Category: Shore Diving

Scootering at Old Garden Beach

macado

It’s been a while since I’ve been in the salt water (ok I just realized that’s a lie..it’s been a while since my rebreather has seen salt water) and had a few things I needed to test.  Most importantly, my aqualung/tear aid repair job on my exhale counterlung.  I also wanted to test my repaired battery on my Suex Xjoy2 scooter and my new Light Monkey bailout system. What better place than Old Garden Beach in Rockport, MA on a Sunday morning. Me and Mike W. met up at Old…

Diving Canoe Beach in Nahant, MA

macado

This morning I got a nice early dive in before work with a few friends at Canoe Beach in Nahant, MA.     Canoe Beach is one of my old favorite haunts;  It’s a fairly shallow dive with an easy entry and has some very nice underwater topography compared to most shore dives in New England.    A prominent attraction is a rock formation called the “chimneys” which you can enter from the right side and literally go through them and come out the top.  There is also another small…

Easter Dive at Nubble Light

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diving nubble light

Not too much to report for the last few weeks since my weekends and weeknights have been busy studying for the USCG captain’s course. Thankfully on Sunday I got a break from class because of the Easter holiday and decided to dive Nubble Light (aka Cape Neddick Light). I’m not a huge fan of chocolate bunnies, color-dyed chicken eggs or zombie resurrected carpenters so I decided to go diving instead.  Diving Nubble Light is always great without the crowds, especially in the winter when the parking lot is not usually completely…

Do you even work? Peirce Island double dip

macado

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…

Frozen dog shit, mud & Peirce Island nudibranchs

macado

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…

Diving Peirce Island & nudibranchs

macado

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.…

Caustic kitty litter: Bringing your rebreather to Cozumel redux

macado

I decided to bring my rebreather down to Cozumel again since I was going to be there a month and wanted to get some deeper dives in. You can see my August trip report for more thorough information. As per usual I brought my rebreather on the plane as carry-on. I dive a rEvo II Mini which is about as travel friendly as any 45lb rebreather can be. After removing the tanks and stand I wrapped the entire unit in a grill cover to make unit look like a backpack…