Sinker Dive for Flea Market...

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

Capt. Gavin

There is nothing like a nice warm bed, 5:30 in the morning is no time to be laying there only to hear a call go out for the dive team for a big fishing boat on the beach with people on aboard. Hit the floor and get dress and out the door in minutes.

   We had divers on scene in minutes along with the first aid and fire dept. Not much could be done at that time as we waited for another fishing boat which was suppose to come and try to tow the 77 foot Capt Gavin off the beach. With a strong east north east wind blowing and seas running over six feet that was going to be a very hard thing to do. The fishing boat never showed up and a call went out for a tug to come down from New York. But they too had to turn around due to high seas and high winds.

   So after eight hours on the beach we headed back to the building to get out of our dry suits. We stayed ready to answer the call to go back if anything happened, as the crew of three stayed on board and didn’t want to get off.  The new plan was for a tug to come down the next morning and try again on the next high tide. A bigger tug started down on Thursday morning and hit the same high seas and strong wind like the day before and it too turned around. 

    But all was not lost as the salvage crews used the time to pump out all the fuel on board and lighten the boat by 64000 pounds and used line from shore to hold the ship in place. The team was on hand for a few hours just in case something happened.    With the crew off the boat the team had no more business on the beach. It was all in the hands of Don-Jon and Budget towing.

  The new plan was to wait for Saturday and a change in the weather. Saturday came and you could have not gotten a better day. The seas flatten out the sun was out and it was pretty warm. The tug was there and ready to go. The plan was to turn the boat around so the bow was facing out. With a tow line out to the tug and a line to a front end loader on the beach the boat was turned and was ready to tow away. But by the time it was all done and ready the tide had dropped and the tow had to be put on hold until Sunday.

     But salvage crew didn’t wait for Sunday they pulled the Capt Gavin off the beach on the next tide high which was a little after midnight and also the highest tide of the day. Now it’s off the repair yard for the boat.

   A job well done! The boat is off the beach and no one was hurt and no oil in the water.

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Sinker Sale 2015 ~Fishermen's Flea Mkt~

Sunday was the fishing flea market held by the Ocean Fire Company #1 in Point pleasant Beach, It is held every February and has been for the last twenty years. Every year the fire company gives the dive team a table so we can sell all the cool things we find under water.

   It’s mostly sinkers but we have sold some funny things in the past, many fishing poles, fishing pole holders, anchors, boat parts, old bottles, tools and one year we had a three foot tall concrete owl that Tom and Sue pulled from the inlet. I never thought that we would ever sell it, but it was the first thing we sold!

   This year we were going in a little light in the sinker department. It wasn’t a great year for sinkers. We had other things we needed to get done and the weather was not always on our side. We finished the year with 1705 pounds.

  In 2013 we had 2579lbs, 2012 we had 2036lbs. and in 2011 we had 2116lbs. I don’t have the other numbers right off the top of my head, but it was always over 2000 pounds. We still did very well and this is the team’s one big fund raising event. Just about everyone from the team was there, new guy Rich, Sue, Linda, Mike, Bob, Greg, Joe(OJ), Joe(big foot) and Paul too. It made the job of getting 1705 pounds of sinkers in to the building and the tables set up for selling.

   The team always has a good time with all the fishermen that we see. It is the same guys coming back year after year to buy their sinkers from us! So now we get to start over training and diving and hoping this year we can get 3000 pounds.

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Dive Team Duty Crew "Saves the Day"!!...

 

Point Pleasant First Aid and Emergency Squad, an all volunteer first aid squad, has the coverage area from the Manasquan Inlet to the southern end of Mantoloking where Route 35 splits into two separate highways north and south.

This year the squad and it's Dive Team set up dive duty crews that would make sure they had a Dive Team crew available from 5 PM until 8:30PM. This would allow for quicker response times to water emergencies in their coverage area after the lifeguards went off duty.

Each year more and more people visit the beaches and stay later or just go onto the beach after hours for free. This means more people swimming in unprotected water.

Saturday evening, 8-31-13, on one of the last days of the official season as the Dive Team crew were walking on the beach near Martell's and Jenk's, a woman struck up a conversation, asking why they were there. As they spoke she looked up and saw her son get caught in a RIP CURRENT that sucked the boy underwater. The diver, Paul DeSalvo, sprung into action and swam out and had to search under the surface for the 10 year old. He managed to grab him and bring him back to shore safely.

The entire summer of training and preparing for just such an incident paid off in split second of action.

The odds of him going under while the rescue team was in sight are unbelievable but he is alive and well and, thankfully, not the subject of a search and recovery by the area emergency services.

Several important factors are brought to the squads attention with a call like this;
1st No swimming in unprotected waters unless you have others with you...

2nd  Watch out for Rip Currents. Especially without lifeguards present or after hours or off season...

3rd  If you or a family member are dragged under the water and have water in the lungs and are coughing and spitting up, it is vitally important to seek medical attention at the hospital...

Many people have died from a secondary drowning or "Dry Drowning," where they have enough water in there lungs to suffocate as they lay down or go to sleep.

Enjoy the water but be careful, we want you to come back again next season.

 

 

Route 35 Bridge Search Project...

The Rescue Dive Team responded to a request from the Point Pleasant Beach Police department to survey the underwater area around the Route 35 bridge over the Manasquan river. This area is often used by swimmers and it is common for people to jump from the bridge abutment into the water…

 

 

The Police department requested a search for potential underwater hazards resulting from hurricane Sandy debris and the removal of any objects that could pose a problem to the swimmers…

 

 

 

Due to the venturi effect around the Route 35 bridge the Dive Team used numerous search lines to complete the search in the selected area. By using a “running jack” pattern the area from the West end of the bridge abutment to under the bridge was searched for debris. Special emphasis was placed on debris that could drift out by current from under the bridge into the open area and the navigable waterways. The Eastside of the bridge was also searched out to twenty feet…

 

The Dive Team did remove a concrete base object with a four foot pipe embedded in it which obviously could have been a hazard if struck by a person jumping from the bridge…  

 

The whole area under the Route 35 bridge was found to be clear of storm debris and in fact the Dive Team has explored and practiced this area in the past and the waterway is cleaner now than before the storm...

 

 

 

 

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Swept Away......

The stories have been told and retold of the enormous damage Hurricane Sandy caused along the east coast. Today we were reminded of the impact that powerful storm had on the area and how it personally affected one family.

The water wasn’t looking that great for a dive, so the team decided to use the day for boating and search pattern training. It was a good day to hone our skills and teach the newer members some of our procedures. We headed out in Rescue 34 and headed towards the Rt35 Mantaloking Bridge. All along the shore were reminders of Hurricane Sandy. Docks twisted or stripped of planking. Houses that are broken in half or sunken into the ground. Walls crumbled into piles of debris. A house stands in the middle of the waters. Ripped from its foundation and dropped into the bay. The water lapping at the second story windows.

After surveying the area we found a stretch of land to practice our search skills. We split into two teams. Chet, Joe and Sue in Team 1 and Gibby, Sammi and “The Other” Joe in Team 2. The debris field offered a great way to examine how items are affected by strong weather. Here were the remains of a house that was demolished by the estimated 22 knot current created by Hurricane Sandy near the foot of the Mantaloking Bridge. The entire roof was torn from the rest of the structure and floated across the bay.

 

 

As we approached the structure we found a group of people searching through the debris. One of the women, Nancy G., explained that it was her Grandmothers house and that they were collecting things to help recreate what was lost during the storm. She and her son Sam were brought here by Julian. Julian had heard about their loss and called to offer her boat to take them out to the remains of the house. Nancy agreed and invited Charlie, a family friend to accompany them.

We were all moved by their story and offered our help. We sorted through several lifetimes of memories. Furniture, books, clothing, photos, all jumbled together in the attic space. Nancy went back to the dock with the first boat of salvaged items. The boat returned with Nancy’s sister Rebecka on board. She told little stories of each item she tried to save. A favorite T-shirt from when she was a little girl, a chest of blankets, small rolls of fabric that had been used for decorating the downstairs. Each one a small reminder of her family’s life spent in this 85 year old house.

 

We helped supervise a tow of their salvaged items back to their dock and then it was time to call it a day. We were a little tired and a little cold, but we were all happy to be at the right place at the right time to offer a little help.

It's all in the training!....

As you can tell by our previous posts...its all about Hurricane Sandy. Its hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t seen it first hand. Everyone is doing their best to get things back to normal. Yesterday we helped out a friend a bit by retrieving a lost piece of salvage equipment. It made for a great day.

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Today, it was back in the water for more search and retrieval. This time at a local marina. Some of the items that had been lost during Sandy had been recovered from this area, but there were still more to be found. Chet led a team of six divers consisting of Joe, Bob, Tom C., Gibby, Tom T. and Joe #2. Sammi helped Chet with shore support.

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The water the day before was just less than zero visibility. Today….it was even worse. If your hand was touching your mask, you knew it was there, otherwise you may as well have just closed your eyes the entire dive. For most divers this is a “No Go” situation. Not the type of diving that your typical sport diver should even consider trying. Add to that equation the cold water, strong currents and debris and you can see how easily a diver could get in trouble.

However, this is what we train for. This is why we train in all diving conditions. This is why we practice working, salvage techniques, navigation and team work in underwater conditions that most people would just laugh at. Because when its time to get the job done…we want to be as prepared as possible.

We setup an out and back search pattern with guide lines. This helped a great deal with navigating in the murky muddy darkness. Sweeping our arms out, we slowly crawled over the search area. Fishing Poles, Job Boxes, Tools, Signs, Boat Canvas, the list goes on and on. At the end of the day the dock was covered with items retrieved from the murky depths.

To some it may have looked like a bunch of crazy divers in cold murky muddy water. But to us...it was just another day doing what we love most.

Time to deliver the mail....

Saturday brought us a beautiful clear sky and a brisk wind. It also brought us almost zero viz! But since when has that ever stopped our Dive Team?

One of our friends lost quite a bit in hurricane Sandy. Flooded house…flooded business and lost gear. One of the items just happened to be a piece of underwater salvage equipment called a Mailbox. This is a large pipe approx 3’ in diameter and 6’ long, weighing in at 400lbs! And it was our job to find and recover it asap.

Chet lead the team of divers consisting of Joe, Bob, Gibby, Bond and newcomer Sammy. Chet and Sammy stayed topside to help guide the operation while 2 teams of divers used search lines to pinpoint debris that had been lost in the hurricane.

While searching we found items such as lawn chairs, drain pipes, rope coils and even a hedge trimmer! Joe and Bob found the Mailbox after several sweeps. They used our 500lb lift bag secured by running lines thru the pipe itself. No problem floating an item this large when you train for these kinds of things...but the big question was…how are we going to get it OUT of the water?

 

Our friend suggested he could get a crane over to lift it out. However we have Chet’s incredible knowledge as a rigger and quickly devised a plan of action. We setup our ladder as a ramp and used our winch from the Dive Truck to gently pull the Mailbox up onto the dock. With a bit of extra muscle from some members of the First Aid squad that showed up…success!

But wait ..what is that large white area over by the dock? What was our final find of the day? A commercial bathroom stall door! We all laughed and pulled it from the water. Just another piece of debris to add to the massive cleanup at Point Pleasant.

 

Driving back to the squad building we all remarked at the devastation around us. It was obvious that it was going to take a lot of time and a lot of help to get this town back to its old self. Today we felt like we were able to help…just a little bit.