Today we headed South once again . On the way out the water color changed to a pale blue and the surface vis dropped to less than a foot. First dive was on a ballast pile in about 85 ft which was full of fluke, sea bass and lobster. Vis on the bottom was 20 ft and bottom temp was 48f. I took some nice sea bass, ling and even a winter flounder. The flounder was taken by pole spear just before heading up. I clipped the spear off ( with the flounder still on the slip tip)untied and headed up. At about 40 ft the vis dropped to less than 2 feet. I ended up doing about a 6 minute hang to clear the computer and I could feel the flounder pulling pretty hard on the spear but I could not see it due to the poor vis. Next I clipped off my gear and the fish on a gear line and got back on the boat. Now it got weird! John was pulling up the gear line and said something was pulling back . When the gear and fish came on the boat the winter flounder was bitten clean in half. This makes me wonder how close that shark got to me in the 1 ft of vis. Next stop was on a low snag inshore a few miles but still about 80 ft . Slightly less vis but similar conditions . More flounder and lobster came up. Last stop was on the Caddo where the surface was a little cleaner but not much fish or lobster, just some fluke and sea bass. Either while on the bottom or when climbing the ladder I lost my Go Pro Camera. If anyone finds it I would love to have it back. Its the older style and has a white string lanyard. On the way in Harley cooked up a bunch of cheeseburgers to make this a great day. I hope you got out to enjoy this day on the water also.
This update is in reference to the recent attack on diver with fish in poor visibility water off of barnegat inlet this weekend. Upon careful examination of the photos provided by the Captain and owner of the Lady Godiver by a body of Emerging True Underwater Explorers and leading International Cephalopod Experts, several new facts have come to light! As reported by this True UnderWater Explorer,"the bite radius did not seem to make much sense, it was to big, and the tooff marks were all wrong for a bite caused by any modern day squamous." So I contacted my friends at Wood Hole and had them inspect the photo. What they discovered is very disturbing..
What attacked the fish and nearly pulled Diver John S overboard was something not normally found in the waters off LBI and that everyone survived is nothing short of a miracle...
Ladies and Gentleman, The bites left on this fish were caused by Architeuthis dux or THE ATLANTIC GIANT SQUID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( A hush goes over the crowd)
The fact that is animal even exists up to a few years ago was unknown, accounts found in madeup fisherman stories, but today we know thru science that this animal does indeed exist and lives normally in the deep dark waters off the continental shelf.. until now!!!!!
The actual bite radius of the beak of a giant squid, surrounded by the buccal mass on that fish, extrapolated using the peterson equation would translate to a squid in excess of 24 meters!!!!!!
- Such a beast has never been documented in water of LBI before and its discovery is credited to the author of this article, an internationally recognized true underwater explorer.( the legend grows!!!)
Such a animal would have to eat almost all the time to feed itself the nutrients needed to stay alive. Captain Howard and the Crew of the Lady Godiver should count their blessings in the fact that they were able to escape such a driven beast!!!
Many questions remain unanswered at the time of this writing as to why this animal is here, what are its intentions, and what type of threat it presents to the dive community as a whole....
Updates will continue as more information becomes available.
Any divers seeing said animal or sees evidence caused by said animal, such as marine mammal with bite marks, should not hesitate to report the sightings to the NJ authorities.
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