Favorite dive story of 2011

[27 sailfish]

Figured sharing dive stories might help winter pass by faster.


I did not get to dive as much as I wanted but still managed some fun trips. Most were local near Annapolis - viz. never good , 2 feet at best. Hoping to dive more in 2012.

One trip that still makes me smile was looking for a lost plow type anchor. Friend has a side scan unit and agreed to look for it.

These units are sweet and really give insight to what is down there. We put out marker jugs and slowly criss crossed the search area.

Sure enough - we saw the distant J shape of the plow anchor. Threw a jug over the spot and over I went. Got to bottom and had about 6 inches of viz. Put a stake in bottom and attached wreck reel to it to do a circle search.

Got out about 12 feet and bumped into a log. Felt along it and it had an odd shape to it. Slowly my hands gave me a picture of it - perfect J shape about 30 inches long. I had to laugh as I put lift bag on it and took it to surface.

Got back in the boat and we side scanned area again. The " anchor " was gone - no doubt the strange shaped log was what we spotted. Never did find the anchor.

[spynet000]

I got one.

Hit a wreck off O.C. last year with Andy and my buddy Bret. Andy had just gotten a brand spanking new dive light ($150+) and lost it on the first dive. Somehow it came unclipped. At our surface interval he didn't act pissed but I knew he was deep down. The wreck we were on was big and visibility was beginning to drop with the current picking up so we figured it was a goner. This wreck was also fairly deep so we didn't have much time to spend at the sand searching. I looked around as best I could amongst the wreckage while spearing but found no light throughout the dive. My hope was that Andy somehow stumbled upon it. At 800 psi I started heading back to the anchor line and proceeded to untie the hook when I noticed a his bight yellow light sitting on the anchor chain. By this time I was running low on gas so I slid the light on my stringer and proceeded to pull the anchor and start my ascent. Andy had already surfaced and was on the boat at this time. I spent my safety stop thinking about a good prank I could play on Andy with the light I found. As I approached the surface I could see a pair of legs dangling off the boat awaiting my arrival. I didn't have the heart to play a prank on someone so anxiously waiting to see if the light had been found, so I told him I shot a big one and handed him my stringer of fish with dive light attached. He was stoked it had come back to him. I should have hid it and asked him later on how much he'd pay to have his light back :-)

Andrea got me a new 6' Gat-Ku pole spear for Christmas and I can't wait to hunt some fish with it. Ocean City water temperature is near 47 degrees. It's almost time!