St lawrence wreck dive charter via Hunt's Dive Shop

[VoIPTeK]

Hello, I'm new to Diving and will be visiting upstate New York between the 16th and the 20th of July. I signed up for a charter boat for some wreck dives but I'm the only one that has signed up so far. They said they need at least two people to confirm the outing so if anyone is interested, please contact Hunt's Dive Shop out of Clayton, NY to make your reservation. If anyone has any other suggestions or dives for the alex bay area, please let me know! Thanks!

Hunts Dive Shop
seahunt@gisco.net
40782 Route 12
Clayton, NY 13624
Phone: (315) 686-1070

 

[VoIPTeK]

Well turns out from what I hear from locals is Hunts Dive Shop doesn't get many bookings for a reason. I was strongly advised by others to seek other options. Just from my personal experience no one at this dive shop seems to call you back no matter how many times they say they will get back to you.

So it looks like I'll be doing two wreck dives with Captin Mac with Fingerlake Scuba. This shop seems to have pleasant and cur\tious people to do business with.

 

[flots am]

Well turns out from what I hear from locals is Hunts Dive Shop doesn't get many bookings for a reason. I was strongly advised by others to seek other options. Just from my personal experience no one at this dive shop seems to call you back no matter how many times they say they will get back to you.

So it looks like I'll be doing two wreck dives with Captin Mac with Fingerlake Scuba. This shop seems to have pleasant and cur\tious people to do business with.

Hunts does a nice job.

They have a 6 passenger, 100% welded aluminum boat with two huge engines, a drop-down ramp in the front (looks like a landing craft) and a hoist.

It's a "no frills" dive op. You get on the boat, they take you were you want to go very quickly, wait there while you dive, and bring you back when you're done. They don't care if you dive sidemount, or a rebreather or have a wetsuit made up from old tire patches and a tank that used to be a fire extinguisher.

You're expected to be able to plan and dive your own dive, and I've never been disappointed by them.

They're competent and efficient and won't rush you, but if you're looking for "warm and fuzzy" or any sort of DM-type thing, this isn't it.

flots.

---------- Post Merged at 06:05 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:02 PM ----------

Well turns out from what I hear from locals is Hunts Dive Shop doesn't get many bookings for a reason.

The other reason is that when they're not doing recreational dives, they're doing salvage and commercial work.

---------- Post Merged at 06:08 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:02 PM ----------

If anyone has any other suggestions or dives for the alex bay area, please let me know! Thanks!

If your stats are correct, what I'd really suggest is that you take a day and dive The Islander. It's an easy, fun shore dive right behind the hospital in A-Bay, and won't cost you anything but air fills. In fact, if it's a busy day, Hunt's has a fill station across the street that they'll open up.

You could dive it all day and not get bored, since there's all sorts of cool stuff off to the the right and left of the wreck, and it starts in about ~20'.

flots.

 

[j yaeger]

flots am hit everything on the nose
new diver,great time to be had without the expense of a charter...
hit the islander
go at your own pace! enjoy from the dive site!20' to 140' gradually sloped bottom
viz is not so hot this time of year but 40' ain't so bad!!!
have fun
yaeg

 

[scubadiver888]

flots am, Hunt's sound like most the guys I use on the Canadian side (Kingston, Mallorytown, Brockville). They might be a little friendlier and they'll give you a "Really? Are you sure?" if you ask to dive something they don't think you're not qualified for. A few of them expect you to grab a line, jump off and pull the boat to dock at the end of the dive. On one wreck the buoy was missing. Boat captain asked us to find the wreck and shot a line up so he'd have something to tie off to. Definitely not like diving in the Caribbean.

I did see one boat, the Proteus out of Kingston. The crew had a barbeque going on the deck. The crew were helping divers out of the water and serving refreshments. Looked quite nice. They rent the boat for $1243/day according to the website ($1100 + HST).

VoipTek, if you are 0-24 dives be careful. Most the boat operators I know assume you are a certified diver and know what you are doing. The shops I work at like to bring new divers out to the St. Lawrence but we have instructors and DMs (me) along to help keep the AOWs out of trouble. We never bring OW students as most the good stuff on the Canadian side is well below 60 feet. It is usually good to find someone who has been there before. Even if you know what you are looking for it is easy to miss with the low viz. Haven't been out to the St. Lawrence this year but everything on the other end of the lake is horrible viz due to all this heat.

 

[VoIPTeK]

VoipTek, if you are 0-24 dives be careful. Most the boat operators I know assume you are a certified diver and know what you are doing. The shops I work at like to bring new divers out to the St. Lawrence but we have instructors and DMs (me) along to help keep the AOWs out of trouble. We never bring OW students as most the good stuff on the Canadian side is well below 60 feet. It is usually good to find someone who has been there before. Even if you know what you are looking for it is easy to miss with the low viz. Haven't been out to the St. Lawrence this year but everything on the other end of the lake is horrible viz due to all this heat.

Thanks for the info! When I called I told them I was newly certified and have only been to 60 feet they said that wouldn't be a problem and they’d take me wherever I was comfortable to go. I have 18 dives as of today and every one (including my open water cert and specialties) has been between 3700 feet and over 6000 feet. I have yet to make a low altitude dive. In Colorado where I usually dive on the weekends usually has 0 to 5 feet of visibility on average so I’m used to diving blind. I don’t have any real experience with currents though. So that and depth would be my weakness. Its hard to get "deep" in colorado. The last week of August I'm going to the Blue Hole in New Mexico to get proper deep dive training in. I've gone through the adventure dive material for deep but haven't actually expereinced it (over 60 feet or at sea level) yet.

---------- Post Merged at 07:43 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 07:39 PM ----------

flots am hit everything on the nose
new diver,great time to be had without the expense of a charter...
hit the islander
go at your own pace! enjoy from the dive site!20' to 140' gradually sloped bottom
viz is not so hot this time of year but 40' ain't so bad!!!
have fun
yaeg

Right on! I will definitely check that out! I'll be staying up in Redwood so there may be some lakes to hit as well but the A-Bay area is what I was really hoping for this trip.

 

[VoIPTeK]

I ended up diving The America and Keystorm. Both were awesome but got some oil stains from The America. I knew it exploded 50 years ago but didn't know there was still oil too . This was my first low altitude dive as well and went down 114 feet. Only difference from altitude was it felt like I needed to add a little more air to my BCD than usual and as far as 100+ feet, didn't seem any different than at 30 feet. Just kept a closer eye on my air. The water was great too, 70 degrees with no thermalclines even at 100+ feet. In Colorado it can be upper 90's (air temp) with 70 surface temp and 55 degrees at 20 feet. I definitely will be making st lawrence part of my annual plans when I visit upstate NY. It was cool mingling with the Canadian divers as well.

 

[scubadiver888]

Glad you liked the America and the Keystorm. If you want more information about ship wrecks in the area, check out Tom Wilson's site at ScubaQ. He had a small note from 2009 about how the ship is decomposing and oil is leaking out of it. I was warned by the guy who took me out to keep off the bottom or I'd end up covered in oil. I'd recommend the guy who took me out as he was alive when some of those ships were sunk and had a lot of colourful stories. Unfortunately, he passed away last year.

Tom's site just touches on some of the wrecks in the area and there are some tech guys search for new ones all the time. If you go to the Ontario Underwater Council they have a Google Earth map: http://www.underwatercouncil.com/downloads/OUC_Dive_Ontario_Directory.kmz. Download and install Google Earth (Google for it) then download and run the KMZ file. It has all kinds of information about wrecks in Ontario including Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

 

[VoIPTeK]

Is there anyone diving the islander this week? A guy I met there today said it was easy and I could dive alone but first of all, I personally choose not to dive alone and second, I'd feel more comfortable diving with somebody that is familiar with the site. Since I leave Sunday back to Colorado, I'd like to go any time from now to Friday. Please let me know if you're free to dive this week and we can set something up. I just need to rent my bc, reg, and tank. Thanks!