We decided to continue the trend of good weather and booked a Saturday morning charter with Cape Ann Divers to the Big Fantastic Wall (BFW) and the Chester Poling. Myself, Matt H., Lea H. and Sang were signed up for the charter.
Visibility not as good as yesterday but still decent. It was ~20ft on the Poling in some areas. On Big Fantastic Wall it definitely seemed less but then again I had my nose up against the wall for the entire dive so it could have been a lot better and I wouldn’t have really noticed.
Big Fantastic Wall is one of my favorite dives when the conditions are right. The wall is absolutely teaming with life and because it’s a “wall” navigation is easy. Simply stay on the wall and explore by going left or right and then turn around until you find the anchor line. Capt. Steve managed to set anchor perfectly so that the line sloped down the wall. In the event the anchor is at the top of the wall what I usually do is run a reel from the anchor line and run it down the side of the wall for easy navigation. If you run your reel down the wall there is basically no way you’ll miss the line.
The wall is covered in northern red anemones, frilled anenomes and plenty of nudibranches. In the summer months there are usually lobsters everywhere on the top of the wall and large schools of pollock. It makes for a really good nudibranch safari dive in the winter so visibility is not really as important.
Big Fantastic Wall
Max Depth: 93ft
Runtime: 55 minutes
Visibility: ~15ft
Water Temp: 38f
Chester Poling
Max depth: 91ft
Runtime: 50 minutes
Visibility:15-20ft
Water Temp: 40f
