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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New Years Dive ~2014~

New Years day mean many things to many people. Some sleep off a night of partying, to some it means football. But for the members of the dive team it means it’s time to dive! Every year since the team was formed it has had a New Year day dive.

   So think back on some of those New Year days, some were cold, some warm, some were rain and some were snowed covered and a few were very cold!! But we never missed a day. High tides, low tides and a few beach dives, we went in the water. The team could be called any time day or night any weather and we need to be ready to go and this is a fun way to kept everybody ready to go!

  This year was not bad.  We had eleven divers and six surface support people. It wasn’t really that cold for the support people and the water was 39 degrees and in a dry suit that not all that bad. This is what we have to work in so you do get use to it. Some divers can handle it better than other. You do what you can!

   We did dive in the area of the sinker mount that we have been working for the last few months with the visibility at over ten feet we did do some sinker recovery with some of the divers. We’re trying for 2500 lbs of sinkers for the year and we came up one hundred and twelve pounds  which gave us two thousand four hundred forty five pounds and five more weeks to go. So it is a safe bet we’ll make that total.

Sometimes mother nature throws us a surprise, this year it was a slack tide that ran almost two hours late. The tide chart said the slack should be at around 1300hrs. At that time the tide was still running really hard, so we waited and waited, around 1400hrs it had slowed down and we all got it the water. Well it never stopped! The last diver came out of the water one hour and twenty minutes later and the tide was just stopped then. Well the swimming everybody had to do helped keep them warm.

The team had a tag along from the NJ scuba web site and he had never dove the inlet before and even he had a good dive! So Troy lets hope your next dive in the inlet will be better!

                                            Just facts about other new years day dives

  -5 air temp/ with chill of -17

  60 air temp

  Two feet of snow

  Snow storm

  50 feet of visibility

  0 feet of visibility

2011 New Years Dive...

We welcomed 2011 off to its start with our annual First Dive of the New Year. Fortunately, the weather topside had taken a turn for the warmer (40F and sunny) after last weekend's blizzard, so everyone was in good spirits for gearing up. We still had to shovel a path through the snow piles to get access to the dive site, but that also gave Sue the opportunity to do some snow sculpture while waiting for the tide to slow down.

It started out as fun, but then the Spawn of Squanny nearly bit her arm off! Lucky for Sue, the sun intervened and melted off its head.

At the Railroad Bridge, the water temp was about 37F. The ebb tide was running very late, but at some point we got tired of waiting and entered. Even with the current running, we had about 10 feet of vis (our best in a LONG while). Fourteen divers (four of whom drove over an hour to participate) toured the site and came out with smiles. Several divers also collected a diversity of small crabs for delivery to Jenkinson's Aquarium. After gear was cleaned, we all enjoyed a warm lunch and desserts.

We're glad that so many divers could make it out for the First Dive, and thanks go to Robert for documenting the day.

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New Years 2010...

On Jan 1, 2010 we did our annual 1st dive of the year at the Manasquan River Railroad Bridge. The weather was cool but calm with no wind and air temps in the low 40's. Water was a bit cool at 38 degrees but we had 5 feet of vis. The vis doesn't sound like much but after getting blown out for several weeks in a row it was welcomed.
Sue L,. Doug H, Milton R, Joe, S,. Chet N, Tom G, and Tom C all dove. Flo M and Bill C provided shore support. Dive times varied from 20 minutes to 45 minutes for the very hardy. I came out with numb hands after being in the water for about 25 minutes. I managed to find some copper sheathing from some unknown wreck. Chet found a blob top belfast round bottle and a smooth round bottle. Some coke bottles were also found.
We were the only hardy fools there considering we hit the water around 8AM or so. Everyone did have a good time though and we followed it up with a search for some frozen underwater lights on one of the inland shore lakes. Afterwards we had a good lunch at the local squad building.

I have to say that this year was relatively pleasant compared to last year when the wind chill made it minus 18 degrees on Jan 1, 2009. I am hoping for more global warming to kick in for next year.

Hope you had a fun New Year's Eve and Day and will have more to come in 2010.
Tom G

New Years Dive ~2009~

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Water temp 41, air temp 19, wind chill -07. We had pretty good vis. 10 feet.