Sunday was a busy day for the team, we sorted and separated
all 2100 pounds of sinkers for the coming fishing flea market. We separated the
one we can resell and the ones we sell for scrap and then by size. With
everyone pitching in and doing a job we were able to get the job done in just
over three hours. Loading the sorting table with sinkers and sorting and
emptying the bucket as they filled and weighting and marking the full buckets
we had a job for everyone. We may not get to the 3500 pounds we had last year,
but we still have over a ton and we still have a few weeks to go before the
flea market
After finishing with the sorting we had time to get a dive
in, so we checked the water at Manasquan Inlet and saw it was pretty good so we
geared up and headed to Shark River Inlet.
By the time we got
there it was already raining and the wind was just starting to blow, but the
ocean was not all that kicked up yet. We checked and you could see the bottom
and we made plans to start out by the mouth of the inlet as the tide was still
coming in. Rich G. Joe S, Joe S Greg and I headed out to the end of the jetty
with Brandon B. as our surface support.
Getting in was what we have been training on the last few months and it
showed today, everyone got in with no problems even with a three foot swell
rolling in the inlet. Once in the water and on the bottom it turned out to be
really nice, we had visibility around 5-10 feet and some surge but nothing that
we couldn’t handle.
This was a sinker dive right from the start and everyone hit
good spots and sinker tubes started fill fast. In an hour the tubes were full
and lift bags deployed and recovered. Rich G had wanted to try to recover a
rail post from the old boardwalk that is still sitting on the bottom and with
all the team working he got his wish. Not only did he get one, he got two!
Joe
S and I wanted to hit a good spot that I had found, so we both geared up and
headed back in. As we were getting ready the two bridge tenders came down and
were talking to us about what we do and what’s on the bottom, so the team made
some new friends we got a picture of all of us all together
Joe and I headed
back to where we entered on the first dive and got back in. By this time the
weather was starting to pick up, with the raining coming down harder and the
wind blowing stronger and the waves starting to pick up and most of all the
light was starting to fade. But with what little time we had left we filled our
sinker tubes and headed up to get out.
Joe went first and
I waited on the bottom so the guys on the surface only had to work to help one
guy out at a time. I started swimming down the inlet to get away from the surge
and the swells that had by now picked up. As I hit the surface Joe was out of
the water and I threw the flag line with the tube and lift bag up to Rich and
he pulled it in leaving my hands free. By now it was dark and time to go.
But in those two
dives Rich got his rail posts and the team got two hundred and ten pounds of
sinkers and we made two new friends in Katie and Katie our bridge tenders
I think we may need a bigger table. The new sinker total is
now 2406.4 pounds
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