Well, 6 of us suited up today for our initiation into oyster diving. We drove an hour to Kent Island, MD and took the boat out about 30-45 minutes where the depth was.....12'. Hehe...ok, we splashed in one at a time, severely overweighted, and were confronted with about 2-3' vis, a decent current, and water temps of 39 degrees.
There was nothing to see except muck and oysters...basically the dive consisted of crawling your way across the bottom grabbing anything that appeared to be 3" or larger that resembled an oyster. Once your bag was full, you surfaced and looked for the boat. Once you found the boat, you swam to it and handed your bag up. From the ladder, there was a bucket of hot water to soak your hands in if you wanted another go at it.
We ended up with a measly bushel and a half (about 150 oysters) and had a raw bar/steamed oyster/grilled oyster cookout with burgers and beer afterwards.
I am not doing another one of these without drygloves, but the rest of me was plenty warm in 300 weight polartec with a neoprene hood...the 3mm neoprene gloves left something to be desired though (namely the ability to make a fist after about 10 minutes in the water).
I think I was the only person wearing a computer since the max depth was 12' and most of us were diving nitrox...I don't think anybody was able to crack pressure group A
There was nothing to see except muck and oysters...basically the dive consisted of crawling your way across the bottom grabbing anything that appeared to be 3" or larger that resembled an oyster. Once your bag was full, you surfaced and looked for the boat. Once you found the boat, you swam to it and handed your bag up. From the ladder, there was a bucket of hot water to soak your hands in if you wanted another go at it.
We ended up with a measly bushel and a half (about 150 oysters) and had a raw bar/steamed oyster/grilled oyster cookout with burgers and beer afterwards.
I am not doing another one of these without drygloves, but the rest of me was plenty warm in 300 weight polartec with a neoprene hood...the 3mm neoprene gloves left something to be desired though (namely the ability to make a fist after about 10 minutes in the water).
I think I was the only person wearing a computer since the max depth was 12' and most of us were diving nitrox...I don't think anybody was able to crack pressure group A
