OP
Okay big news from over the weekend, but first a general account of the conditions. The viz was horrible almost everywhere, with suspended snotty globs that made it like diving in a blizzard. We noticed though, that at depths below 70' it opened up quite a bit. It also appeared that up north of the inlet the water was blue, however, we learned the hard way that appearances aren't everything, and got stuck in 15' viz on Casino. Most of the reports that we heard over the radio described 20-30' viz. A groundswell built throughout the weekend, getting to be pretty big by Sunday and causing a strong surge, even on the Castor... which brings me to the big news.
The Castor has broken yet again, with the port forward half of the cargo bay portion of the hull cracked clean through and waving in the breeze. One crack appears to coincide with the break on the starboard side amidships and the other is at the port forward corner of the cargo bay, where it attached to the bow.
Here is a diagram that shows the location of the breaks. The yellow section was waving back and forth, swinging 2-3 feet on the big surges.
This is a picture taken from inside the port walkway just aft of the midships break, looking forward.
Here is the same crack, as seen from inside the cargo bay.
I took this picture of one of our divers, and you can see the same crack from above, as well as the crack in the outboard side of the walkway, and the skewed angle in the hull.
Here is the outboard walkway on the bow crack, as seen from the very forward edge of the cargo hold, looking out and aft.
This how the bow crack is running across the port walkway taken just above the ladder going up to the forecastle. It seems as though its running across here and then running along the outboard walkway/hull weld to the vertical break shown in the previous picture.
I think that we are probably going to see some more major changes in the Castor before long, and I should also mention that at times it seemed as though the entire front half of the wreck was twisting in the surge... not just the yellow section of the hull in the diagram.
I also went back to the Castor to try to take some pictures that showed the Goliath grouper and the baitfish, but I really had a tough time. I had to get so far away to get grouper and the baitfish in the same frame, that many of the Goliath grouper became just smudges.
There was a ton of bait. I left my strobe on, because I was trying to show the grouper and the bait cloud, and as you can see, they pretty much obscured everything in the shot.
This was about the best I could do to show the grouper. This was one group of seventeen, there was another comparable sized group out in the sand, and then another comparable group milling about on the wreck.
We did the Castor for the first dive of both trips (all new passengers) because we felt it had the best vis around. We got 70' viz in the morning and about 60' in the afternoon. We also did Black Condo for the second dive of each trip, which of all the reef sites normally has the best vis. In the morning we went from about 40 foot vis at the beginning and end of the drop, to about 70' in the middle sections. There was a similar curve on Black Condo in the afternoon, going from 35 to 55' vis in the middle sections, then back down to about 35'.
Here's one of our divers in the middle of Black Condo on the morning trip, you can still see the other divers pretty clearly, way back in the frame.
There are a good number of decent sized hogfish around... not monsters, but decent.
The Castor has broken yet again, with the port forward half of the cargo bay portion of the hull cracked clean through and waving in the breeze. One crack appears to coincide with the break on the starboard side amidships and the other is at the port forward corner of the cargo bay, where it attached to the bow.
Here is a diagram that shows the location of the breaks. The yellow section was waving back and forth, swinging 2-3 feet on the big surges.
This is a picture taken from inside the port walkway just aft of the midships break, looking forward.
Here is the same crack, as seen from inside the cargo bay.
I took this picture of one of our divers, and you can see the same crack from above, as well as the crack in the outboard side of the walkway, and the skewed angle in the hull.
Here is the outboard walkway on the bow crack, as seen from the very forward edge of the cargo hold, looking out and aft.
This how the bow crack is running across the port walkway taken just above the ladder going up to the forecastle. It seems as though its running across here and then running along the outboard walkway/hull weld to the vertical break shown in the previous picture.
I think that we are probably going to see some more major changes in the Castor before long, and I should also mention that at times it seemed as though the entire front half of the wreck was twisting in the surge... not just the yellow section of the hull in the diagram.
I also went back to the Castor to try to take some pictures that showed the Goliath grouper and the baitfish, but I really had a tough time. I had to get so far away to get grouper and the baitfish in the same frame, that many of the Goliath grouper became just smudges.
There was a ton of bait. I left my strobe on, because I was trying to show the grouper and the bait cloud, and as you can see, they pretty much obscured everything in the shot.
This was about the best I could do to show the grouper. This was one group of seventeen, there was another comparable sized group out in the sand, and then another comparable group milling about on the wreck.
We did the Castor for the first dive of both trips (all new passengers) because we felt it had the best vis around. We got 70' viz in the morning and about 60' in the afternoon. We also did Black Condo for the second dive of each trip, which of all the reef sites normally has the best vis. In the morning we went from about 40 foot vis at the beginning and end of the drop, to about 70' in the middle sections. There was a similar curve on Black Condo in the afternoon, going from 35 to 55' vis in the middle sections, then back down to about 35'.
Here's one of our divers in the middle of Black Condo on the morning trip, you can still see the other divers pretty clearly, way back in the frame.
There are a good number of decent sized hogfish around... not monsters, but decent.
