The Official Report (any other report not officially sanction by Skipper, yada yada....)
Twas a beautiful day on the water with only one dark moment (already mentioned above).
Left the dock just after 8 with all crew aboard bound west through inlet and around Bean Point. With a minor course adjustment a few points to the south, turned on the autopilot kicked back for the ride.
First stop, the Fin Barge. 300' long, capsized with 2 large steering fins at the stern. There were already a boat area surface fishing, but they were willing to share. (Nice people.) Judged the wind, dropped the anchor and drifted back towards the wreck. Dropped a shot line from the stern, dropped down and bullseye! Right in the middle of the wreck. (Don't expect that all the time.) TheCaptain,Skink and went in. First we went back to the fins where I normally find the monsters, but only saw one off in the sand. Headed up to the wreck's bow, and started looking through the open loading doors. There they were, about half a dozen 6-7' Jewfish, leisurely swimming with their entourage of feeders clustered around them. TheCaptains eye got as big as saucers, fascinated by the lounging giants. We had a hard time prying him away to come back to the boat. (Vis 40', temp 72, depth 80')
Back on the surface TheCaptain said, "I gotta say it, Mama Mia that's a big fish!"
Next in were Duncan1958, Cooltech and Je Souhaite. They also came back with tales of "the big fish".
Next stop six nautical miles SSE, to the South Jack Wreck. My personal favorite to date, this a early 20th century fast steamer or pleasure yacht. There was another fishing boat there (already discussed), so we anchored about 30 yards to the west.
I, TheCaptain and Skink went down first again. We followed the rust patterns in the sand straight the the wreck, where I proceed to start the tour, pointing out the boilers, bow, propellers, until we got to the engine. TheCaptain shown his light underneath, finding a 5' nurse shark and another Jewfish. From then on, it was all fish, all the time and my talents as underwater tour guide went to waste.
Next in were Duncan and Cooltech, Je Souhaite sitting this dive out after getting up WAY to early in the morning and getting a bit fatigued on the first dive. We watched the bubbles go straight to the wreck, tracing back and forth from stem to stern. Then we watch the bubbles turn for the return path, making a perfect run back to the boat. The bubbles came up perfectly under the stern, and we expected to see them come up the shot line any moment. But no, the bubbles kept going. And going. After about 5 minutes we decided they probably didn't intend to go to the panhandle, and began the process of pulling the anchor. By the time the anchor was up, 2 sausages were spotted off the stern quarter and we started up the engine to pick up the winners of this week's underwater navigation contest. (Vis 15', temp 70, depth 60')
Then it was time the long voyage back to port. Since I had previously twisted Duncan's arm into bringing a couple of bottles of wine from Spain, we had arranged a little cook out afterwords. There was some good cooking and some good eating before we called it a night.
Frog (aka Rich)
