Cant believe that I jumped in with no weights on!!!!
I have never dove the Belmar Inlet. Manasquan.... yes, Belmar......no. We gave it a shot. On the south side, west of the bridge, there is a little dead end street and some bulk heading. One the left hand side the rocks are cut out making some natural stone stairs which you can follow down into the water.
When we were geared up and in the water I could not get down and the reason was............... No weights in the weight pockets. Could not believe I did that, not after Sunday. It was horrible.
Mark handed off 6 pounds to me and we went down. Swimming against the current was difficult and on top of that, I was afraid I was light and hugged the bottom, making for a less than relaxing dive.
Peeking into the crevices I saw a lot of smaller fish and the occasional crab but that was all. It seemed odd in a way. I don’t even remember seeing too many starfish and they are usually strewn about like confetti. In one hole we saw several fish and one small crab and the biggest starfish I have seen in a while. In a second there was a rock crab that at first looked like a lobster. After that it was fairly dull.
Have I become jaded? Spoiled by seeing and poking so many unusual and interesting things? It is possible.
We were caught in the Eddy currents and after 10 minutes of struggling it we called it quits and packed up and headed for the Point Pleasant Railroad Bridge.
There we geared up and dropped down in the dark water. Crabs were running everywhere and the sea bass were tucked in for the night. We spent a few moment watching a small eel make her way along the bottom, undulating back and forth among the rocks. There were an abundance of sea robbins about and the proper amount of starfish. Do Starfish sleep? Somehow they looked like they did, all quieted down for the night, snuggled up against each other...... Hmmm.
We came across a huge crab and Mark put down his flashlight and cracked open a mussel and offered it to him but he wouldn’t have it. The crab kept coming closer and Mark kept trying to feed him but apparently it wasn’t the snack that was drawing him in, it was the light. He eventually bumped right into it.
We moved on and there was large fluke lying in the sand. We both looked at it and Mark signaled me to poke him and move him along. I obliged, grabbing it by the tail and off he went.
We swam along shining our flashlights along the bottom occasionally crossing beams and then we saw it.... A huge Conger Eel, slowly making his way along the bottom and coming our way. We both had a hand on the bottom and immediately drew it up. We were trim and buoyant in a heartbeat. This was no small eel measured in inches.... It was definitely 2 ½ to 3 feet in length and heading right for us. Couple of quick breaths and we were up a little higher and totally fascinated watching it swim. Apparently there were more than one and a second swam around behind me, slowly circling us, most likely curious about the lights. Mark had a good point, I wonder where they are during the day? They are a little large to just hide under a clam shell.
We swam about a bit longer and them headed up, it was getting late and it was a weeknight.
As we walked back to our cars I stopped to watch something jumping about in the water and suddenly my attention was drawn to some heated words in the parking lot. A local fisherman was quite animated and going on about how we swam though the area he was fishing and scared all the fish away.
The path we traveled was in the opposite direction from the area that the man was fishing but he was not to be reasoned with. We ignored his comments and looks and removed our gear and packed up our cars to leave.
A frustrating night of diving