wjefferis
Contributor
I decided to add a little something special to my birthday, so today (6-1-08) I decided to start off my birthday festivities with a dive on the Oriskany. I arrived on the dock at Seville Harbor at 6:00 am and started getting my gear together while I waited for GlenFWB to arrive. Today I set out with Dr. Dive www.drdive.com he runs a 26 ft Catamaran six pack that is quite a comfortable and quiet ride. Eric Kline aka Oriskany Divemaster www.oriskanydivemaster.com was the DM and let me tell you all the good things that I heard about him were true. He made the day fun, easy, and safe. As an extra bonus GlenFWB as a birthday present paid for a guided tour of the island which was fantastic.
The day was beautiful with only a few clouds in the horizon. The ride out was a little bumpy with two feet seas, but they quickly began laying down about half way out and the rest of the ride and day was smooth. With June 1st being the start of the Snapper season for federal waters the fisherman were out in force and there were already five fishing boats on site and us with the whole site to ourselves!!!! Eric quickly tied in and we were off in no time. Luckily the fisherman began leaving when we splashed because I had on idiot cast his bait about an arm length away from me while going down. The slime layer is still there, but once you pop through that the visibility went to 70-80. Unfortunately the slime layer cut down on the bright ambient light that my camera likes and many of my photos were very dark even though it was plenty bright to the eye. Since I knew that my camera was not going to be working optimally and I just dove this site two weeks ago I mainly took things in more. There was a light surface current but there was nothing at depth, water temperatures were very comfortable in my 3mm with a bottom temp of 70* (Ill check my computer later for surface temps if anyone wants to know). The highlight of both dives for me was venturing away from the Pri-Fly bridge out over the flight bridge at about 100fsw. During this time I could clearly see the flight deck out to the end on my left and could see the entire island to my right, just when I thought things could not get better Eric pointed up and there was a sea turtle with some AJs hanging around it just swimming gracefully by. That was too cool! Unfortunately the pics dont do it justice at all. We continued along the port side of the island and entered into the Navigation Bridge at 117fsw. This area is very cool. After looking around a bit we entered the map room and then exited out the starboard side. We made our way by the American flag which was just stunning to see hanging there.
After a bit more looking around it was time to surface and we were met by the Wet Dream and H2O Below as we surfaced. During our surface interval Eric took care of everything while we high-fived and talked about how cool of a dive we had. Right as the gang on the H2O Below and the Wet Dream were finishing their first dives we were splashing in for our second giving us the whole site to ourselves again. This time we checked out the Pri-Fly and the station that looks over the flight deck, kind of an observation place (not sure of the official name) and some swim throughs in the island. We just really checked out the finer points of the island and had a blast. Finishing this dive put me at dive 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I must say Eric did an awesome job, even though I have dove this site two times before he really made these two dives something to remember and since he is the divemaster I have personally blamed him for all of my dark photos that didnt come out
. Captain Jim was great and I was really pleased with his boat I will definitely be back on his boat again, talking about that we talked about setting up a dive to the Brass Wreck in the future.
Once back at the dock I received an official Oriskany Divemaster shirt guaranteed to bring about calm seas, sunny skies, a plethora of marine life and super hot women to every dive site from what I hear. Once I got back over to Dive Pros to get my tanks filled back up I got a birthday hook-up of a free shirt there as well (score!!!!!). This was definitely a birthday to remember.
Here are a few pics from the dive; I will post some more when I can get some cleaned up a bit.
The day was beautiful with only a few clouds in the horizon. The ride out was a little bumpy with two feet seas, but they quickly began laying down about half way out and the rest of the ride and day was smooth. With June 1st being the start of the Snapper season for federal waters the fisherman were out in force and there were already five fishing boats on site and us with the whole site to ourselves!!!! Eric quickly tied in and we were off in no time. Luckily the fisherman began leaving when we splashed because I had on idiot cast his bait about an arm length away from me while going down. The slime layer is still there, but once you pop through that the visibility went to 70-80. Unfortunately the slime layer cut down on the bright ambient light that my camera likes and many of my photos were very dark even though it was plenty bright to the eye. Since I knew that my camera was not going to be working optimally and I just dove this site two weeks ago I mainly took things in more. There was a light surface current but there was nothing at depth, water temperatures were very comfortable in my 3mm with a bottom temp of 70* (Ill check my computer later for surface temps if anyone wants to know). The highlight of both dives for me was venturing away from the Pri-Fly bridge out over the flight bridge at about 100fsw. During this time I could clearly see the flight deck out to the end on my left and could see the entire island to my right, just when I thought things could not get better Eric pointed up and there was a sea turtle with some AJs hanging around it just swimming gracefully by. That was too cool! Unfortunately the pics dont do it justice at all. We continued along the port side of the island and entered into the Navigation Bridge at 117fsw. This area is very cool. After looking around a bit we entered the map room and then exited out the starboard side. We made our way by the American flag which was just stunning to see hanging there.
After a bit more looking around it was time to surface and we were met by the Wet Dream and H2O Below as we surfaced. During our surface interval Eric took care of everything while we high-fived and talked about how cool of a dive we had. Right as the gang on the H2O Below and the Wet Dream were finishing their first dives we were splashing in for our second giving us the whole site to ourselves again. This time we checked out the Pri-Fly and the station that looks over the flight deck, kind of an observation place (not sure of the official name) and some swim throughs in the island. We just really checked out the finer points of the island and had a blast. Finishing this dive put me at dive 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I must say Eric did an awesome job, even though I have dove this site two times before he really made these two dives something to remember and since he is the divemaster I have personally blamed him for all of my dark photos that didnt come out
. Captain Jim was great and I was really pleased with his boat I will definitely be back on his boat again, talking about that we talked about setting up a dive to the Brass Wreck in the future. Once back at the dock I received an official Oriskany Divemaster shirt guaranteed to bring about calm seas, sunny skies, a plethora of marine life and super hot women to every dive site from what I hear
. Once I got back over to Dive Pros to get my tanks filled back up I got a birthday hook-up of a free shirt there as well (score!!!!!). This was definitely a birthday to remember.Here are a few pics from the dive; I will post some more when I can get some cleaned up a bit.
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