Saturday we headed 65 miles to the DURLEY CHINE (Bacardi wreck). The team of Bill and Bill got us tied in right by the boilers. There was a layer of dark/brown plankton rich water in the middle of the water column but once you broke through the bottom seemed to drop out and you were treated with an awesome sight. From 100' you could see divers lights spread out on the wreck 80 feet below. Visbility was easily 80 feet and probably closer to 100' on the bottom and was absolutely AWESOME. Lots of large lobsters about, a few scallops, and not much in the way of fish life although a couple big monkfish were spotted. Not sure when the last time anyone has been on this wreck but the bow is no longer pointing towards the surface as was reported 10+ years ago. The bow is now pretty much a jumbled mess but the stern is still partially intact and rises 25-30 feet off the bottom. Most divers also noted the aggregations of some sort of snail (they werent moon snails) which appeared to be breeding and leaving large clumps of white egg (?) masses on the bottom. It was pretty interesting and no one on board had ever seen anything like it. A few artifacts came up including an old bottle and an old ceramic jar which was stamped with an English manufacturer (the wreck was of British origin). Sunday we headed to the RESOR and it was bug-a-palooza. Lots boated along with a couple nice fluke, and a couple cage lamps. Visibiility was 40-50 feet and sadly, scallops were missing from the menu as they were very few and far between on the bottom. Hopefully they come back soon. Also found time to check out some numbers over the weekend. Got to splash a new (to us at least) wreck, and confirmed another set worth splashing in the future. Capt Dan dropped Sean and I on one of the new set of numbers and we were happy campers when the first thing we saw on our approach to the bottom was a large propeller sticking up high off the bottom. Only did a quick bounce to see if there would be any merit to future exploration and I think the answer was "yes". Identification should be easy... all we have to do is finish scraping the marine growth off the letters on the stern ;-) Will post videos and photos once I catch up on some sleep. Truly an incredible weekend of diving!
|