Seal Dive

I went on a seal dive today. With the weather we had, it didn’t start out well–swells were predicted, and as we were waiting to get on the boat, the heavens opened up and it started pour. After a half hour hold, the captain decided to take us to the Salvages, an outcropping of rocks off the coast of Rockport, rather than the Isle of Shoals off Portsmouth.

We got to the Salvages, and fortunately, the seas weren’t as choppy as predicted, though it did still rain off and on. As we anchored, we could see seals peeking at us from the water surrounding the  rocks.

For me, the first dive was frankly an abortion. I started off the dive with the back of my wetsuit open; all six of us were in the water together; I ended up following the wrong person, the three of us got separated from the dive leader, I led the other two in the wrong direction, and we were never able to reconnect, and all six of us ended up heading in the wrong direction, away from the seals. And the camera strobe stopped firing. Unfortunately, two of the divers had only brought a single tank.

The second dive was better. The captain moved us a little closer to the rocks, and we went down the anchor line and just hung out there. With the strobe out of commission, I put the camera ISO as high as I could, put it back in program mode, and shot with existing light. Eventually a seal showed up, and watched us from a lobster trap line:

Seal by the lobster line Seal by the lobster line Seal by the lobster line

 

2 thoughts on “Seal Dive

  1. Geez. Wish I’d been there! Didn’t sound like the best experience to start with but it’s always great to be with our pinniped friends. RF

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