Many the wonders I this day have seen:
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, -
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears
Must think on what will be, and what has been,
John Keats
8AM is a civil hour….I like leaving then. I knew today would be good day….there were little signs….like I found my way to the dock without getting lost. Yea….today would be good.
I was diving the Lady Godiver and the names of my shipmates will be changed to protect the innocent. Actually only John needs protecting so we will only change his name. I was joined by Jim Woods, and the other Jim and an unnamed diver, along with Captain Howard. It was warm this morning and the sun was shining through as we left the dock. A bit of a chop to the water as we weaved our way out past Old Barney, and the ocean proved to be a bit…..snotty, but manageable.
I would be diving wet today, as my dry suit is no longer dry and my wrist seals have to be special ordered because my wrists are too small for the standard ones. Lucky for me the diving is gorgeous right now and wet is the way to go.
We are doing numbers dives today……brand new discoveries to be made…..things to be seen….Like a virgin, Touched for the very first time, Like a virgin…..Woot Woot! Another thing off my dive list. Our first stop is an unknown and we toss out a buoy and then the anchor hoping to snag a piece of the wreckage. The pool is open. The water has a fair amount of particulate and an abundance of small jellies and jelly like egg sacs floating about but we can tell from the top it will be decent visibility. As I go down the line I am gauging the viz with my computer as I am really a horror at eyeballing it. We have about 30 feet and are actually right next to a pot as we reach the sand and take advantage of the good viz and pot line to navigate about. We are at 70fsw, the water is 64F and there is a fair amount of current to fight at the bottom. I am glad I tossed a little extra weight in my pocket just in case.
I fin along the line and at the next pot look into see what has been about. There are several sea bass and a huge lobster inside, so I now know what I am looking for. Off the line there is a small pile of wreckage. Large, thick timbers that have seen some wear. Under a piece of wood is what looks to be a borderline lobster and I ignore him as I haven’t brought a goodie bag down with me. As I poke about, I come across a decent sized sea bass that appears to be snagged in a crevice of the timbers and I give a good yank on his tail, and he squirms and wiggles but he doesn’t budge from his spot. During this time my horizontally impaired lobster friend continuously comes out of his hidey hole threatening me and being a general menace. I finally make a grab, miss and follow him into his hole, pulling out what just may possibly be a keeper. He has threatened me and made me chase him to boot….I am holding on til I know different…..that’ll learn him.
I continue along the line a short while carrying my quarry, who is most dissatisfied with the arrangement, and not seeing any additional wreckage I turn to go in the other direction. This way too are a few small piles of wood and my crustacean friend is cramping my style for poking about. As I come across Jim Woods I drop him in Jims bag and get back to poking about.
Small sea bass hover at each pile of timbers, jamming themselves into each nook and cranny and I poke my way along. But the first pile of wreckage calls to me, and I go back and start to dig. I pull up pieces of the wood and fan at the sand beneath only to have another piece of wood appear. But that’s OK. Each piece of wood shows this to be a wooden sailing ship of some sort, and the condition shows it to be old. None of the wood appears to be charred and a good portion of this ship is buried beneath the sand. That tells a lot for one dive. There is no monofilament or sinkers about so the recreational fishermen have not hit here, just the lone boat with his few pots over the wreck. He may have found it first….but I do believe we “saw it” first. These fish were never poked until I came along. Sweet.
I head on up and join the boys topside to check out the catch bags. Jim and I have 4 lobsters between us, mine was referred to as the “oversized shrimp” and I promptly tossed him back. But as luck would have it…..Jims were not much bigger and all made their way back home also. The other Jim fared quite well though with a huge trigger fish, definitely a keeper.
As we made our way to the next site we compared notes as to what we found. Just a few small piles of wood scattered about but definitely a wooden sailing ship and definitely old. Very old.
We arrive at our next site and Unnamed Diver (UD for short) and I were to head on down and check this one out. The buoy was dropped and we were brought along side and dropped on down. This time I take a goodie bag with me just in case…good thing too.
We have been dropped right on a low lying wreck wall which makes navigation quite simple. This appears to be some sort of wooden fishing boat and you can see the cleats still attached to the boats gunwales. True to form there is a lobster immediately as we go down and while UD ties in the buoy I play tag with our new friend. If only my arms were a little longer, cause I am in his hole but not far enough. Time to move along. It is a small wreck and we follow the line of the gunwale along the sand and look in and about. There are quite a few small sea bass tucked in the debris along the way and one really big conger eel. Did I mention really big? We saw “eye to eye” and are good with that. There were also several more lobster for someone with just a bit longer of an arm.
At the end of the wreckage UD ties off and heads out into the sand and I head on back to try for my first little lobster friend once more. Still no go so I moved on out to a debris field of wood and tangled metal pipes, lifting several of the boards as I moved along. The bottom sides of some of these showed definite charring, something burned before it sank. In a crevice I spy a lone set of antennae and make my grab coming up with a bug for my bag. I move on back to the main rail I have been using to navigate and spy UD with what appears to be several bugs in his bag tying off on the far end of the wreck and heading out into the sand once more.
I poke about a bit more and head off to the sand and the planking and metal pipes to pull up more wood and fan the sand to see what it might hold. As I move on up and down this area I spy another lobster making a run for a hole and grab him also….and in my bag he goes.
Other than charred wood I don’t find much else and come across UD once more and he has liberated a gauge of some sort and it now occupies his bag, except for the few short moments he takes it out to show me. But hmmmmm….that is all that is in the bag…….hmmmmmm…….
We are at 69 fsw, there is still a current on the bottom and the water is 63F. It was only a short time since my first dive and I have reached my NDL. I search out the buoy line and head on up. I am hanging at 14 fsw, 15 fsw, 14fsw…….24fsw. Hmmmm. Lets try that again. I am hanging at 14 fsw, 15 fsw, 14fsw……8fsw…...26fsw. There appears to be a bit of a surge here….a bit strong and I need to concentrate here. I recall my time with Ernie, when Frnak had all the fun….and I got to hover. It served me well…..and I managed to hold my own for my hang.
Once on the surface, Captain Howard spotted me right away and came in for the pick up and I was soon onboard. As stories go….. on this dive “someone”, we wont say who, but it wasn’t me…. Had 5 lobsters make a break for freedom from their goodie bag….
Off in the sand, the propeller and some brass or copper pipe was spotted and there will be a liberation dive coming up. A salvage dive….another thing on my list…..today really is good.
Only one of my two lobster is a keeper and the short guy is sent back down. Since we will be returning here, we needed a name and it is now officially referred to as……… The Princess Cheryl Wreck…… sweet.
As we set sail to our next site we commented on how quickly the fall has passed and how much we were enjoying the warm weather and water. Life is good.
Our next stop was a buoy and drop for Jim and Jim…..they went over and the rest of us relaxed onboard, enjoying the warm weather despite the nuisance of swells of the water. When Jim and Jim returned they reported that they did not have the same luck as we did but were dropped on a huge, as in massive sized links huge, chain that was laid out along the bottom and followed it for almost 200 feet coming across nothing. Too much of this site was sanded in and so we headed out to the Viscaya for our final dive of the day.
I have dove the Viscaya before. A steamer, that was sunk in the dead of night by a collision with the Cornelius Hargraves which also promptly sunk nearby. It was morning before the few survivors were found and the tragedy discovered. Jim W and I were the only two to partake of this dive, and as we went down the line it seemed the visibility was slowly dwindling. We were still at 20+ feet of viz, and the water a warm 64F, with the bottom current still with us.
As I looked around the site was very familiar. We were tied in to near the boilers and I swam up over and around them looking down at the large sea bass hiding inside. Off of the boilers was a large pipe, I remember chasing fish back and forth through here and I swam about revisiting other sights. A large school of trigger fish swam about just off of the boilers and looking high and low not a lobster was to be seen. It was soon time to come up and as I hit the line I grabbed Jims strobe and took it with me, the sign that I was up the line and for him to pull the hook. I hit the surface and was given a tow back to the ladder and after a long day on the water it was appreciated. Jim was just a few minutes behind me and with him he brought a sea bass weighing in at over 3lbs. Not a bad catch. Not a bad day.
Think I will do this diving thing again. After all, I have to go back to the Princess Cheryl.