself. But I was fighting the current with my son and myself and at that point where the current really starts to pull it was too late and there weren't any rocks - more mud and zebra patches so you could dig in but not pull yourself along the bottom - all we were doing was wasting air. So I told him to let go and we swam to the bridge abutment - remember it is not really deep here. On the surface we held onto the abutment and I told him what we were going to do - at that point you let go and kick about 10 feet to the side while being sucked under the bridge.
On the same side of the bridge was a free diver and he was in and finning about having no trouble going all around the bridge but staying on the side not in the middle of the bridge - I am assuming without a tank he had less drag and he made it look easy. Other than making sure my son made it out and did not panic - it did not seem so dangerous (but I dont want to do that again
). My guess is had we been in the middle of the bridge and not off to the side - it would have been a lot more challenging but we stayed off to the side of the bridge we were following the natural contour of the bottom.
I have been towing a flag since I started diving so - we had one with us but I don't think that caused us any trouble - in fact on the other side if we were really swept through and in trouble I would want some kind of marker like a flag for boats to see me.
That said the site is between a dive like Shark River Inlet and L Street. L Street is much more calm and the current really does not seem to be a factor.
If you stay along the sides of the Railroad Bridge and swim away from the bridge it is fairly calm with more to see than L Street (in my opinion). You can get right up to where the commercial boats dock and the pylons are teaming with fish life. I would not dive in and around the boats but right up to the pylons and bulkhead seem fine. We chose to cut across on a 100 degree bearing - compass work - puts you right across the channel. Again the only thing that we found is some of the commercial boats swing wide to dock and stir up a dust storm that takes about 3 - 5 mins to really clear up. Crossing away from the bridge - using rocks to pull yourself along also seemed to help at some of the points where the current is most strong. Once on the other side if it is too much you can take off your fins - walk up and over the railroad bridge. Which we ended up doing and we finished off the dive on the Broadway side.
A fisherman said if you walk over the bridge to begin with and follow the shoreline on the right - a bulkhead further down a path may be a good place to dive. We did not go that far - but if I feel like a challenge later in the summer it might be worth trying.
