LeFlaneur
Contributor
The Good: Weather and surface conditions, AND Vanessa (Wreck Goddess) who organized the whole thing and dealt beautifully with all the crap thrown at her.
The Bad: Coastal Scuba of North Myrtle Beach
The Ugly: visibility of about 5-10 feet on all sites for three straight days.
Saturday 5/27/06
2 Afternoon Dives: Barracuda Alley.
Visibility 8 feet
Min Temp 70 degrees F
Depth about 55-62 feet
This is basically a small barge sunk as an artificial reef. You can swim around it several times in the course of one dive. It is very easy to navigate since it is just a simple rectangle.
It probably had the most marine life of any of the dives we did.
There are also some personnel carriers nearby which, due to poor visibility I didn't check out.
Sunday 5/28/06
2 Afternoon Dives: The Governor aka the Swanny (identity is debated)
Visibilty: 5 feet
min Temp 68 degrees F
Depth about 75 - 80 feet
This is a Civil War era paddle wheel boat. Very little to see at this visibility. Basically a shaft and boiler and rubble.
The "diggers" among us naturally liked this wreck since it is authentic.
Monday 5/29/06
2 Dives -- full day. BP-25
visibility: 10 feet
Min Temp 68 degrees F
Depth about 80 to 90 feet
Another artificial wreck consisting of a very large tanker and some subway cars.
The first dive we anchored on a subway car -- actually pretty fun with easy swim through opportunities and pretty much impossible to get lost.
During the surface interval we re-anchored on the wreck itself. Lots of stuff to explore here and some cool marine life. Schools of amberjacks are a highlight.
I would love to see it in better visibility.
Now... the bad stuff
I hate to say it but all around our boat experience was pretty bad. We first booked with Dolphin Dive Charters which gets rave reviews on the speed and quality of their boat.
Unfortunately the legendary boat was not in the water and Dolphin waited until three days before the trip to tell us that.
After reorganization, we booked with Coastal Scuba. The last minute booking seemed to throw them.
On the whole, the final day was smooth but the following problems occurred on the first two days:
-Approximately 20 divers on board -- probably due to a re-booking of a blown out morning dive
-Boat did not have enough cylinders or weights – divers did not get their requested cylinders or requested fills (even after going over the list in person the night before)
-Nitrox cylinders labeled 33% ranged from 34% to 38%
-Boat left 1- 1.5 hours late (due to scrambling to fill cylinders at last minute)
-leaky valves, rotten or missing o-rings
-AOW instructor (there were two students in our group) showed up in the afternoon having already done so many dives (anchor setting as an AM divemaster) that he couldn't do the course dives.
-New boat captain on Sunday seemed to not know anchor setting procedure. It took 1.5 hour to set anchor and the divemasters looked ready to mutiny.
-New boat captain on Sunday got lost returning to port. (ultimately returning approximately 3 - 3.5 hours late).
-aborted wreck line was left drifting loose right next to the wreck line we were supposed to follow. I don't know whether our DM set it and changed it, or if it was from a previous dive group. One of our divers cleaned it up since people, including me, were getting snagged.
-crew/ divemasters seemed overworked to near exhaustion
-what looked to be a near total communication disconnect down chain of command.
On the positive side, on the third day there were only about 9 divers, the regular boat captain was back and all went smoothly.
The boat crew was obviously skilled and on all three days they remained alert, conscious of the bad bottom conditions, and ready to bail out divers drifting on the surface after emergency free ascents (which happened a couple times).
The Bad: Coastal Scuba of North Myrtle Beach
The Ugly: visibility of about 5-10 feet on all sites for three straight days.
Saturday 5/27/06
2 Afternoon Dives: Barracuda Alley.
Visibility 8 feet
Min Temp 70 degrees F
Depth about 55-62 feet
This is basically a small barge sunk as an artificial reef. You can swim around it several times in the course of one dive. It is very easy to navigate since it is just a simple rectangle.
It probably had the most marine life of any of the dives we did.
There are also some personnel carriers nearby which, due to poor visibility I didn't check out.
Sunday 5/28/06
2 Afternoon Dives: The Governor aka the Swanny (identity is debated)
Visibilty: 5 feet
min Temp 68 degrees F
Depth about 75 - 80 feet
This is a Civil War era paddle wheel boat. Very little to see at this visibility. Basically a shaft and boiler and rubble.
The "diggers" among us naturally liked this wreck since it is authentic.
Monday 5/29/06
2 Dives -- full day. BP-25
visibility: 10 feet
Min Temp 68 degrees F
Depth about 80 to 90 feet
Another artificial wreck consisting of a very large tanker and some subway cars.
The first dive we anchored on a subway car -- actually pretty fun with easy swim through opportunities and pretty much impossible to get lost.
During the surface interval we re-anchored on the wreck itself. Lots of stuff to explore here and some cool marine life. Schools of amberjacks are a highlight.
I would love to see it in better visibility.
Now... the bad stuff
I hate to say it but all around our boat experience was pretty bad. We first booked with Dolphin Dive Charters which gets rave reviews on the speed and quality of their boat.
Unfortunately the legendary boat was not in the water and Dolphin waited until three days before the trip to tell us that.
After reorganization, we booked with Coastal Scuba. The last minute booking seemed to throw them.
On the whole, the final day was smooth but the following problems occurred on the first two days:
-Approximately 20 divers on board -- probably due to a re-booking of a blown out morning dive
-Boat did not have enough cylinders or weights – divers did not get their requested cylinders or requested fills (even after going over the list in person the night before)
-Nitrox cylinders labeled 33% ranged from 34% to 38%
-Boat left 1- 1.5 hours late (due to scrambling to fill cylinders at last minute)
-leaky valves, rotten or missing o-rings
-AOW instructor (there were two students in our group) showed up in the afternoon having already done so many dives (anchor setting as an AM divemaster) that he couldn't do the course dives.
-New boat captain on Sunday seemed to not know anchor setting procedure. It took 1.5 hour to set anchor and the divemasters looked ready to mutiny.
-New boat captain on Sunday got lost returning to port. (ultimately returning approximately 3 - 3.5 hours late).
-aborted wreck line was left drifting loose right next to the wreck line we were supposed to follow. I don't know whether our DM set it and changed it, or if it was from a previous dive group. One of our divers cleaned it up since people, including me, were getting snagged.
-crew/ divemasters seemed overworked to near exhaustion
-what looked to be a near total communication disconnect down chain of command.
On the positive side, on the third day there were only about 9 divers, the regular boat captain was back and all went smoothly.
The boat crew was obviously skilled and on all three days they remained alert, conscious of the bad bottom conditions, and ready to bail out divers drifting on the surface after emergency free ascents (which happened a couple times).
