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

Day of Recovery...

The team got to try out some of their recovery skills on Sunday. We were asked a few weeks back to remove some sunken dock boxes out of some boat slips, which we did. We moved them into an area out of the way of any boats knowing we would be coming back for them.

Well Sunday was the day! Divers Joe (OJ) Ali, Linda with Karen and bob for surface support recovered the boxes. The water was 62 degrees, we knew we would be working so we all broke out the wet suits and that was a good call, cause after an hour and a half in the water no one was cold. The visibility was 3-5 feet right up till the time we started moving the box’s around then it was 0.
One box was over 8 feet long and the small one was 4 feet long. Joe and I started digging the box out of the mud that big Joe put the box in. I don't remember putting the box that deep in the mud. While Joe was digging Ali and Linda found the top to the long box and took it down and around the bulkhead to the boat ramp. Not an easy job as at the end of the bulkhead they were in the current that was running at over two knots.

While Joe was digging out the box’s some people in the marine who were watching us asked if we could find a pair of glass’s that were dropped off a boat a few weeks ago. I told them I would give it a try and swam over to the boat that they were dropped off. The bottom under the boat was so soft that anything dropped would be under the mud! So they should still be there. I started out doing a pass over the area staying just off the bottom so I didn’t mess up the visibility. Nothing ever goes straight down so I started there and worked out from that point searching up current and down current moving out as I went. After six passes I found them under an inch of mud. You should have seen the faces of the guy and his wife! They couldn’t believe I found them. They did ask how I did that and I told her “this is what we do!”

Once we got the boxes up on to shore we went back in the water to check out the area and see what we could find. OJ came back with a really nice round bottom bottle and Linda and Ali got some nice soda bottles. I came back with a case milk bottle and a round tape top milk bottle in pretty good shape and a brand new ten inch pipe wrench.

We started cleaning the boxes as best we could right there at the boat ramp and finished cleaning them at the building. OJ and Karen did a great job on the boxes, with a little from Bob and his power washer. All the bottles will take a little more time to clean. We did get one bottle that none from us have ever seen.

So it turned out to be a really good day, we recovered the boxes and found the lost glasses and found some nice bottles and answered some first aid calls and did our dive duty crew. Everybody did a really great job working with no visibility and a strong current and still had fun doing it!!

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Surf & Inlet Extraction Drill 2014....

Sunday was the teams drill to get ready for the upcoming summer season. It was a tune up of the teams surface rescue skills. Tom, Joe X2, Sue, Ali, Bob, Greg and Linda were suited up and ready to go. First aiders Max, Sarah, Corinne and Captain Jerry were also there as surface support.

We started out with using a rescue can as an aid for swimmers, and moved on to entry in to the water with the rescue can with both fins on and without fins. It is not always easy getting in to the water. With waves and currents it can become difficult. With some divers acting as victim and other as rescuers the divers were in and out of the water many times. Entering water and swimming out to the victim and towing the victim back in to the beach and getting the victim out of the water and into the hands of the first aiders.

   We also trained on the miller man back board. This is a piece of equipment that we have on the dive truck and all the squad’s ambulances. It is used if there is a neck or back injury. It has a lot of straps and it’s not the easiest thing to use when you can’t stand and you’re floating. So we do train using it. So if we need it to get a victim out of the water we’ll be ready.

   After a few hours of all of this we called it a day, Tom wanted to get a picture and we lined up so he could get his shot, he has us all jump up in the air and I got a great group shot of all of us in mid air.

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In the debriefing after the drill I reminded the team and the first aiders “anything can happen “so you have to be ready.

As we started back towards the building we stopped to check the inlet to see if we had any visibility so we could dive. What no one knew was I had planned to have Sue jump in to the water and play the victim. She did it so well! No one saw her jump in and it was a surprise to everyone. Linda was the first to act and was in the water in seconds holding sue afloat, she was followed by OJ, Ali, Greg and Bob. The first aiders got the miller man and passed down to the divers and working as a team had Sue strapped down and ready to be lifted out of the water in minutes. Lines were tried on the board and the first aiders had Sue up and out of the water and into the ambulance in seconds.

Photos by Tom Conroy...

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