The Wreck of the Cranford
We don’t always get to do what we want and I happen to be on a roll in that direction right now. I wanted to dive Saturday but the Dive Gods said NO! And I wanted to dive Wednesday but it wasn’t to be, so I set my sights on a 3 tanker for Friday before I had to head out to Pittsburgh (who goes to Pittsburgh this weekend, my relatives are crazy!!). for the holiday weekend. But that never came to be either, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
If you are reading this and did not get out on Friday........you really need to quit your job and become a dive bum. You missed the most excellent of dive days. The kind of dive day where you start out saying “Can anything else happen here?” and end up asking the Captain to take it slower on the way home.
I arrived at the Stingray at 6:45AM and there was not a parking space to be seen. I unloaded all my gear out of my car, and dragged it to practically the END of the dock, could he get a slip farther away, really. Then I had to go park my car in Sea Girt and walk back. The mate Jim was already at the boat and did help me get everything on board and I started to set up my gear....... Just Jim and I.......and my gear..... And no one else....Oh Jeesh!!! ..... Don’t tell me no one else is going to show and we aren’t going and now I have to put this all back in my car and go to Pittsburgh!!
Henrik arrived and we waited a little longer (actually a lot longer) and then Andrew arrived. Andrew is a Firefighter from Baltimore, he had a bit of a drive so we will forgive him.
While Andrew and I finished setting up our gear we chatted and I turned on my air and looked down and what does my gauge say? 750lbs......on my pony? NO!! on my primary tank? YES!! It is empty, I cant believe it! DOH!! Andrew then looks up and says “I cant do 3 tanks, only brought one set of doubles” Well at least we are both in the same boat, literally.
And that was it, no one else showed, Oh Oh.
I love Henrik, he looked at us, looked at the clear blue skies, and looked down at the water and you could see the bottom from the slip. And he said......”Lets go diving.” Woo Hoo!!! Things were looking up.
As we cleared the last of the bridges, the sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and we were heading out onto “Lake Atlantic” not a wave to be seen. We all huddled in the wheelhouse with Henrik like eager little kids jumping from one foot to the other. Where are we going? Huh? Huh? Were are we going?
He rattled off several options and they all sounded good to me, I had never been to any of them. The Wreck of the Cranford was decided on. It would give Andrew decent air time with his doubles and offered bugs, spear fishing, and lots wreck to sift through.
The ride out was perfect. We stretched out on the benches, sunning ourselves and talking, occasionally looking down at the water to get a glimpse of what the viz might be. You could see for miles in every direction and we speculated what towns and parts of shore we were looking at.
Upon arriving at the dive site we dropped the tuna ball over and Jim went in and the bottle was up in record time, we were dead on the center of the wreck.
The Cranford was a propeller-driven, steam-powered, double-decker, double-ended ferry belonging to the now-defunct Central Railroad of New Jersey. After her retirement in 1965, she was sold to a pair of brothers who brought her to a dock in Brielle but apparently not before hitting the railroad bridge on the way in and damaging the bridge and stopping traffic for over 8 hours. There she was converted to a floating restaurant operating until 1979. The brothers then tried to move the vessel to a new location, but were denied permits by the government, who did not want to see a repeat of the Cranford's eventful trip into the river She was finally sold for one dollar to a welding concern who hacked off her entire upper works and sold it for scrap and the rest of her was then donated to the artificial reef program and sunk in the vicinity of the Sea Girt Reef. The remains are well broken-down but parts of the hull ribbing still stick up 10 ft or more, this 191 X 44 wreck, nicknamed "the sandbox”, sits in 70 fsw.
I had put my regs in for yearly servicing and was using a set of rental regulators and they just did not fit or sit the same as mine do, things pulled and tugged in random spots making things just a little or a lot off. Andrew was in the water before I was and on the way down the line I got entangled and could not for the life of me figure out where or why. It was easier to go down the line than it was to go up and I knew there were 2 divers there that would come back to that spot eventually so down I went. A few minutes after my arrival Jim came back past and untangled me and I was off. I am not entirely comfortable diving solo, I know I could have followed Andrews line and caught up with him, but I was still feeling the pulling of the hoses under my arms and not getting the range of motion I really wanted, was still flustered from my entanglement, and figured I would just stay close to the line and work on catching my buoyancy quicker and look around local since we were tied into a good part of the wrecks structure. I tied in my reel as there was a slight surge at the bottom and started looking. There was at least 15 feet of visibility so I could see pretty well and the bottom temps were a comfy 47 degrees. The wall we were tied into was about 10 foot tall with small circular holes, too small to be windows but still at least twice the size of my fist and lined up down the length of wall, which was covered in an assortment of sponges, anemones and wiggly things. Small sea bass swam freely in and out among the growth on this side and coming to a large break in the structure I went through and came up on the other side where you could easily make out the ribs of the hull and there were large pieces of wood and parts of things lying about that looked to make good hidey holes for things and they got the best of me and I started to just swim around looking over and about. Camouflaged perfectly among the debris was one of those fish that looks like a rock, the largest I have seen so far, as I looked closer I could see him saying under his breath “You cant see me...You cant see me...” so I let him be. But I was still getting a pulling everywhere so I decided to head up and rework the hoses to be more comfortable for the second dive.
Up I went and when I arrived at the ladder, I started up and yelled “Honey I’m home!” and Jim was right there to help me aboard. Another transom to straddle, I truly wish my legs were longer cause it really is a trial to get over these things.
Once on board Andrew was not far behind me carrying his “legal by a hair” lobster and the grill was fired up and lunch was on. We had Caribbean Jerk chicken kabobs and watermelon and Jims famous burgers. I am pretty sure a whole cow was sacrificed for those 4 burgers, they were GI-NORMOUS. And smothered in Jims secret sauce. Lunch was excellent and we just sat about the deck talking and lazing and eating. And eating. And eating. I don’t think we needed weights for the second dive, we were pretty full.
Second trip down the line a current had picked up on the surface and Jim must have gotten tired of watching me swim against it and tossed a line out and pulled me over to the ball. Nice touch.... down I went with no problems, the visibility had dropped some, I want to say it was 10 feet but I cant so I will say 8, a healthy 8 feet. I picked up Andrews line but wanted to find the lawn chair which had been discussed at length during lunch. I ran my reel and quickly crossed paths with Andrew who had found himself a nice sized bug to add to his collection. I swam around the area we talked about but did not find any lawn chair. These guys are crazy. Since I was looking more diligently this trip as I looked down I saw something poking just above the sand. Upon closer look, it was a bottle! I just read an article in one of the dive magazines on Jersey bottle hunting and finding them on wrecks and was a little excited. This was stuck under a piece of debris and buried deep so I had to dig some to get it, kind of stirring things up a bit, but I got it! I didn’t have my goody bag with me so I was going to have to just carry this along with me on my travels. This made rewinding my reel a bit challenging but it was doable. Upon arriving back at the tie in Andrew was there and ready to go up. He showed me his new bug and I congratulated him. Up he went but I saw some things of interest just off in the sand and went to check them out. I looked about and saw an enormous moon snail shell, bigger than my reel, and it was empty so I added it to my collection. I‘m a Mommy, I am used to juggling, I can do this. I went back to the line and with shell in one hand, bottle in the other, my arm around the line and my pinky or something venting my wing and my gauges are on a retractor so that was pulled out and held in place with my other arm so I could see my ascent and up I went. No problem! When I hit my 3 min stop I had the opportunity to examine my new found treasure further. What could I have found? A circa 1800’s medicine bottle? Or possibly antique beer bottle or something better!!! Wow, my first artifact how exciting! What is this? Threads? Threads!! My antique artifact, my colonial era bottle had threads!!! A screw cap!!! I just spent all that time...and gas.... digging this up.... and then I lugged it for how long? And struggled all the way up the line.... All this for SOME WINE COOLER BOTTLE SOME PARTY BOAT THREW OVER!!!!! ARRRGGGHH!!!! I hit the surface, went over to the ladder and up I went. I handed my moon snail shell to Jim and told him “Don‘t ask!“.
Once on deck I quickly got out of my dry suit as it was a warm 91 degrees on the surface and I just laid back with a cold drink and relaxed, the new sound system putting out some excellent music. Jim came back up with the hook and we had collected 3 lobster, 3 nice sea bass and a very pretty shell and were on our way back. The only thing missing here were cup holders and I mentioned this to Henrik, we will see.
What a beautiful day out, we all hated to see the bridges and knowing it was almost over. The only thing that could have made this trip better would be a dive slave to carry my gear back to my car at the end of the day, but I won’t complain, even without one it was pretty darn good.