St. Lawrence Trip Report 17Aug02 (Long)

It was a dark and storm...wait, wrong story.

The day started at zero-too-dark-thirty. Driving from Syracuse, NY to cross the border at the 1000 Islands Bridge and drive into Rockport to catch Wayne Green's boat. I dove with him last year but this was the first time this season my s/o and I could get up there.

The drive was rather boring as my s/o and I have been making this drive just about every weekend this summer. We got to the border and were stopped dead for about 20 minutes. We had visions of driving all that way and then missing Wayne by just a few minutes. Luckily, we had given ourselves plenty of time "just in case." We got to the boat ahead of the rest of the folks scuba diving that day. That worked to our advantage as we were able to get the best gear location and seats. The other 6 divers showed up - all from the Syracuse area from my understanding. They had reserved the boat as a charter and we were along for the ride.

We got underway and went to the first dive site. This was a wall dive/drift dive. We let the other divers fall off the boat first. My s/o had never back-rolled off a boat so there was a little apprehension. After watching the others my s/o felt confident. We rolled off and gave Wayne the OK signal. As soon as we had done that, one of the other divers had surfaced in the channel and was calling to Wayne for a pick-up. Guess the current had gotten him and pulled him out into the main boat channel. We had been briefed to stay out of there.

My s/o and I descended. It was pretty close to a shear wall down to about 120 ft. From there it bottomed out about 130 ft. Wayne had encouraged us to find the anchors that were out there by following the cable out to them. I decided not to do that as it would have taken my s/o deeper than we had planned. (This was the first 100+ ft dive for my s/o) My s/o bottomed at 124 foot mine was 120ft on the nose. We drifted with the current while trying to maintain a northerly direction. Well, the current prevented us from really going north so we just drifted. Lots of critters, boulders the size of Waynes' boat, huge walls, no junk, and good viz made this an excellent dive for my s/o's first deep dive. Bottom temp was the same as the surface temp at 75f degrees. Air temp was in the mid 80's and viz was probably 60+ foot. The bottom gradually rises to about 20 ft at the end of the island. So you know your dive is over when you get shallow. We surfaced after our safety stop and were right on the money. Wayne was perfect as he had been following our bubbles and was waiting patiently as we came up. Perfect! Bravo to Wayne.

The second dive was a drift dive between two islands that had a good current going between them. We let the other divers fall off the boot first and then Wayne dropped us in about 30ft of water. We went down and caught the current. Excellent! We went down to 90+ ft and then gradually worked our way up to about 60ft. We tried to stay out of the way of the other divers and in some areas were watching them from above while we drifted over them. My s/o had never expeirenced current so when we went out to swim around a 20ft tall boulder the current grabbed and wrapped my s/o around the rock. Lots of fish, a few eels, long and tall walls that just mesmerized my s/o, boulders, and no junk. Another excellent dive. And again, as we surfaced after our safety stop Wayne was right on the money and waiting for us.

I had originally thought that we would be doing wreck dives that day. I am thankful Wayne showed us drift diving in the St. Lawrence and that the other divers had chartered it as such. That experience was better than the wrecks (imho). Gave my s/o a huge boost in confidence and spent the rest of the weekend telling family and friends what an "awesome" dive it had been. Again, kudos to Wayne.

We docked and loaded up our gear and left. The bad part of the whole day was the crossing back into the US. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get back to the US. But that is to be expected during the weekend. Weekdays aren't nearly as bad.

These dives were great practice for my s/o. They were her 11th and 12th dives post certification. No problems were encountered and now my s/o seems to be hooked on this sport. Our next trip is in 3 weeks as we head to Cozumel for a week. Dive, eat, and sleep - life is good.

Ivanna,

Nice report, could you be more specific on your first dive location.
I have done a number of drift dives at Rockport, but these have usually been along the north wall, Canadian side, within seeing distance, west of the restaurant.

Your description of trying to head north indicates you might have been elsewhere.

:blfish:
Mike D

From the marina we came back under the low section of the 1000 Island Bridge. Wayne had a name for the site, but I'll be darned if I remember what it was.

Good you provide more details...phone number of charter, where the boat is moored, etc...Sounds like a fun dive....Thanks....

Ivanna bubbled: "From the marina we came back under the low section of the 1000 Island Bridge. Wayne had a name for the site, but I'll be darned if I remember what it was."

Could it be the Ivey Lea (canadian) span of bridge?

Mike

For Butch103: Call Dive Tech at (613)923-5101. They should be able to give you Wayne's cell or local number. He operates the 1000 Island Pleasure Dive charter. The boat is moored in the Rockport Marina (Andress Dock??) area. Anyhow, you enter the Rockport Gateway off the 1000 Island Parkway. Follow the road down and around past the tourist boat area, past the restaurant and as you start to climb the hill you'll see an rather steep driveway on the right. Park there and walk down to the shop/marina. He charges $60 CDN or $43 US. His boat leaves at 8:30 for the morning dive and 1:30 for the afternoon dive. Max capacity on his boat is 8 divers plus gear. The boat is clean and well kept, has 02 and first aid, as well as standard equipment of lifejackets. Bring your own drinks (small coolers only) and/or snacks if you plan to rehydrate between dives. He prefers gear bags over gear bins. So we just rigged our tanks and stapped our gear inside our BC's since we didn't bring gear bags. He also will do technical dives with prior arrangement/charter.

For mddolson: I'm not sure I bubbled, perhaps burbled is a better term. We went past the bridge and were out of sight of it when we dove. We were in a cluster of medium sized islands. Unfortunately I'm not familar enough with the area to call the sites nor did I log the site in my book. My s/o logged it, but is not available right now to remind me what the site was called.

For all: There are a few other divers here that have used Wayne's boat and probably know a heck of a lot more about directions, location, and what-not. Please feel free to chime in with more accurate/up to date information. Thanks.

Ivanna ...thanks for the info....as soon as I get these dammed ear infectiosn to clear, I will see if we can't get a boatload to do this. Sounds like a lot of fun.........

MDolson.....diver of many a dives..are you familiar with this area ?....perhaps you could offer some advice also....


Thanks all

Ivanna,
I've never drifted that section right there, though I have dirfted the next passage over several times...Heading up in September, I'll give it a go...sounds Great!!! Love that St. Lawrence!!!!!! GD

Overnight, while unpacking gear, I found Wayne's business card.

Thousand Island Pleasure Diving Recreational Scuba Charters (Ivy Lea).

613-659-3943
plsurdiv@1000island.net

PO Box 415
Gananoque, Ont
K7G 2T9


Hope that helps, hope you all have fun. Sometimes, ya just gotta do something besides the wrecks.

I am familiar with the area of Rockport.
I lived in Brockville for 20 years and dived the area quite a lot.
I am not however familiar with this sight.

The most common dives at Rockport are the Kinghorn shipwreck, which is directly in front of the restaurant dock, about 200 yrds out, marked by a plastic jug, and the second is known as the Rockport wall. It is immediately upstream from the restaurant on the north shore, about 50- 75 yards. The rock face drops down to about 90 feet, then the bottm slopes out to 140 feet.

Theres is another wreck, on the wall, upstream from the reastaurant again, but right where the rocks start. There is an iron pipe in the rock on the wall. This is known as the rum runner.
Cases of square bottles were recovered (I've seen some) with white lightening still in them.
The bow is lying 65-70 feet on the wall, there is line to the rest of it. Pretty broken up, not much left, but interesting if you've never seen it.
The restaurant charges for parking and diving of their dock.
There is a boat ramp, lots of traffic, bring a float and flag.

Mike D
:blfish: