Virginia Beach, Deep Explorer - Aug 15 &
16, 1998
As we crossed the tunnel bridge bound for Lynnhaven Inlet,
I noticed the easterly wind was causing a bit of a chop and the
weather was calling for 15 Knots and four foot seas. Miss Penny
immediately rendered an opinion, but I was most optimistic. Two
weeks off diving greatly improved my view point. We loaded the
boat at 10 PM and Penny, Steve Meier and I relaxed in the motor
home. Just as we were drifting off, there was a knock followed
by those despised words "Virginia Beach Police". Damn,
I thought Wes had greased the skids with the locals. However,
an instant later we heard the laughter of Mike Boring. He had
just returned home from Guam and was spending the night at Truman's
house.
Again, just as we were drifting off, Ron Wallace knocked.
He was ready to load the boat - it was midnight, or so it seemed.
He got no help from us.
At 7 AM after a fit breakfast a Mickey D's we found Wes at
the boat. He sounded much the same as Penny had 10 hours ago,
but we went anyway. Nine miles or so offshore, the quantity of
water pouring off the roof was a good indicator and Wes stopped
to let the true situation wallow for a few minutes. I'm not sure
what the vote was, but we headed back via the bridge tunnel where
a number of small boats were hiding and even one dive boat. I
think it must have been a PADI torture class intended to turn
off some potential divers.
The real problem with the day was that Steve had two new glittering
tanks that had never seen the water. One of them saw plenty on
that ride. We spent the rest of the day working of the trailers,
looking at high priced boats and eating lunch at Charlie's followed
by a nice nap.
Sunday dawned beautiful and flat clam. We were off to dive
a couple of wooden wrecks. The first was in 110 fsw and rather
small, but fun. We all got some flounders and a bug or two. Steve
got a nice steel artifact that should challenge his restoration
skills. It was one of those days when the dust lays of the surface
breaking up the shine. God only knows why I was sea sick !! Must
have been the Mongolian buffet the night before. It sure seemed
to be raising havoc with Ron and Chuck Wallace. If the head on
the Deep Explorer had not had punishing sea trials before, it
did this day and proved to be the highest performance unit on
the east coast. Wes demonstrated the power of that pump while
Ron and I were hanging. I heard the motor run and knowing what
it was, I looked up into a snowstorm of 'white cloud'. The hang
line was not deep enough. We found out later that Wes had just
thrown a roll of clean paper in there to give us a good thrill.
I'll bet that thing will mulch a Poppa John's pizza box with
a week old pizza in it !
We had been to the first wreck last year and liked it. We
had also been to the second one before, but this time I got to
see most of the wreck and was a bit taken back at the size of
it. I was also taken back by the number of nice flounders hiding
between the wreckage. There was even one that was hiding in a
hole like a lobster. I aimed my gun at him, laughed through my
regulator and went on for something more sporting. I was proudly
toting my string of 4 around when I saw Penny. She learned her
lesson about small stringers of the first dive and was loading
up. I kept getting distracted with observations of the wreck.
I did have to shave a few minutes off the end as I had failed
to bring a full set of tanks. They had a good 50 minutes on them
from the trip on the Wreck Master two weeks before. Why I put
them on Wes's boat with out refilling them I will never know.
Besides, we had a trailer full of tanks - I could have had my
choice of a dozen full ones. At first I didn't tell anyone, but
after such a nice dive I didn't care what everyone thought and
I fessed up. Penny came up with a stringer full including one
really nice big one. It must have just had babies because Ron
had a few of them too.
I was surprised
that in the frenzy of everyone sticking flounder that the biggest
one of all went unmolested. It was an angel shark laying real
flat and looking much like a "door mat" flounder. Two
smaller boats had also pulled up and I heard the "captain"
of one boat say, "and don't come up without fish".
The divers came up any way. They didn't have a chance as we had
been down at least 20 minutes before them. Flounders were flying
everywhere. I even knelt on one to string up the last capture.
The way spears were flying the poor bastards are lucky Ron didn't
shoot one in the fin!
As we headed home into the gathering thunderstorm, we counted
27 flounders that totally filled the fish cooler - which had
been the Buckley's food and drink cooler. It was a fun day. Ron
is getting the hang of spear guns and didn't even loose it -
not once. It was a fine day.
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