I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
- T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
We found ourselves at the Belmar Back Bay once more. It was a quick dive, as bay dives go…. For some reason, while the water was still in the mid 50’s, it felt much colder and while the visibility was in the 5-6 foot range it seemed to be forever cloudy and while there were still little denizens scurrying around, it seemed a bit barren.
There were 5 of us and we were looking forward to nothing more than a relaxing evening stroll through the water. It was early evening and a bit cool but promised to be the best day of the weekend. The boats for Saturday had already been cancelled and the Sunday cancellations were expected to soon follow.
The water was clearer than anticipated and we hoped to catch the last of something going on as we dropped on down. It was cool and I was glad my drysuit repairs would be complete by tomorrow. It was time to put the wetsuit away. The time for fish poking was giving way to just poking about and winter diving, with its steaming hoods and ice cream headaches, just around the corner.
The blue claw crabs were small….very small and the starfish were tiny. They looked like the little gold foil stars you got on your papers in kindergarten. There were still some tube worms things buried in the sand at the edges of the vegetation and they closed up as you stuck your fingers in them, somewhat annoyed I am sure. Small winter flounder, not longer than my finger, were scattered around and I chased them. Farther along, a few small eel still slithered along and the spider crabs were big, real big, and busy burying themselves in the sand. The clams were digging in too…. seems they all got the memo about winter and were busy in preparation. Except for a lone tropical that shivered in the sea grass, having missed the last bus out and not long for this area I am sure.We finned along picking up bottles and dislodging the inhabitants to see who was home. Mostly small crabs and all feisty at that, snapping away with their tiny claws and jumping up and down threatening to kick our butts if we didn’t stop and stop now.
I picked up two empty whelk shells for my bucket at home and dropped them in Chris’s bag to keep my hands free for my compass. OK laugh…..he knew it wasn’t true too, but carried them anyway. About halfway along our planned route we got separated and while it is well known that I am navigationally challenged, those who aren’t were still a bit confused. We headed back towards shore and upon reaching the wall waited for the flag carrying portion of our group to catch up.
As we floated about on the surface we reflected on how quickly things had turned and how few live whelk we had seen this season and moonsnails too. Compared notes on our finds today and spoke of doing this again next weekend, a boat and a beach, adive on each. Maybe the inlet this time or Western World or the Bluffs, Allenhurst Jetty, the railroad bridge, Shark River…..so many places to go on a simple tank of air.