Memorial Weekend Dive report (boat and beach)

[fencingfish]

Hi fellow Lobsta Divahs!

Was fortunate enough to get out and dive two of the days this past weekend. My buddy and I decided to dive Folly Cove on Saturday. We dove the right side as our first dive, planning on saving the much more interesting left side as our second dive. Max depth was 44 fsw, temp at depth was 46*F though most of the dive was around 55*F with stunningly 60*F at the very surface! Visibility was amazing, 25-40' with a dive time of 49 minutes. Saw a couple of bugs, a big striped bass, flounder, and crabs (the usual suspects). We were back on the beach around noon, and swapped out our tanks for a second dive, but unfortunately, my buddy's first stage blew an o-ring, so we called it a day and headed home. Even though it was such a nice day, we mostly had the place to ourselves. There was one diver coming in as we were going out, another getting out about the same time as us, and three more going in as we were coming out. A couple boats had tied off in the cove but were gone by the time we started our dive.

On Sunday morning I went out with Cape Ann Diver's charter to do a double dip on the Chester Poling. Surface conditions were flat calm, though the sun went away right as we were about to start our dive and didn't come back until we had finished diving for the day! Visibility was phenomenal. Had the boat to ourselves with only 4 divers on the charter. Descending down the mooring line (stern-side mooring) the wreck was visible from 40fsw depth. We descended through a school of hundreds of pollock, and had easily 30-40' visibility on the wreck. Saw a shorthorn sculpin, the largest sea raven I've ever seen, and a northern red anemone. temp on the wreck was 41-43*F. There was a slight current on the wreck during the first dive, but it dissipated during the surface interval. Two dives of half an hour with a one hour surface interval to depths of 80fsw.

 

[RIOceanographer]

The Poling sounds like a great day. It's been way too long since I've been up there to dive it.

Someone was telling me that someone dumped a very large pile of empty scallop shells on the wreck. Any sign of this during your dive?

 

[AfterDark]

Sounds like a great couple of days. Been a long time for me too, I love diving Cape Ann the vis is almost always better than here in RI. I was lucky enough to dive twice this past weekend also.

 

[fencingfish]

Someone dumped a huge amount of quahog shells in a big diagonal stripe across the wreck and on into the sand on both sides. Full shells and broken shells everywhere. The dumping ground for the shells is supposed to be near the red buoy past the wreck, but someone might have gotten lazy or missed the memo. There is also a weed-whacker on the deck right next to the stern mooring line.

 

[David Sutton]

That was left there to help keep the sea grasses down ;-)

 

[fencingfish]

you make a good point, David Sutton, I did not see any sea grasses on the wreck!