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

Ice Dive ~2015~

Sunday was the Point Pleasant First Aid Dive Teams monthly drill and with all the stories around about kids and trucks going through the ice it was a good time to get the divers ready to in the ice. We don’t always get ice in this area so every time we get ice we get the teams out on it and under it.

   Sunday turned out to be good day for it. We had 5 inches of ice and SNOW! That’s right we started our drill just as it started snowing. Well it’s never a nice day when we get called anyway. So the drill went on.

    We did surface rescues with victims falling in the ice and the rescuers going out to them and getting them out of the water. Going over ice safety and ways to get to the victims and ways to get the victims out of the water was just half the drill, the other half was going under the ice in full dive gear and searching for a lost victim.

   Being under the ice is not for everyone, it is easy to get lost and you just can’t just pop to the surface. You have to be able to find the hole you went in. This is why no divers go in without a line and a tender on that line. The tender can guide the diver using line pulls and search an area looking for a missing victim.

   Our two newest members are half way to be ice diver certified just like the rest of the team. We never know what is going to happen so we have to be ready and that is why we are always out there training! It is better to train and not need it, then to not train and come up short when called!

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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It's not just "Diving".....

   As a member of the Point Pleasant First Aid Dive Team we get to dive in some really cool places and places a lot of divers never get to go! We also get to dive a lot! Training and other missions takes us everywhere. Beach sweeps, recovery’s just to name a few.

   But it’s not all diving. There is first aid training, driving training, compressor operator training, boat training, knowing your knots and search patterns and the list goes on. But wait there is still more! Let’s not forget cleaning all the dive gear, both yours and the teams and keeping the dive truck loaded and stocked up ready to roll if needed. The dive bay doesn’t clean its self! We have to do that too! You can never believe how fast it can become a real mess, sand, dirt, old bottles and dive gear and wet wetsuits and wet dry suits, all have places to hang or be put into.

   You would think you’re done but you would be wrong! We’re also members of the first aid squad too. Someone has to clean the squad building. There is lot’s to do on an old building. Fixing and painting and cleaning, not everybody is a handyman, but we do what we can, you can clean or you can answer first aid calls so other can keep working.

   There are many jobs that need to be done. Answering first aid calls is number one! Fund raising is also a big job that has to be done, without fund raising the first aid would be out of business in no time! So everything that we can do to save money we do!

CPR Certification....

Every year the team has to recertify in cpr and many other skills. This months training drill was our Cpr recert. This year Linda C. dive team member was our training instructor and she did an outstanding job.

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2015 ~New Years Day Dive~

Happy New Year to everyone!! If you didn’t make the first dive of the year you missed one of the best first dive ever! Was the weather great, not really it could have been warmer not as cold as pass first dive or as warm as first dives in the past, but the sun was out and that help with the visibility.

This year the high tide was very late in the afternoon and we didn’t want to make it a night dive, so we planned a low tide dive. We were looking at the rail road bridge and the inlet but we have done this is the past. We did checked the ocean and it was flat so we planned an in and around. This is where we go in off the beach and let the tide bring us into the inlet and to the exit point.

   So off to the beach Max, mike B. OJ, Big foot Joe, Sue L and guest Eric geared up and headed for the water. We had surface support with Sara, Bob S, Flo, Tom C. and a new member Rick and his wife Jess. It was a nice easy walk into the water as there were no waves to speak of. We put on our masks and fins on and just rolled over and headed for the inlet.

  The water saw so clean on the beach, it had to be twenty feet or better of visibility. This dropped down to ten feet at the point of the jetty but was still good. At the point of the jetty were the Atlantic Traveler fishing boat sank a few years back the visibility went right back to twenty feet. The sand has moved out and pieces of the wreck can be seen jam in and around the rocks. (These have not been seen for a few years because of being covered over by the sand.)

   Everyone drifted down the inlet picking up sinkers and whatever they could find. It was a good day getting sinkers, with the bottom laid bare and very little sand to hide them they were there for the picking. Even Max came away with a very nice dive weight he found on the bottom. All toll the dives came away with 173 pounds of sinkers.

   With the water temperature of 43 you didn’t want to sit around digging or looking to long in the rocks. It was best to keep moving to fight off the cold. Everyone made the exit point and with the help of the surface support people we packed up and then it was back to the building for a great lunch of Flo’s homemade clam chowder and grilled cheese.

  Nina V. our team photograph had a field day with her camera, taking over 350 pictures. It’s not an easy job going through them as all of them are so good. She really does have a good eye! We’ll be posting them.

  So it was a great start to the New Year, great people and a great dive and a good time!

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