Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills ~ Ambrose Bierce
I have been wanting to dive the Shark River Inlet for some time...it is right in my back yard, and I have been diving all around it...but something has always come up and I just never got to dive there ... until now.
Last night, in the middle of the night, Josh, Tom and I dropped in to see what was up. High tide was at 10:30pm and I wanted to try an MK25 reg set out so we met early and moved my hoses and mouth piece on over to one and then set out for the inlet. Josh just bought the same regulator and was diving it for the first time so we would get to compare notes.
They wanted to go in on the ocean side and this required a climb down the rocks, not a natural rock stairway, but up over and around wet slimy boulders in the dark. I made it down and got in the water and found myself wedged and straddling an underwater boulder. This actually worked out as I wasn’t going anywhere with the current and could put on my gloves and mask and make last minute adjustments with no worries with the current. Unfortunately it did not work as well for putting on fins and I struggled for a minute extracting myself from my perch to find a better spot to get on my fins. Ready and we dropped on down.
The water was unbelievably clear and while I do not have a canister light, like my dive buddies, my light worked just great and things came to life. We were swimming against the current on the way out and I hugged the rocks for some relief as I looked about, taking an occasional fin to the head from Tom if he stopped short.
First thing we came across on the bottom was a beautiful red and white sea robbin about 18 inches long just hanging about and upon a slight poke from someone who shall remain nameless, it scurried off in a tiff. We then immediately came across several flounder, winter flounder, fluke, sundials.... We discussed this at length later in the evening and honestly think there was one of everything there... But anyway after sending one or two on their way I just reached out and grabbed one. Yes.... grabbed it and now I had this fish firmly locked in both hands and no idea what to do... No goody bag and they are out of season anyway, but still, Tom and Josh’s lights are on me and we are all just smiling into our regs. I let him go and he took off like a shot.
We checked in and about on the rocks and there were several small crabs and three or four short lobsters. Josh began waving his light and we went to see what he found. It was an enormous shrimp out in the sand all by himself. We kind of encircled him like a wagon train and watched him for a minute before he jumped up on top of my hand (he was longer than my hand is wide, and then he took off and we were on our way.
There were small crabs out looking for dinner and larger crabs nestled in the cracks and crevices and the rocks were covered in different sponges and other life making for a colorful trip out and with a signal from Josh we turned to go back. We encountered the same assortment of sealife on the way back but since we were not fighting the current as hard we spent some additional time in the sand looking about. We passed over a large american eel just swimming about and grabbed at several more too small lobsters as we headed in.
It was time to go up and as we surfaced, one quick look up at the rocks reminded me why it was so much nicer in the water. It was a mountain goat climb up the rocks to the shore and then, of course, UP a set of stairs to the street and our cars. And one quick look down just made me shake my head, after carefully wiping and lubing the o-ring, I had flooded yet one more light.
As we broke down our gear we talked about the dive, divers never gossip so we surely didn’t talk about anyone else, we discussed past dives and sights and of course....we compared notes on the MK25 regulators.
Josh and I both agreed that they breathed very dry , I especially noticed it since I normally use the Sherwood Oasis which retains and re-circulates moisture. It obviously works because the difference was noticeable. Josh was not comfortable with the mouth piece, he thought it was short and made his jaw tired trying to hold on and will replace his. I was using my familiar mouthpiece which is longer but did notice the difference in shape from my Sherwood which is oval shaped and the MK25 is more round. While I find the oval shape to be more comfortable I think I will just have to get used to the feeling of the rounder , which actually takes a little more effort to retain, as that seems to be the shape of all the other regulators. Both Josh and I never moved the valve from surface to underwater position when we descended. My 5ml gloves just don’t allow me any fine motor dexterity. But they still breathed very smoothly. I will have to think on this a bit but it is not a bad regulator overall. And the Shark River is not a bad dive either.