“The boat isn’t going out…..what do you want to do….” This was the message on my cell phone on Sunday night….
What do I want to do…..hmmmmm…..I want to go diving, that‘s what.
The tide was at a leisurely 1PM…..the sky was a practically cloudless blue…..the sun shone down brightly with the first hints of summer warmth. A beautiful day to go diving. We arrived at the railroad bridge with time to spare and checked out the water and it was not looking bad at all. We both had our priorities. Mark walked along the bulkhead dropping pieces of shell in the water watching the current and the visibility while I grabbed an ice cream cone from across the street. As we sat talking about the dive and how there should be a permanent mooring so we didn’t have to pull a dive flag……dive flag…..dive flag……like the one at home in the hallway dive flag…….Jeesh……
Lets just say that it is remarkable how quickly you can get from Point Pleasant to Brick and back again…….
While Mark wrestles his way into his wet suit, thanks to a dry suit issue, I gear up in record time……what can I say….it is a gift. And since I sat in my garage this morning repeating over and over again, BWRF…..Begin With Review……BC, Regulator, Air..…. I had all my equipment….kinda…..
I was short an inflation hose. I could either inflate my dry suit or my wing…but not both……soooo….dry suit it is. This dive is starting to look interesting already.
We wade out into the channel just a few minutes behind the tide and drop on down to see what is going on below the waterline. It takes me a moment to orient myself to controlling my buoyancy with my dry suit and not my wing but I get into a workable rhythm and we are on our way.
Things are looking a little barren at first and the water is a tad cloudy with visibility at 3 to 5 feet in FRONT of Mark…..OK…I will admit it…..it’s 3 to 5 feet behind him too. But it has been worse here.
The water is a cool 53F and as we swim down the slope to the channel I begin to pick out some of the locals. There are several small hermit crabs scurrying about and as we get deeper a small blue claw runs by carrying an even smaller one in its claws. Next we pick out a star fish … or two…or a hundred, all scattered about and piled one atop the other. A field of starfish covers the far slope of the channel, engaged in various acts of resting, eating and unsuitable displays of passion.
There is a crab trap someone snagged on the rocks and lost, and we check inside to see if anything has been captured and needs to be freed. And, from the corner of my eye, I catch a fleeting glimpse of a shadow flying past us low to the sand. If the water were warmer I would say it was a ray, but it has to be something else. I consider this for a moment or two as we head on under the bridge and to the far side. In among the rubble under the bridge are baby sea bass just a few inches long and some small cunner and blenny. I am immediately distracted with the dilemma of whether I should poke or grab the tails of these little guys, and soon we are out into the cove on the far side.
Here among the rocks we come across several horseshoe crabs who are locked in the throes of … of… of whatever it is horseshoe crabs do. I wonder…. Is there some crab dating ritual? Do they go out first….does he buy her dinner…..send flowers? I only have a moment to contemplate this as the tide has changed and we are on our way back under the bridge.
We look around among the rocks and debris and I note several moon snail egg collars strewn about and some spider crabs taking their lead from their horseshoe brethren, a tangled mass of spindly arms and little round bodies.
Further along I sneak up on a 4 oz sinker, swooping it up and dropping it in my bellows pocket. I wonder if there is a minimum size on these, like their fishy neighbors. Should I have left it until it was 6 oz? or maybe 8? Oh well, too late.
As we poke about I feel a tug on my fin and turn to find we have been joined by another diver who I will have to surface to recognize unfortunately. We have seen just about all the bay has to offer us this week. In the coming weeks, more and more of its inhabitants will come out to play and we will come back to dive again.
I have managed to complete the dive with just my dry suit for buoyancy, I wont win any awards for my hovering, but I muddled through. I wont be forgetting my hose again anytime soon I hope. Anthony is the mystery diver we ran into underwater and a few more are topside awaiting a report. The air is still warm and the sun shining and we pack our gear back into the truck contemplating a nice cold beer. Life is good.