Diving After Hurricanes

Hurricane Cristobal stayed well out to sea on its trip up the Atlantic coastline, but the storm surge did a great job of stirring up the water column, as we were to find out on our dive trip out from Belmar last Friday. In Central Jersey, small craft warnings were announced two days before we went out, and 6 foot seas with swells 12 seconds apart pretty much insured the bottom would be dark and murky.

Hurricane Cristobal August 2014

Our first stop was a small wreck in 90 feet of water that some of our divers were hoping to do some digging on, looking for artifacts. Unfortunately, the bottom was pretty churned up, making it difficult to see too much. It was close to what we call a "braille dive." When I reached the bottom, I tied in my wreck reel and went the opposite direction of all the other lines I saw. I never saw anything besides sand, an occasional rock, and a few little fish. Visibility was less than a foot, and I had to use a flashlight to see the sand from 6 inches away. After ten minutes, I gave up and went up. Nobody spent more than 10 minutes down there.

Our dive boat was clearly visible from 40 feet, so the upper water column was clear.

Our second stop was a site known locally as "The Photography Wreck." Nobody would be taking photos today. I followed the line down to the sand and couldn't even see the strobe light flashing on the line. Dark and cloudy. Another braille dive. I aborted the dive and decided the gas in my tank could be better spent somewhere else. Most of the other divers did likewise.

Our third stop was the "Northeast Sailor." The NE Sailor has a sandy bottom and we hoped that we might at least have some some viz. Luck was with us, and we had what could only be called "NJ okay," which means 3-4 feet of viz. Most of us had been on the site before and since it is a well defined shipwreck, navigation was possible even with the visibility as bad as it was. I found a nice 3 pound lobster, and a few other lobsters and sea bass were caught as well.

Captain Paul said we weren't likely to find better viz anywhere else, and we decided to stay on site for a second dive. 

Not the best day diving, but I don't think any of the divers on the boat regretted missing work.