fencingfish
Contributor
- Messages
- 163
- Reaction score
- 13
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
My buddies, reefseal, reincarnation2fishy and I had planned a great day of diving for yesterday. We had been following the wind reports so we decided to try something on the south of Cape Ann. We got to Magnolia Rocks and the waves were pounding. I am always up for trying new things....but not that. There were 7 dive flags out there and I was wondering how the heck they were planning on getting out. After staring at the shore diving map for a while and debating vis and surge, we gave up and called Cape Ann Divers for their shore diving recommendation. Sadly, they confirmed our greatest fear that Niles Beach would be the best spot for vis and little-to-no surge.
The tide was going out and we entered the water around 12:30. It was flat calm with vis between 4 and 15 feet. less if a lot of silt got kicked up! The water was warm, 68*F at the surface, and 63*F at depth. Deepest we got to was 23' but spent most of the dive in the 18-20' range. We took a heading bearing right off the beach towards the rocks. The first dive was 76 minutes and the second was 71 minutes. Lots of northern cerianthids, some frilled anemones, some bugs, only a couple of keeper sized, even saw a couple of scallops and some very strange looking oysters. On the second dive I saw a very tiny sea robin. It was maybe a little larger than my thumbnail. We also got 3 golf balls for reefseal's collection, and two nasty snorkels. So if you lost a snorkel at Niles Beach....it's still there, and really heinous, and one of them is housing a fish.
I'm curious to see if anyone else got out this weekend and what conditions were at other locations?
The tide was going out and we entered the water around 12:30. It was flat calm with vis between 4 and 15 feet. less if a lot of silt got kicked up! The water was warm, 68*F at the surface, and 63*F at depth. Deepest we got to was 23' but spent most of the dive in the 18-20' range. We took a heading bearing right off the beach towards the rocks. The first dive was 76 minutes and the second was 71 minutes. Lots of northern cerianthids, some frilled anemones, some bugs, only a couple of keeper sized, even saw a couple of scallops and some very strange looking oysters. On the second dive I saw a very tiny sea robin. It was maybe a little larger than my thumbnail. We also got 3 golf balls for reefseal's collection, and two nasty snorkels. So if you lost a snorkel at Niles Beach....it's still there, and really heinous, and one of them is housing a fish.
I'm curious to see if anyone else got out this weekend and what conditions were at other locations?