paulthenurse
Contributor
Towed LSU down to Falmouth Aug 12 and spent the night anchored in Waquoit Bay, sipping adult beverages and watching the shooting stars. Nice show till the clouds showed up and screwed the pooch. In the morning we picked up my daugher and our friend Don. Sheila wants to learn to dive so I intended to bring her to a shallow area and teach her the basics after Don, Alice and I saw a few wrecks. We intended to dive the wreck of the Port Hunter but as we were motoring out Don started talking about some of the many other wrecks in the area. We decided to divert to the wreck of the four masted coal schooner Sagamore and hoped to be able to scoot over to the Hunter after a quick tour. Rammed by a steamship in 1907 she sits upright on the bottom in 80 feet of dark, murky water. We found her on our first pass over the numbers and after dropping the hook to 65 feet I very slowly eased up to the spot again and dropped the hook the remaining few feet as soon as I saw the first hint on the screen. That worked like a champ, the hook was about five feet to the side of the huge winch on the bow. Don had told us that the ship was on a sand bottom and we would have pretty good reflected light down there. Well, maybe that would be so if the sun was out but we were racing to beat a whopper of a rainstorm, it was cloudy as could be and it was like diving into a cup of black coffee.
I have my anchor line marked out every ten feet so I always know where I am in relation to the bottom. So I'm pulling myself down the line... 50 feet "Man it's dark here." 30 feet... Nothing. 20 feet... Nothing. I reach the chain... Nothing. Ten feet to the anchor and I can't even see it. I'm looking at the anchor and can't really tell what its dug into. Whisky Tango Foxtrot? So I turn around and here comes Don down the line... And now I can start to make out the outline of the enourmous winch... OK, it's not THAT bad, I can see... Sort of... While it ain't exactly a night dive, its a lot closer to a night dive than 80 feet at 10 AM ought to be. Oh WTH, stop your whining and dive. So we take off, working towards the stern, poking here, poking there. I'm looking under some wreckage and turn to the side and my face turns straight into a Lions Mane jellyfish. That was some serious ouchie. My entire lower face felt like it was on fire. I'm thinking that Sheila is probably going to get pretty turned off on diving if she sees her old man start peeing into his hand and splashing it on his face as soon as he climbs back onboard, but fortunately the burn had pretty much resolved by the time we finished the dive. We hunted around, poking under stuff, looking for any artifacts. Didn't find much until just before we got back to the anchor line when I found an old fashioned fluke anhor. It's what you think of when you think of an old fashioned anchor, the traditional anchor that looks like an anchor. It was small, it probably came from one of the ships small boats. It probably weighed 20 pounds and was heavily encrusted. I pulled out a lift bag, tied it off and shot it to the top, then we slowly followed.
A nice 40 minute dive in wonderfully warm water. Mid 70 degrees at 80 feet! Gotta love that warm water. No hood, no gloves. What a treat! We also saw an adult parrot fish at the bottom and something that looked like a fresh water perch swiming about 10 feet under the boat. Took us a while to find the lift bag in the chop but we did and now the anchor is laying outside of my shed and smelling pretty bad.
We didn't make it to the Hunter, I spent too much time farting around and the tide turned and started running hard the other way. Maybe next time.
I did get a new diver hooked. After some time reviewing skills Sheila and I took off and swam around in the shallows. A small striped bass followed us the whole time, so I broke open a few mussels and let her 'feed the fish.' Sheila nicknamed him Bruce and is very excited to finish her course, get her certification and come out with us again.
Even with the cold and rain, and it rained like crazy, it was a VERY enjoyable day. Too bad the end of the summer is getting close. I have a ton of places I still want to get to this year.
I have my anchor line marked out every ten feet so I always know where I am in relation to the bottom. So I'm pulling myself down the line... 50 feet "Man it's dark here." 30 feet... Nothing. 20 feet... Nothing. I reach the chain... Nothing. Ten feet to the anchor and I can't even see it. I'm looking at the anchor and can't really tell what its dug into. Whisky Tango Foxtrot? So I turn around and here comes Don down the line... And now I can start to make out the outline of the enourmous winch... OK, it's not THAT bad, I can see... Sort of... While it ain't exactly a night dive, its a lot closer to a night dive than 80 feet at 10 AM ought to be. Oh WTH, stop your whining and dive. So we take off, working towards the stern, poking here, poking there. I'm looking under some wreckage and turn to the side and my face turns straight into a Lions Mane jellyfish. That was some serious ouchie. My entire lower face felt like it was on fire. I'm thinking that Sheila is probably going to get pretty turned off on diving if she sees her old man start peeing into his hand and splashing it on his face as soon as he climbs back onboard, but fortunately the burn had pretty much resolved by the time we finished the dive. We hunted around, poking under stuff, looking for any artifacts. Didn't find much until just before we got back to the anchor line when I found an old fashioned fluke anhor. It's what you think of when you think of an old fashioned anchor, the traditional anchor that looks like an anchor. It was small, it probably came from one of the ships small boats. It probably weighed 20 pounds and was heavily encrusted. I pulled out a lift bag, tied it off and shot it to the top, then we slowly followed.
A nice 40 minute dive in wonderfully warm water. Mid 70 degrees at 80 feet! Gotta love that warm water. No hood, no gloves. What a treat! We also saw an adult parrot fish at the bottom and something that looked like a fresh water perch swiming about 10 feet under the boat. Took us a while to find the lift bag in the chop but we did and now the anchor is laying outside of my shed and smelling pretty bad.
We didn't make it to the Hunter, I spent too much time farting around and the tide turned and started running hard the other way. Maybe next time.
I did get a new diver hooked. After some time reviewing skills Sheila and I took off and swam around in the shallows. A small striped bass followed us the whole time, so I broke open a few mussels and let her 'feed the fish.' Sheila nicknamed him Bruce and is very excited to finish her course, get her certification and come out with us again.
Even with the cold and rain, and it rained like crazy, it was a VERY enjoyable day. Too bad the end of the summer is getting close. I have a ton of places I still want to get to this year.
