Sunday, March 30, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Treasures...
If you look up treasure in a dictionary you will see 1)
Wealth stored up 2) something of value. To some it would take a treasure chest
full of gold coins and gems, to others it as simple as an old bottle. It’s all
how you look at it.
What
are you looking for? We all would love to find a treasure chest full of gold
but that is not going to happen. Some of us have found gold and silver and old
bottles. You just have to start looking. At times something as small as a penny
in the street it’s all treasure! One
man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Being a diver I get to find treasures most people don’t get
to see and that is under water. People never think about divers and throw
everything in the water. That is why it is always a good place to dive around
docks, bridges, and walk ways by the water. I have found many wedding bands and
rings in this one area. I think because it is easy to drive up and park your
car right there and just toss the rings right in to the water. It could be if
he/she wants the ring back their can go find it and in to the water it goes.
Bad for them good for me!
In
the old days trash was dumped in to the water and it was gone, out of site out
of mind! It also happens on dry land,
trash pits and old out houses were the dumps in their days. Bottle hunters look
for and dig in these sites. Some do very well digging in these sites and not
just bottles, rings and coins are just some of the other things their find!
Underwater you have
to have a eye to spot thing because marine growth cover everything. I was on a
dive one time where a diver picked up a bottle that looked broken and it was
coved in growth, but he kept anyway and late he cleaned it up and it was a
whole short pony bottle, it was a real nice find! So it is a skill you have to
work on, if you’re not sure what it is bring it up. Until you know what you
have you hang on to it! Not everything just sits on the bottom, some time you
to dig, but you have to know where to dig. Knowing where to dig can save you a
lot of time and time is something you don’t have a lot of underwater. Water
temperature, currents, air supply and light all work against you, so by knowing
what to look for and where to look for it you have a better chance of coming up
with some treasure.
And then there are days like when you get a phone call from the local Life Guards who say they have found something submerged in the surf and ask for you to come out and take a look. After a bit of poking, prodding, and investigation the "Treasure" turns out to be a World War Two mine and the military DOD comes out and blows your treasure up with C4 in the surf just to be safe...
Maybe not the most attractive treasure found by the Dive Team but lead fishing sinkers have been a favorite of many divers to sharpen their underwater skills and have been very beneficial to the Dive Team equipment fund. Several "Tons" of sinkers have been gathered, cleaned, sorted, and sold at the annual Fire Department's Fishing flea market each year...
One of the most intriguing objects has been a small brass container that is made up of three compartments and is dated April 1876. It was found in the Manasquan Inlet and still has not been identified....
.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
~2014 Sinker Sale~ Point Pleasant Fire Company Fishing Flea market...
It took the team eleven and half months to get 2579 pounds
of sinkers and five and a half hours to sell every one. This week end was the
Point Pleasant fire departments company #1 fishing flea market and as in the
past they give the dive team a table to sell all the stuff we found throughout
the year. Sell we did!!
Two thousand five
hundred seventy nine pounds of sinkers, hundreds of lures, many fishing poles,
anchors, and old bottles all for sale, and everything was recovered from
underwater. We do clean the lures and
the sinkers of old line and any debris that hangs on to it.
We were ready for
the doors to open and the mad rush of people looking for deals! Well it didn’t
happen that way! People did come in but not like in years past. Sales were OK but
kind of slow and it was not just us. Nobody was doing very well. There just wasn’t a lot of people.
Our sales did pick
up late in the morning and we started moving a lot more sinkers. Paul D. had
his hand truck and was kept busy taking half buckets of sinkers out to the
parking lot. Half of bucket here and a half bucket there and we well on your
way to getting cleaned out, One sale took all our bigger sinkers. Another sale
took over half our lures and that’s how the morning went.
By 1:00 we were pretty
much done, most of the vendors were packing up, we had two half buckets of
sinkers left and looked like they are going back to the building with us! But
wait!!! As we were loading it on the truck one last customer came up and took
everything we had left. Nothing but empty buckets and one fishing pole were
going back with us.
It was a really
good day! We sold everything. It was the best we ever did and the most we ever
made. “If you bring it someone will buy it”.
You would think
after working all day selling sinkers we would take a rest, but you would be
wrong!! We checked the water and it was
really clear so it was off to get gear and hit the inlet.
So Ali, Bob, Joe,
OJ, Greg, Linda and I all suited up and jumped into the inlet with Paul and
Milton as surface support. Being on call 24/7 we have to be ready at all times
so this keeps us on our toes!! The water was COLD! I could feel it on my face
the minute I hit the water, but the visibility was so good with over 10-15
feet. Everybody teamed up and started looking around.
The inlet is always
changing, sand moves here and sand moves there and you never know what you’re
going to find. The find of the day goes to Ali, she found a brand new watch and
it had the right time on it!! Joe followed that up with a nice silver ring!!
Linda and I came out with a full sinker tube and some quarters and a clip of
30-06 bullets and Linda got a nice bottle too. Joe out did us on the bottles
also! He got a bottle I have never seen before.
After over an hour
the divers started coming out and checking out our finds. It’s really nice
having surface support to help the divers getting out of the water and helping
the divers out of their gear. Paul saw Joe’s bottle and got on his I-phone and
found out it’s a soda-milk bottle from the 40’s. With the last diver coming out
an hour and twenty five minutes after going in, it was time for coffee and to
head back to clean up and start the next year’s great sinker race again!
.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Tempus Frigid
On Sunday January 26, The Point Pleasant Dive Team was able
to take advantage of the cold temperatures affecting the east coast. The
temperature stayed below freezing long enough for ice to form on some of the
local waterways. The conditions looked perfect for some Ice diving training.
Ice can form quickly in the local waters if the conditions
are right. This beautiful formation can be dangerous as it presents an enticing
new playground to walk across or play upon.
Many times the ice can be deceiving. Weak spots can form near pilings or
cracks can be hidden just under the surface. These can cause the unsuspecting
victim to plunge into the water or under the ice without warning. The Dive Team
must be prepared to respond to these emergencies, so when we get the
opportunity we train in the surrounding areas waters.
We headed out to a quiet spot in Bayhead. This area presents
a perfect place for the team to train. It is off of major roads and the terrain
offers many areas of interaction with the ice pack.
Chief Nesley led the day reviewing the many techniques
specific to Diving and Rescue Procedures on Ice. Four divers took turns falling
thru the ice into the frigid waters. There is nothing like feeling first hand
your body falling thru the ice and the feel of the ice cold water shocking your
body. Even wearing the appropriate exposure suit the cold can quickly zap the
strength from your fingers and extremities.
Ice diving requires specific techniques be applied for the
safety of the divers and support personnel. One of the most important is the
use of Line Communications. As each Ice Diver is required to be tethered via a
line while under the ice, communications to surface personnel are executed via
a series of line pulls. Each one letting the Line Tenders know of the divers’
current situation or needs.
Joe, Linda, “OJ”, and Bob each took turns diving under the
ice while the others acted as surface support.
While under the ice, each diver practiced Navigation and/or Search and
Recovery techniques. As well as tasks like finding our Chiefs foot stuck thru a
hole in the ice.
It was a cold day both under and above the ice. However,
each of our divers will walk away with just a little more understanding and
experience of the local waters during the winter.
.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
2,501 lbs. of Sinkers in eleven months!!....
Sunday looked to be the day we get the 2500 pounds of
sinkers the team has been trying for. An hour and half before high tide the
water looked really good. We checked it with a shell drop and we could see the
shell go down for over ten seconds. So it was back to the building and get
geared up for today was the day !!
Linda
C, Joe (OJ) S, Joe S., Greg M, and I
were the divers and Mike B., Bob S. were our surface support and Sean M. was
our first aider. So we were all set for a big day. When we got back to the
inlet and ready to go in something happened to the water! It was mud brown!!!
We dropped a shell in and we saw it hit the water and that was it! It was
pretty funny watching everybody just standing there looking at one another.
Well this is what we do, so it was gear up and get in and get the job done.
I was going to go
in and set up a line so everybody could get to the sinker spot. I hit the water
and it was lights out, below ten feet it was so dark you couldn’t see anything!
It was a night dive! Even with a dive light the visibility was 6 inches to
maybe a foot. It took me ten minutes to find the sinker mount and tie off to
it. Everybody started getting in and you just could not see a thing.
Joe and Linda
worked the sinker mount and OJ and Greg worked a new spot that I started
working. After an hour divers started coming out of the water and we saw how
bad we did. We only needed seventeen pounds to make twenty five hundred pounds.
It was not looking good!
Joe S. was the last
one out and he worked his way out along the seawall, picking up what sinkers he
could find. It was a good thing he did! Cause when we cleaned the sinkers we
found out we had eighteen pounds. We had made it by one pound!!!!
So in eleven months we got twenty five hundred pounds of
sinkers!
Some sinker facts
60 dives to get
2501lbs
5 gallon bucket
holds 260 lbs
Best day was 191
lbs
Sinkers came out
of Manasquan inlet and shark river inlet...
Over 1300lbs came
out of one spot that was no bigger than ten feet by ten feet...
Saturday, January 11, 2014
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
