RAD Diver
Contributor
We went down to Cape Hatteras to dive with JT again, we consisted of myself, my wife Trina, Andy(Drewski), Trey(tknox), Kevin Kramer, Tyler Smith, & Ryan (rmeglath). After getting there & loading the boat Trina & I found everyone at Dirty Dicks having a cool one & JT testing the bartenders parameters. A large thunderstorm blew through & as we left a fantastic rainbow prevailed, giving us a sign that the weekend would be a good one.
The 1st order of business was the site to hit Saturday morning & it was pretty unanimous, TARPON, & as always the weather would determine were we would go. Friday night saw some higher winds than we wanted to see, but the forecast was for them to die down through the early morning.
It was still a bit rougher than we wanted to see as we headed out & the inlet was in an uproar, but JT pushed through it & he decided that we would take a peek out there & see how far we got. It was still a bit bumpy but definitely better than our May trip so it was on, The TARPON, was the call.
I broke out V-Planner & ran several profiles which I transferred to mine & Trina's slates, the main plan was 140fsw for 25 minutes with contingency plans of 30 & 35 minutes, but the run times jumped quite a bit for those extra few minutes. I also ran plans for 130fsw, but knew I would be in the sand eventually so it was really a moot point.
We got to the site & Trey threw the hook, & it hit on the 1st try, not an easy task on a Sub. The water was a beautiful blue, current at the surface was minimal, but JT took me over to see it to make the call for Trina's sake. She has been in much worse on the Spiegle Grove so I knew she would be fine.
We got ready pretty quick & as Trey went down to tie in he took Kevin to do their dive, before Andy who would be 1st ready (the only 1 diving wet) could jump the word came that Trey & Kevin were back on the line under the boat. Was there a problem at depth? They didn't seem to be at all panicked so we all started to jump, we would judge the bottom for ourselves.
Visibility was an easy 80ft, the lead line hit the anchor line at 40 ft & you could see the Sharks swimming in the sand off the wreck. I felt some squeeze & hit my inflator, the cool air rushing into my drysuit from my tank made me think I had a leak, but the water was so warm it wouldn't have mattered, plus I was not calling this dive for anything other than a life threatening event. At 60 ft I decided to unhook my camera & take a few shots while decending. At 70ft I felt more squeeze, hit my inflator, but nothing happened. By now I was at 90ft, sinking fast, the squeeze becoming very uncomfortable. Coming to the top of the Sub at close to 120ft I was laboring to breathe, but didn't want to crash into the top of the wreck, so I kicked off the side & landed in the sand at 141ft. I looked down & my inflator hose was not connected & I was shrink wrapped in my CF-200 to where I couldn't reach back. I looked up & saw Andy on top of the wreck & had thoughts of trying to signal him, but Trina saw me & knew it wasn't normally how I started a dive, she came down & flashed me an OK sign, I nodded NO & pointed at my empty valve. She got my hose & engaged it with my valve. I hit it & the relief was amazing. I floated off the sand & we headed for the stern.
The current was not strong, but it was noticeable, we made it to within 10 ft of the stern, when I saw my BT was at 18 min., turning into the current it easily got us back to the line in plenty of time, we even had time to take some pictures & see the ripped off bow before our 25 minutes were up, but time to go 35 minutes of DECO was beckoning us.
This was the 1st time I was going to use my new Nitek Trio with the deep stop turned on & it should have actvated it at 1/2 my total depth which should have been 70ft, but it hit at 80ft, so I stopped, Trina was a bit confused as we had no stops on our slate for this depth, but when she asked what was up I motioned to stay for 1 minute, she did so.
After that all stops went off without a hitch & we boarded the boat to many smiles & I'm sure mine had to be one of the biggest.
I didnÃÕ have to tell anyone of my squeeze problem, after taking off my dry suit I had red marks all over my arms & back & a perfect circle on my left arm from my relief valve trying to become part of me.
JT had the task of unhooking the sub & left some lines in the water & while he was gone 1 hit, a nice Mahi, Kevin took hold & was reeling it in. It put up a pretty good fight & just as it got to the back of the boat Andy was ready to gaff it, but it switched sides & there were too many people taking pictures that were in the way & the fish got off. Andy wasn't happy, but what can you do.
We had decided that the Dixie Arrow would be the 2nd & shallow dive for the day, 95fsw, not that shallow, but always a good dive.
JT left some lines out & trawled in towards The Dixie Arrow & we got another hit, this one didn't get away & it really tasted good that night, blackened.
The Dixie Arrow is a nice wreck, a big bow, somewhat flat amid ship with big boilers in the stern. Lots to see & explore.
The current was much more noticeable here running from the bow to the stern & we were hooked mid ship. Staying low the boilers provided a little bit of relief & made it quite easy to swim against. Lots of Sharks & tropicals swimming around. A very large Ray sitting off the port side with a smaller Ray doing a fly by very close to the wreck. We made the turn & let the current push us back to the anchor & we just hung out until it was time to go. I noticed Andy heading for the bow, I thought that he was in for a tough swim back since this was at the end of the second long dive & he would be out of the boiler relief coming from that far away. He later told me it was a tough swim back.
The 1st order of business was the site to hit Saturday morning & it was pretty unanimous, TARPON, & as always the weather would determine were we would go. Friday night saw some higher winds than we wanted to see, but the forecast was for them to die down through the early morning.
It was still a bit rougher than we wanted to see as we headed out & the inlet was in an uproar, but JT pushed through it & he decided that we would take a peek out there & see how far we got. It was still a bit bumpy but definitely better than our May trip so it was on, The TARPON, was the call.
I broke out V-Planner & ran several profiles which I transferred to mine & Trina's slates, the main plan was 140fsw for 25 minutes with contingency plans of 30 & 35 minutes, but the run times jumped quite a bit for those extra few minutes. I also ran plans for 130fsw, but knew I would be in the sand eventually so it was really a moot point.
We got to the site & Trey threw the hook, & it hit on the 1st try, not an easy task on a Sub. The water was a beautiful blue, current at the surface was minimal, but JT took me over to see it to make the call for Trina's sake. She has been in much worse on the Spiegle Grove so I knew she would be fine.
We got ready pretty quick & as Trey went down to tie in he took Kevin to do their dive, before Andy who would be 1st ready (the only 1 diving wet) could jump the word came that Trey & Kevin were back on the line under the boat. Was there a problem at depth? They didn't seem to be at all panicked so we all started to jump, we would judge the bottom for ourselves.
Visibility was an easy 80ft, the lead line hit the anchor line at 40 ft & you could see the Sharks swimming in the sand off the wreck. I felt some squeeze & hit my inflator, the cool air rushing into my drysuit from my tank made me think I had a leak, but the water was so warm it wouldn't have mattered, plus I was not calling this dive for anything other than a life threatening event. At 60 ft I decided to unhook my camera & take a few shots while decending. At 70ft I felt more squeeze, hit my inflator, but nothing happened. By now I was at 90ft, sinking fast, the squeeze becoming very uncomfortable. Coming to the top of the Sub at close to 120ft I was laboring to breathe, but didn't want to crash into the top of the wreck, so I kicked off the side & landed in the sand at 141ft. I looked down & my inflator hose was not connected & I was shrink wrapped in my CF-200 to where I couldn't reach back. I looked up & saw Andy on top of the wreck & had thoughts of trying to signal him, but Trina saw me & knew it wasn't normally how I started a dive, she came down & flashed me an OK sign, I nodded NO & pointed at my empty valve. She got my hose & engaged it with my valve. I hit it & the relief was amazing. I floated off the sand & we headed for the stern.
The current was not strong, but it was noticeable, we made it to within 10 ft of the stern, when I saw my BT was at 18 min., turning into the current it easily got us back to the line in plenty of time, we even had time to take some pictures & see the ripped off bow before our 25 minutes were up, but time to go 35 minutes of DECO was beckoning us.
This was the 1st time I was going to use my new Nitek Trio with the deep stop turned on & it should have actvated it at 1/2 my total depth which should have been 70ft, but it hit at 80ft, so I stopped, Trina was a bit confused as we had no stops on our slate for this depth, but when she asked what was up I motioned to stay for 1 minute, she did so.
After that all stops went off without a hitch & we boarded the boat to many smiles & I'm sure mine had to be one of the biggest.
I didnÃÕ have to tell anyone of my squeeze problem, after taking off my dry suit I had red marks all over my arms & back & a perfect circle on my left arm from my relief valve trying to become part of me.
JT had the task of unhooking the sub & left some lines in the water & while he was gone 1 hit, a nice Mahi, Kevin took hold & was reeling it in. It put up a pretty good fight & just as it got to the back of the boat Andy was ready to gaff it, but it switched sides & there were too many people taking pictures that were in the way & the fish got off. Andy wasn't happy, but what can you do.
We had decided that the Dixie Arrow would be the 2nd & shallow dive for the day, 95fsw, not that shallow, but always a good dive.
JT left some lines out & trawled in towards The Dixie Arrow & we got another hit, this one didn't get away & it really tasted good that night, blackened.
The Dixie Arrow is a nice wreck, a big bow, somewhat flat amid ship with big boilers in the stern. Lots to see & explore.
The current was much more noticeable here running from the bow to the stern & we were hooked mid ship. Staying low the boilers provided a little bit of relief & made it quite easy to swim against. Lots of Sharks & tropicals swimming around. A very large Ray sitting off the port side with a smaller Ray doing a fly by very close to the wreck. We made the turn & let the current push us back to the anchor & we just hung out until it was time to go. I noticed Andy heading for the bow, I thought that he was in for a tough swim back since this was at the end of the second long dive & he would be out of the boiler relief coming from that far away. He later told me it was a tough swim back.
