The Return of Diving Peirce Island The weather and tides finally cooperated enough for me to try diving Peirce Island again but this time we wanted to enter at the original entry point. From my research a couple weeks ago I knew it would be about a 10 minute walk in full SCUBA gear to get to the old entry point for Peirce Island. This area is unique because there is wall that drops off to ~70ft. The entire wall / rock face is covered in frilled anemones, making it…
Due to the massive construction project that has been going on at Peirce Island I have not been able to dive one of my favorite winter shore diving sites for nudibranch photography. This has led me to research other possible entry points or dive sites in the Picataqua River. I’ve only explored a couple areas so far and while I haven’t found anything similar to the massive hydroid field at Peirce, I have managed to find some cool bottles so that has been an added bonus. Since I knew the…
Just how many times can one dive the same dive site before you get bored? Lots. It’s no secret that I’ve been diving Peirce Island practically every other weekend this winter. Unfortunately with most dive charters getting blown out or not enough people to run, boat diving can be challenging in New England winters. Since one of my goals this year was so do more macro photography and practice with my camera I’ve been relegated to shore diving and Peirce Island provides endless subjects to photograph and is very…
The weather in Boston this weekend rivaled the arctic with air temperatures of -9F (-22C) and with strong winds making it feel closer to almost -20F (-28C!). Not a great weekend for diving as you might imagine but few of us decided to brave it anyway and go diving on Monday (President’s Day) since it was holiday. Unfortunately the air temperature on Monday wasn’t that much better than Saturday or Sunday; It was around 14F (-10c) when we entered the water if I remember but I think it finally…
One of my favorite shore dives in New England is a site in Portsmouth, New Hampshire called Peirce Island on the Piscataqua River. The Piscataqua River is technically not a river at all but a tidal estuary that has some of the fastest moving currents in the United States (around 4 knots 7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph according to Wikipedia) at it’s full force. As such this dive site can only be dove at slack tide after carefully evaluating currents. You typically can only do one dive here before the currents are too strong.…
