2019 Team's new recond

2019 Will go down in the dive team’s history. In this one year the team has recovered 6542 pounds of lead sinkers.

    The team recovers these in the course of our training dives. As the members learn about search patterns and the power of observation we recover the sinkers we see, sometimes they are just sitting on the bottom and are easy just to pick up and other times they are in large balls of fishing line and have to be cut free. 

  So now the divers have to work to cut them free, using a dive knife or dive/EMT scissors. Learning to work underwater is a must because we never know what we may be asked to do (IE evidence dive, body recovery, car or truck recovery) we want to be ready for anything.

    During these dives the divers now have to do some problem solving, we have found sinkers now we have to cut them free and now we have to get them back to an exit point or up to a boat. We use a capped PVC pipe as a sinker tube to carry the sinkers in, only the more you find the more you have to carry and the bigger the tube the heavier it is. Some of the tubes we use can carry up to 60 pounds.

    Swimming 60 pounds of sinkers is no fun, now the divers get to use another tool that they need to be able to use and that is a lift bag. A lift bag is a water proof bag that the diver fills with air and it gives the sinker tube buoyancy and with the right size lift bag and enough air the sinker tube can become weight less, making it much easier to swim with.

    Since the dive team is part of the first aid squad the team doesn’t get a whole lot of funding. But by recovering sinker and selling back to the fishermen at the annual fishing flea market the team is able help support itself.

    In the course of these dives the divers remove large amounts of fishing line and other debris that litter the bottom. These large mounts of fishing line can trap fish and crabs and this turns into a death sentence.

   So by the team’s training dives we are mastering our skills, cleaning the environment, raising funds for the team and making it a little safer for the marine life.

Elk's Polar Bear Plunge

February 1 2020 the Dive Team and First Aid were asked to be part of the Elk’s 2020 polar bear plunge on the beach in Point Pleasant. With the divers suited up and in the water and the first aiders on the beach just in case they are needed.

 

    It is a fun day for everyone, the elk’s provide a free breakfast for the divers and the first aiders. Then it’s out on the sand and get ready for the hundred or so people who plan on jumping into the water.

    We have all our gear on the beach in the squads big five ton truck for all the divers gear and 346 and 349 our four wheel drives to move patients off the beach if needed.

   Today’s conditions could have been a problem, with waves breaking waves on the beach and a pretty good drop off of a few feet. But with the count down and the word “GO” all hundred people headed off the water.

   But like in years past everyone jumped in and pretty much jumped right back out. With a 43 degree water temperature not many stayed in too long. Only a few needed to be helped to their feet after being knocked down by the waves.

   The divers hang around just in case anyone wants to go in again or if anyone is running late. Then Jerry (Mr. Barnegat Bay Island on Facebook) get his group picture

and this year we got one of him because he is always behind the camera and never gets in the picture.

   This is just one of the many events that the dive team and first aid covers throughout the year.

New Year's day dive

New Year’s Day means many things to many people, a new start to a workout plan, a time to change their ways and some to sleep off a night of partying. But to the members of the Point Pleasant First Aid underwater Search & Rescue team it means it’s time to dive.

    Every year the team starts the year off with a dive on New Year’s Day. No matter what the weather is cold, rain, snow, warm we go, high tide, low tide or going in off the beach we go. Since the team can be call 24/7/365 we have to be ready to go in the water.

   2020 first dive was at the boat ramp at the foot of Bay Avenue. This is a great area to dive in but can only be used in the winter as the amount of boat traffic in the warmer months makes it to dangerous. Many awesome artifacts have come up from this area, old bottles, a old brass boat hook and yes even a gun (that was turned over to the police).  This year it was all bottles and a few lead fishing weights.

   Here in the picture are a few of the bottles that came up, an old whiskey flask, a square milk bottle, An old coke bottle from the 1950’s, a broken small medicine bottle, a small blue Bromo-seltzer bottle and three J.R. Lynch bottle (who was the soda maker in the Point Pleasant Beach area for many years).

   There are a few pictures of pass first dives