August 5 dive to the Stolt Dagali
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Independence II pulls up to the dock |
Summary:
Saturday 8/5 Trip on the Independence II to the Stolt. The surface temp was 75+ while the bottom was 50. Highlights include: 30ft of visibility, lobster, scallops, mussels, mermaids and delivery service???? Something’s not right!
Details:
The crew from Adventure Scuba of Conshohocken, PA headed out on the Independence II to the Stolt Dagali. Always looking to clock some more time on my KISS rebreather, I joined the trip.
When we arrived at the wreck, there was a dive boat already tied in. Since their group was finishing up their first dive, they offered to share the wreck. The timing worked out well as they would be doing their surface interval while we dove and vise versa. Bill Trent was crew this day. Since he and I have buddied up on previous dives, I was planning to jump in with him, help tie, then do our dive. With the other boat in place, the plan changed. We could not drop a line, so Bill swam the chain down the other boats line. Divers coming up gave us quite a puzzled look as we went by. Bill was Open Circuit and I was CCR, so he could drop down the line much quicker than I could. I was really no help at all. He quickly found a spot to tie in, as I was still getting neutral. I arrived just in time to send up the signal.
We headed down to the sand to look around. Winter flounder where so thick you could not swim more than a foot or two without scaring one away. Some were so large, I thought they were fluke. Unfortunately they stirred up the bottom as they left. Lobsters were abundant, and even I was able to get my hands on a few. Mine were on the short side though so I left them to scurry back to their holes. Bill had a few nice bugs in his bag, and was now fighting with a big one, deep under the wreck.Inflatable Water Slide I could not see him through the silt, but on occasion I caught a glimpse of the glow of his bright 21 watt HID. Eventually he was the victor. He emerged from the silt and gave the signal to head up. We did not have a scale, but I’d guess the bug was in excess of 3lb.
Some of our divers were just headed down as we went up the line . Only the crew was left on the boat as we arrived. Before long, bikini clad women started swimming by the boat. Is this normal on your dive trips? As it turned out, the other boat was chartered by an all women dive group out of New York. Several members of the group knew Captain Dan and Captain Jay, and have been on the Independence before. With the boats only 30 some feet apart, and the water temp near 80, they decided to stop over to say hi.
The divers on our boat were all men, and the boats were tied into the wreck close together. You can imagine the confusion as our divers climbed up the ladder to see women aboard. After the first double take, many had to check the large letters on the stern, clearly spelling out “Independence II”. Yup, this is the right boat.
Shortly the other boat started up their grill and we were awash with the smell of barbecue. More and more women stopped by mentioning that there was a huge spread of food aboard, far too much for them to finish. Before long the ladies graciously stopped back with some of the leftovers: ribs, chicken, salsa, chips, salad and finally margaritas all wrapped in Ziploc bags. This was the first time I’ve seen food delivered on the Stolt. It was all quite tasty, and after smelling the barbecue for the last hour, we were getting very hungry. The margaritas would have to wait for the end of the second dive.
We headed in for a quick dive, and then to pull the hook. Dave had seen a large lobster in a pipe below our line. Bill and I looked for it, but with no luck. We circled around the side of the wreck into the current. Bill picked up a few more lobster before we headed up to untie. I tried to provide some assistance this time by getting some slack on the line. A few seconds latter and we were flying over the bottom. We scurried up, did our hang, and boarded the boat. We were quickly on our way back from one of the more memorable diving days.
Thanks, ladies for stopping by. It was good to meet you, and the food was great. Whoever made those ribs, they were fantastic! This is one diving day we’ll be talked about for a while.
Tags: dive, SCUBA, scuba nj, scuba training, wreck diving