Red Diving HoodAugust 2018 - Red Diving Hood

Folly Point – 26 August 2018

August 30, 2018 / reddivinghood / Leave a comment

This sunday I had a short break from Fort Wetherill and joined by buddies at Folly Point. Before this year we haven’t dove this place and Bert got some info from a diver about the site and the entry and we said “why not?”

For this site you park at the cemetery and find your way down one of the paths to the water. This time we walked down on the path on the east side of the cemetery. It was getting close to high tide and it was relatively easy in to and out of the water. It looked like the low tide would be tougher.

Unfortunately this week I was warned by my LDS that the reason people did not dive at that location was the parking issue. Even though there were no signs against it, he said people’s car got towed while they were in a dive. I wasn’t that much in love with the site, so I don’t think I will risk it next time. However, it is a good idea to call the PD to ask the rules, even though I know what the answer is.

The dive site had a very gradual increase in depth, covered in big boulders and rocks, sometimes forming huge platforms. We didn’t see anything out of ordinary, the site looked like a preferred habitat for urchins, crabs, lobsters and cunner. It just gave me an opportunity of take some shots of familiar faces and once again emphasize the beauty and welcoming nature of always smiling but often overlooked cunner.

Buddies: Todd B., Dan H.

37 ft, 77min, 58F, ~15 ft viz

Fort Wetherill – 24 August 2018

August 28, 2018 / reddivinghood / 2 Comments

Another night dive after amazing conditions we had last dive. We had quite a few people interested and wanted a piece of magic 🙂

To my surprise the dive was completely different. The visibility had reduced significantly, there were much fewer squid, I didn’t see any school of bait fish. Still we saw a few tropicals, needle fish, short bigeye, filefish. And of course a seahorse. This one actually one of the prettiest ones I saw. It was pinkish cream color with long “hair”. I definitely did disturbed it from its sleep, so I think I will burn in hell for that 🙁

The end of the dive was around the slack tide and it looked like the visibility improved a bit. That may be a good consideration before planning the dives here…

Buddies: Peter M, Andrea D, Erica H, Dan H, Jason F, Amy N.

24 ft, 120 min, 68 F, 5-10ft viz

Fort Wetherill – 21 August 2018

August 23, 2018 / reddivinghood / Leave a comment

I haven’t figured out the parameters defining the underrwater conditions in Fort Wetherill all this time. However, this Tuesday, no rain with mild winds from east, hightide slack, mercury, venus and earth lining up and moon on perpendicular axis, we had one of the best conditions. Beautiful skies, flat calm surface and amazing viz (for FW) underwater.

It was a great dive with amazing bioluminescence, heavily pregnant blue crabs, summer flounders running around, squid of all shapes having dinner of all kinds. Kept an eye out for seahorses for my buddies expecting, could not find any until the end of the dive, where could see two at 3-4 ft water. This year must be the year of seahorses.

For me the highlight of the dive was the ridiculously cute juvenile short bigeye with hearts in its fins. I haven’t even seen one in the tropical waters so it was to my great surprise. After two years of not having many tropicals at this spot I think finally this year we are going to have some fun and colorful visitors. I am looking forward to next few dives here. I know I will do many more, now that I am spoiled with the warmth and all the life here.

Buddies: Dan H, Doug D., Andrea D.

24 ft, 126min, 70F, 15ft viz <3

shrimp with no ID

juv. short bigeye

aesop shrimp in longfin squid

american eel

searobin

scrawled filefish

Fort Wetherill – 16 August 2018

August 19, 2018 / reddivinghood / Leave a comment

Yet, another awesome dive at Fort Wetherill. It was rather spontaneous decision to dive, the winds were from north, even though it looked iffy with high winds during the day we just headed down. Once we entered the water the viz was horrible, 2-3 ft at best. Later on, out in the deeper parts it improved significantly, allowed us a whooping 2 hr dive.

It was a great dive with bunch of squid parading and filefish of variety of colors here and there. But more importantly, all over one rock, my buddy found four seahorses. Is this the season of seahorses or have I been just too lucky?

Buddies: Amy N, Jason F

24 ft, 119min, 65F, 2-7ft viz

Fort Wetherill – 9 August 2018

August 13, 2018 / reddivinghood / Leave a comment

I don’t even know how to write about this dive. I have been watching the weather, looking for that change of wind or calming down so that I can do the first night dive at Fort Wetherill. That’s one of my favorite sites, also one site I have hard time convincing people to dive with me. Especially with Bert not being able to dive with me for some time. Finally Molly and I could get our schedules together and finally bit the bullet. The thunderstorms from the day before and the expected wind and rain on the day of the dive scared away few of our other buddies so it was two of us. We were just going to do the dive, however bad it might be!

To my relief the visibility was not horrible. It was definitely not great, giving me a lot of hard time with backscatter, but still doable. The dive was quite how I experience here during an August night dive, the overwhelming amount of fishes trying to run away from bigger fish by trying to hide inside your mouth; slightly bigger fish darting in and out, random parades of thousands of squid, etc. It was definitely much more chaotic than all other dives I had, it was continuous action all dive long. With all this it was already a great dive.

Then I saw the seaweed in shape of a horse. Nope it WAS a seahorse. It is? Really? Yes. it. was. Holy freaking hell! I still can’t believe I could find one! Right there! I almost lost my arm shaking the light to my buddy, who had her back to me and getting further away! After a minute of desperation of what to do to get her attention finally she came to me and funny enough it took another few minutes to actually make her see the seahorse in the seaweed 😀

This specific one is a lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus), it can be found from Cape Cod to Argentina. It is not one of those tropical fish, hitching a ride on the Gulf Stream, this little fella lives here. It probably has friends and even kids here. However, among all the life we observe in New England, where everything looks and is tough, a dainty creature like a seahorse is beyond imagination. For me it still feels like a dream, if I didn’t have the photos I would easily think it was a dream and I wouldn’t trust my memory. 😀

How do you leave the seahorse behind and continue your dive? You don’t, you hang out with ti until you have no air left and head back, it was a good thing that we saw it towards the end of the dive 😀

Sighting of tens of flounder hunting, thousands of squid parading, stripers and other fish, even some barracudas, darting in and out of the baitball was completely overshadowed with the seahorse. Two very happy girls walked out of the ocean to head back to their home with huge smiles on their faces.

Buddy: Molly A.

18 ft, 107 min, 65F, 10ft viz