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 full.
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. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate bunnies, color-dyed chicken eggs or zombie resurrected carpenters so I decided to go diving instead.
I drove up to Nubble Light and did a shore dive with Asli and Bert. We met at 10:30am and entered the water at Nubble at incoming mid-tide around 11am. Surprising we did a good job climbing and crawling down the face of the rock without any issues. It’s a bit of an easier entry at high tide but still completely manageable at other tides provided you are careful. I like to get as close as I can until rocks get slippery and just crawl down to water’s edge. It may not look pretty but it works. I really don’t give a shit since I’ve seen enough people fall backwards or almost face plant themselves on rocks at Folly Cove. You can’t fall any lower than the ground is my motto. It must provide some really great entertainment to the people watching from shore since diving Nubble Light is a very popular spot in the summer.
I also decided I didn’t feel like busting out the rebreather for this particular dive. It will have to stay nicely rinsed, cleaned and disinfected until the next dive. I find it far easy climbing over slippery rocks or doing beach entries without carrying an expensive rebreather on my back along with all the accouterments (actually only really a bailout bottle..mainly).
Since most of my tanks were empty and I didn’t have time to make it to dive shop I actually used a tank I bought from Craigslist a few weeks prior. The tank in particular needed a fresh visual inspection so I figured I would use the gas in it before I drained it completely. It was apparently filled with 32% and had a date of 04/2013 on it. Not bad 🙂 Almost 3 year old nitrox. Haha. I measured the O2 content before breathing it and it analyzed out perfectly so I didn’t really have any hesitation about diving it and I’m obviously still alive. Darwin apparently doesn’t want me dead quite yet.
We ended up having some great dive conditions. The seas were calm and flat and the visibility was at least 25-30ft with plenty of ambient light. I was pleasantly surprised since the winds had been blowing pretty steadily mid-week so I assumed everything would have been churned up. The incoming high tide must have helped bring in clearer water.
Max depth was ~36ft (11m) and water temperature was 39f (3.8c). Our total dive time was 70 minutes. Even with dry gloves my hands were pretty numb towards the end of the dive.
We didn’t venture out too far since we had plenty of subjects to photograph in close. In addition to the numerous nudibranchs there were several (I guess 3..) juvenile lumpfish that Asli saw. I only saw the one and managed to get a semi-decent picture of it.
This is the second time that I’ve seen juvenile lumpfish while diving Nubble Light. Sadly this is the last Sunday that you can dive Nubble. After April 1st no diving is allowed on Sundays and holidays. Other days are not an issue. I hope to get up there again soon when my class ends and the weather cooperates. As much as I liked diving Peirce Island a lot this winter I like doing something different every once and a while.
