Hey, if you were on the boat, I missed you. Had a great dive!!
Did not make the Wed. boat. Glad you had a great dive. Did any of those afternoon showers chase the boat around? We had an exciting ride in on Sunday.
Here is a copy of a trip report I posted elsewhere on the board:
Dove with Express Watersports out of Murrell's Inlet on a Civil War wreck. It is not know exactly which ship this wreck is, but some believe it it the Governor. Folks dive on this to hunt artifacts or spear fish. I dove it just for fun, and 'cause thats where the boat was going.
All that is left is a 10 foot pile of metallic debris, mostly covered with sand brought by 150 years of Atlantic storms. One if the avid treasure hunters found a few metal bits that were from the end of the barrel on the old muskets or whatever they called the long guns of the day. Kind of a semi-circular clip to hold the wooden stock to the barrel. He later found a piece of a trigger guard. The spearos took a bunch of flounder, who were hiding in the sand.
The site sits in 80 FSW. I had approached a photographer about buddying with him, but later the DM asked me to be part of trio. The trio was a newly minted AOW diver and one of the shop's DM-in-training (and me, of course). I told the DM-in-training, Anthony, that I would try not to challenge his rescue skills. I also let them know that I anticipated issued clearing my right ear (it is a bit problematic) and that one I was a depth it should be OK. Since we were tied into the wreck, and the boat had a "Carolina Rig," there was no reason to rush the descent. Just work your way down the line.
First dive went great - I took my time getting down, and the ear did protest but eventually complied and equalized properly. Once on the wreck, I saw a lot more starfish than I would have expected (mostly less than 6 inches) and schools of small fish. Anthony tied off a wreck reel (viz was about 15-20 feet) and we started exploring around. At one point Anthony saw a flounder and went to spear it with his dive knife. He dropped the reel and it started getting caught up in his fins. I picked up the reel and started winding it up, and eventually got him untangled and handed it back to him. We turned the dive at the agreed upon pressure, and worked our way back up the line to the boat without incident.
After a nice SI, we splashed for a second tank on the same wreck. My right ear was less cooperative this time. Anthony was hanging back with me, while the newly minted AOW was heading on down to the bottom. After a few minutes I signalled Anthony to buddy up with the other guy, and I headed back to the boat. Thus my second dive was only about 10 minutes at 26 feet.
One of the spearos had an adventure on the second dive. He was at his safety stop and speared a blackfin tuna from a school that had come swimming past. Out of nowhere (or out of the murk) a dozen baracuda arrived and started stealing mouthfuls of the tuna. He tried to fend them off with the spear, and ended up with only the head, which he proudly brought on board the boat. His girlfriend caught most of the 'cuda feeding with her GoPro.
The boat ride back was OK until we ran into a lively thunderstorm. That added about 45 minutes to the return trip, and added quite a few bumps also. At one point it was about 3 seconds between the flash and the bang of the lightning. However, by the time we made it to the dock it had passed through and the rain had stopped. Mrs. Hoaty came and picked me up, and I had her wait around a few minutes so we could watch the premiere screening of the GoPro 'Cuda Classic.