Category: Boat Diving

Trip Report: F/V Patriot Wreck with Cape Ann Charters (Daybreaker)

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F/V Patriot

Quick Trip Report We managed to sneak out and get two great dives in this morning on the F/V Patriot in Stellwagen Bank.   East Coast Divers had booked a full charter and we had great group of divers on-board the Daybreaker. Managing to get out to Stellwagen Bank in the fall is always a risk especially in October but nevertheless we had good conditions on the way out.  Flat calm seas and very little swell. Unfortunately things picked up a bit (as the marine forecast predicted) in the afternoon as…

Trip Report: St. Lawrence River with Blue Foot Diving

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EDIT: This blog post is about a month after the trip. I finally got around to posting a trip report so it’s missing a bunch of details. I decided to head up to the St. Lawrence River for a long weekend of “warm” fresh water diving with a group of friends.    For those who aren’t in the know, diving in the St Lawrence River is often called the “Caribbean of the North.”  The warm top layer of water from Lake Ontario feeds into the St Lawrence River Seaway, combined…

BFW, Poling, Halfway Rock and Newcomb Ledge

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Blown out weekends = quarry/mine I haven’t really been posting too much on here since the past 3 weekends has had me out of salt water action and up in the quarry/mine working on the Esperanza Mapping Project. Prior to that we had an excellent long weekend of diving up in the St. Lawrence River. I spent Friday and Saturday up in Vermont giving my gear another good fresh water rinse. Clearly my gear desperately needed some salt water immersion and Sunday finally came through on that. Sunday Funday We had…

Great Lakes Diving: A week of diving in Presque Isle & Whitefish Point

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SS Comet

I wanted to do a quick recap of my Great Lakes diving trip to Presque Isle (Lake Huron) and Whitefish Point (Lake Superior).  This was my 2nd time diving up in this area. I went last year in July for the first time with my friend Shawn and was blown away by the diving up here.  This year we planned to do 4 days in Presque Isle, MI (Lake Huron) and 3 days in Whitefish Point (Lake Superior). What can I say? First of all, it was truly awesome diving with…

Goosefish on the wreck of Patriot in Stellwagen Bank

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Wreck of F/V Patriot

The trend of good weather continued on Sunday for our charter out to the wreck of the Patriot.  East Coast Divers chartered the boat to dive the wreck of the F/V Patriot in Stellwagen Bank. The Patriot was a 62ft steel-hulled western rig dragger that sank on January 3 2009 with the loss of her two crew members. Today she sits in approximately 100ft of water in Stellwagen Bank off the coast of Massachusetts.  A Coast Guard investigation found the cause of sinking to be the result of a rapid…

Wreck of the Northern Voyager

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Mooring on Northern Voyager

The weather looked much better on Saturday but the winds were “predicted” to be a little dicey on Saturday morning so instead of motoring out to the wreck of the Coyote we opted to dive the wreck of Northern Voyager which sits behind Thatcher Island and is a much closer run. Thankfully the weather and the marine forecast were completely wrong. There was not a ripple in Lake Atlantic this morning.   It was an absolutely fantastic morning. The Northern Voyager was 144ft factory fishing ship that sunk in 180′…

Morning and afternoon charters aboard Daybreaker

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Daybreaker

I was scheduled to crew for both the morning and afternoon charters this Saturday aboard the Daybreaker with Matt.    The morning charter was scheduled to go to the Big Fantastic Wall (BFW) and Diver’s Choice and the afternoon charter was scheduled to go to Halfway Rock and then back to Big Fantastic Wall (BFW) again. On the morning charter we had a full boat combined with an advanced nitrox/deco procedures class being taught in sidemount. Knowing full well the amount of gear and tanks that typically ends up on…

Elusive harbor seals at Graves Light

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Jim needed deckhand for for his Friday morning charter out to Graves Light so I offered to jump on and crew.  I don’t really crew much on the Keep-AH anymore; I got burned out for lack of variety in scheduled dive sites and to be honest I’d rather be fun diving instead of teaching/crewing.  Still..I do enjoy diving in Boston Harbor and miss some of the regular customers. He had a customer who just wanted to hire a private guide/DM and also wanted some tips and pointers about their new…

Fantastic visibility on wreck of Pinthis

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Tied into the Pinthis, seas were glass

I had nothing on my schedule for Sunday and no definitive dive plans. This is one of those rare times when it pays off to keep your last minute options open. I was talking to Heather about something unrelated and she mentioned she had a last minute cancellation on her Sunday trip to the Pinthis.   Of course I immediately jumped on the spot. The Pinthis is one of my favorite New England wreck dives. The Pinthis was a steel coastal oil tanker that that collided with the steamer Fairfax…

2 Hour 15 Minute Shore Dive at Old Garden Beach

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rEvo rebreathers at Old Garden Beach

Because the marine forecast called for high winds 20-25kts SW with gusts up to 30kts Matt decided to bag the charters for Saturday. Instead I met up with Brie and Scott on their rebreathers to do a nice long shore dive at Old Garden Beach.  Me and Matt were originally supposed to drive the Daybreaker down to Scituate to dive the Pinthis but that would have not been a fun ride in a 10kt boat in those conditions. In fact it would have been long and miserable. Anyway, not wanting to…