This Fog’s as Thick as Peanutbutter !!!

– Yukon Cornelius

You couldn’t see a thing as the Independence slowly picked it’s way downriver and out to sea, thankful for modern conveniences - GPS and radar. Once clear of land, we made moderate speed out to the Stolt. Shortly after tying in, Lock Ness pulled up and shared the wreck. A while later, Ol’ Salty showed up too, but the Stolt is just not big enough for three, and they ended up on the Algol.

Conditions on the wreck were nice, at least 20 foot viz. Still chilly - when is it going to warm up? With the fog hanging over everything, it was dark, so I decided to make it even darker and went inside. As much as the Stolt has fallen apart lately, getting in to the engine room is trivially easy now, with daylight visible in most places you go. Back outside, a quick stroll around the debris field turned up nothing ( pretty much as expected ) and then I spiralled back up around the wreck to clear the deco, and called it a dive.

With the fog thinning only slightly by afternoon, I figured it wasn’t worth getting the camera dirty in the dark, and splashed again empty-handed. This time the viz over the top of the wreck had to be 40 feet, almost sparkly clear, although it was more typical over the rest of the wreck. I popped back inside, and to my surprise, quickly grabbed a couple of lobsters. However, they seemed like “jail bait” to me, and I let them go without even measuring. The engine is quite a piece - three cylinders with valve springs a foot across and rocker arms three feet long. Hopefully Brandon got some good pictures.

For the rest of the day, I can’t say - I put my head down in the cabin and conked out for the whole ride home. It was still a little foggy even at the dock in the afternoon.

“Richie Kohler Day” on the Independence II took us out to the Tolten. The ride out through pretty big rollers left a few people queasy, but the seas improved over the course of the day, and in any case were nowhere near as bad as forecast. Richie wasn’t the only celebrity on board; TV star Becky Kagan was also along for her first North Atlantic dive.

Visibility on the wreck was 20-25 feet. Richie had a wreck diving class going on, and there were just too many divers around the tie-in point near the bow, so I decided to go swimming. The few lobsters I spotted along the way just didn’t seem worth the trouble, and before I knew it, I was looking at the steering quadrant in the stern. A leisurely swim back, and I was finished with dive one.

Dive two I took the camera and basicly repeated dive one, shooting mostly video. The results were unexceptional, but I did a quick and dirty edit of both this and the Stolt Dagali from a few weeks ago and posted the results on those pages.

I’m lucky, I don’t really have to play hooky to dive on weekdays, since I make my own hours. Diving “off-peak” is great - get up later, let the sun rise, no traffic, no crowds, no race with a hundred speedy little fishing boats to find out the spot you wanted is occupied. My advice to anyone who can is, work on Saturday, and go diving on Wednesday !

Mike Moore’s gang filled the boat with six divers. In addition, we had Captain Tony, Renee, and the hardest-working mate in the business, Tommy Donetz. The first stop was the Logwood. The visibilty continues to be better than usual for spring, 15-20 feet. The wreck produced quite a few lobsters and fish. There were also a lot of eggy lobsters, and empty “molts” lying around. I noticed for the first time the tree stumps that still remain from the vessel’s cargo.

The next stop was the “Blue Boat”. This is a smallish ( maybe 50ft ) fiberglass commercial fisherman in about 100 feet of water. No one has an id for it, but it is fairly recent, in the last 10 or 20 years I would guess. This wreck didn’t produce much that I saw, and I felt like six of us were stepping on each other on such a small site. Nonetheless, I overstayed, and racked up a bit more deco than I would have liked. All of us guys admired a large Monkfish near the stern, but didn’t mess with it. Renee went in to pull the hook, and took it with her knife. There’s probably some kind of lesson there.

After that, we spent some time trying to hook into a rock formation, with no luck. It seemed to be there on the depth finder, but the diver said otherwise. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. After the previous one, I was going to skip that dive anyway - not getting any younger. We eventually set off for the Mohawk instead. With the extra surface time, I decided to go too, and Renee said she had had enough for the day, so I sat out a little longer, and pulled the hook.

That had to be the nicest dive I’ve ever done on that wreck. As you might know, the Mohawk is about an acre of scrap metal. Usually, all you can do is run a reel and grub around in the bottom. Today, the visibility had to be 30 feet. For 25 minutes I just swam high and free over the whole wreck, from end to end. Seeing the entire intact bow made me see the wreck in a whole new way. For the first time I got the sense that this was actually a ship and not a junk yard. After an unworried swim back to my blinking strobes, not far from the boilers, I undid the hook and rode it in the current down most of the length of the wreck again. I wish I had brought the camera. Next time.

Back at the dock, I could hardly believe the pile of fish and lobsters that came out of the boat’s cooler. I thought I did ok, but I was clearly not pulling my weight with this group !

Finally, a dive report !

A last minute call on Saturday and I booked a spot on the Gypsy Blood with old friends from Hunterdon Scuba. ( Yeah, Howard, I know where I should have been, but given the timing, I had to go with the sure thing. )

Sunday 5AM. Echh, I haven’t done that in a while. At least it wasn’t so hot. The boat left promptly at 7, and the ride out couldn’t have been smoother. Stifling heat gave way to nice sea breezes, and in only 45 minutes we were there. All the way out I didn’t see one other boat. Wow.

The announced destination was the Beth Dee Bob, but that was soon changed to the Stolt Dagali. Ordinarily, the Stolt is not one of my favorite wrecks. Back in my crewing days, I got one too many free rides out the the famous big lump, and decided that if I never see it again, that would be just OK. But I had heard that it has fallen apart, even that a whole deck has slid off, so I was actually curious to see it again.

Having no particular ambition for this dive, I let everyone else go before I got dressed and jumped in with the camera. Conditions were surprising for springtime: 20 foot visibility, and only a moderate current on the wreck. Not exceptional conditions for photography, but decent enough for video. I spent both dives just shooting. That means mainly swimming around, pushing the camera in front of you.

Needless to say, this gets pretty tiring. Neither of my dives was very long, as with all the hard work I blew through my tanks very quickly. But I did cover the whole wreck, top to bottom and end to end. It has changed. The gallery along the top which used to be such a notable feature of this wreck has split apart, and part of the upper deck has sloughed off. The peak of the wreck seems to have settled 10 feet from where it once was. A little poking around reveals that access to the interior has also become easier. I didn’t go in, as the camera is perfectly useless in the dark. ( And it’s scary in there too. )

I ended up with a good deal of video that I have yet to review, and also some stills. Interestingly, there are not one but two scallop rakes stuck in the wreck now, pretty high off the bottom. The day produced no lobsters or scallops for the boat, and just a couple of fish. As usual, Rich Langbein sniffed out some nice heavy brass pieces. They looked like some kind of pneumatic valves, which I’m sure will be useful for his tugboat project.

Back at the dock by 2 - fast boats are great for running offshore. Thanks to Captain Jim and crew for a great day, and also the little sandwiches. 

This is the first Memorial Day Weekend in 10 years that I didn’t even try to go diving. So I’m counting on all of you to get me some dive reports !