This gallery contains 9 photos.
Yesterday was a great day for diving. I was with my friend Jack, along with Barbara, Alek and Natalia on Jack’s boat anchored off Loblolly Cove in Rockport. The weather was perfect; warm, sunny, and not much of a swell. Continue reading
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Last night I did a combination late afternoon dive and night dive with my friend Andrew. The weather was supposed to be dicey, with rain and possibly thundershowers, but we lucked out; the rain held off until the end of the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 8 photos.
I was fortunate enough to go for a pair of boat dives with my friend Jack Hinz yesterday. The weather was just great – on the way out, we could see Boston in the distance. Because of the wind direction, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 10 photos.
I did the East Coast Divers shore dive to Cathedral Rocks today. It’s been a while since I dove Cathedral—it’s a pretty site, but not my favorite, because it requires shlepping all your gear down about 50 feet of rocks, and generally, … Continue reading
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:
This gallery contains 12 photos.
I did the East Coast Divers shore dive to Folly Cove a week ago Sunday. I took most of June and July off from diving, but Folly is one of my favorite sites, especially the left wall. At one point, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 9 photos.
Two of the folks I was fortunate enough to meet during my trips to Bonaire are Jack and Jane Hinz. Jack is an old friend of Paul Adler’s; with Paul, he was one of the first people to dive the … Continue reading
This past weekend I attended the 2013 Boston Sea Rovers Annual Clinic. The Sea Rovers are one of the oldest dive clubs around, having been founded back in the 1950s, and boasting such past and present members as underwater cinematographer Stan Waterman, explorer Robert Ballard and photographer Ernest ‘Ernie’ Brooks II. The Clinic is an annual divers show in the Boston area, and is split between an exhibition hall, hourly seminars, and a film festival. During the day, each hour, there are three seminars; each seminar room is devoted to a certain theme, but you’re free to attend any one you wish. The exhibition hall is typically split between manufacturers (often of technical diving gear), local retailers, local dive clubs, and other organizations, like the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, The Stellwagen National Marine Sanctuary, and others. The Clinic is also a great place to re-connect with old friends. Continue reading
This gallery contains 9 photos.
I did my last dive of the season today. There were three of us, plus Dan Easa of East Coast Divers, and we ended up at Old Garden Beach in Rockport. Despite the impending storm two days away, the sea was flat, and the sun was relatively warm once the fog burned off. Once we were in the water, we snorkeled out to about get some depth under us, then descended. We swam over the sandy bottom, then moved further out into the rocks. There were lots of crabs, of several different sorts, plus we saw a sea robin and a school of fish. Continue reading
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Thursday night, I did a night dive off Back Beach with a group from East Coast Divers. It was an awesome dive; the water was relatively warm, the dive was easy and we saw a lot of stuff.
The main point of a night dive is that things come out in the night that you can’t see during the day. And the highlight, for me, were the squids. I’d never seen them here in New England before, but I saw a bunch of them on this dive. We also saw a bunch of very small lobsters, a flounder, a small skate, and a shorthorn sculpin. Continue reading