Trip Report: Roy A. Jodrey on Dec 11-12

I decided to get one last trip on the wreck of the Roy A. Jodrey before the end of the season. “End of the season” is of course a bit of a misnomer. There is still plenty of diving to be done in the St Lawrence river in the winter but most charter boats are out of the water by mid-December and the ice starts to become an issue by February. If you get really desperate you can shore dive at the Islander or Bonnie Castle but you may have to cut a hole in the ice an or dodge floating icebergs. Hence my end of season comment…

In December you can have excellent visibility if you’re prepared to deal with the cold. It makes for some awesome conditions which usually means a run to the stern on scooters is well worth it. This is the fourth year in a row I’ve done end of the season Jodrey dives in December. It’s starting to become a tradition and often promises 50-60ft+ of visibility. This however is not a story about excellent conditions but rather a report of the two most extreme and opposite conditions that I’ve ever experienced on Jodrey.

I drove up Friday night with my buddy Sang. The tentative plan was to scooter to the stern which I’ve admittedly only done about 8 or 9 times but I am starting to know it pretty well. I’m certainly not an expert like a lot of the other old-school Jodrey divers or pretend Internet dive warriors. Prior to 2 years ago I had never dove the stern since the line that used to run from the wall I guess has been gone for several years. The stern is like a completely different wreck to me and has certainly renewed my interest in diving the Jodrey a lot more. Prior to my owning a scooter we would usually just stick to the bow section and occasionally swim to the break before turning.

Scootering to the Stern
A lot of people make the stern run out to be something that it’s really not. The first time I ever scootered to the stern I came up with this elaborate plan in my head to run a line across the break section and mark the bow section with a strobe. It all sounded good. In reality the break section is probably only a ~15-20′ gap but it seems like quite a huge leap of faith when you have screaming current and only 10-15′ of visibility. The two sections are also connected at the bottom if you are really concerned. Honestly there is no need to go to the bottom there. Every time I’ve done it I just hit the port side gunnel and follow that. Hammer on the trigger and once you hit the break go and take the 2 second leap of faith at the break until you arrive on the stern section which starts getting shallower. The top of the stern is at around 135-140′. It’s practically a tech-recreational dive at that point. 🙂

Depending on your speed you should be on the stern section in ~3-5 minutes. The Jodrey is 640ft long but DPVs make it seem like a very small wreck. I suspect with the right conditions swimming there would be no big deal but you’d want to be prepared for hand over hand current to pull yourself back to the bow in an emergency. It’s not something I’d recommend or personally want to do but I’m sure back in the day people probably did it for “bragging rights” like anything else.

Anyway back to my weekend dive report. We went out with Dana and loaded the boat in pouring rain at 8am. As is the case in the winter we all geared up into our drysuits in the parking lot for the ~2 minute boat ride to the USCG Station in Alexandria Bay where the Roy A. Jodrey hit pullman shoal and sank. Dana commented on the very interesting eddies and currents that were on the surface. Eddies are not really unusual here but you could tell the current was screaming.

For those that have never dove the Jodrey, it’s essentially a shore dive that you need a boat to get to. The boat pulls up to Wellesley Island near the USCG station, throws an anchor off the stern and ties the bow up to a line on the island inside a small cove. You then gear up and put your bailouts on in waist-deep water. It gives you plenty of time to do a thorough gear and bubble check before dropping down the wall.

Saturday’s dive on the Jodrey
We only had 4 divers on the boat so plenty of room. Unfortunately Sang had an issue with both of his dry gloves flooding and the other diver had a badly leaking drysuit inflator issue (inflator was filling the inside of his drysuit which would not be fun on a 230′ dive.) so they both called the dive. That left me and Chris to dive the wreck.

We both had scooters and wanted to dive the stern so game on. The current was definitely noticeable on the scooter ride to the pipe/line and descent to the wreck. It was really only when we both clipped our strobes off to the bow pilot house railing that we really noticed how “sporty’ the current was. I let go of my scooter and it instantly ended up under and behind me. Fun times..

The visibility was a decent 30-40′ but due to dark overcast and rain there was very little ambient light as is typical on the Jodrey. We were both hoping for 50-60’+ visibility but 30-40′ is pretty respectable for the Jodrey and made us both happy. The scooter ride to the stern was uneventful. The visibility was good enough that you could mostly see across the break. We got to the stern section and were both immediately slammed with an insane cross current that attempted to push us off the wreck.

I’ve had current on the Jodrey before but this was a bit extreme. I’m sure people will think that I’m exaggerating or embellishing the story but I was in speeds 7-8 on my scooter and I was still not making any headway into the current on the stern. Letting go of the trigger instantly pushed me into the side of the wreck. Chris experienced the same thing with his scooter which I believe is a SS Minnus 1.5. Neither one of us could make any headway. Granted both of our scooters are not SUEX Xtreme 5000 Super Expedition Models but all I can tell you is ~55-60lbs sustained thrust at max gear and we were almost moving backwards at the top of the stern. I believe this was my 9th or 10th stern dive on the Jodrey so perhaps this amount of current is normal but I’ve never experienced anything like it on either the bow or stern.

Luckily hiding inside the wreck (and not scootering along the port side gunnel) we were able to get a reprieve from the current. We played on the stern a little bit before heading back to the bow section. Water temperature was 40-42f and deco was uneventful.

Saturday afternoon DPV dive
In the afternoon a few of us decided to do a second dive and go scooter from the wreck of the Islander to the Bonnie Castle platforms. Sang wanted to test his dry gloves again and Jon was able to fix his drysuit inflator issue and wanted to make sure that was working. Dana and his friends had their trusty Seacraft Future 1000s, Jon had his XK and me and Sang were slumming it with my fisher-price Blacktip scooters since Sang’s Piranha was still being repaired.

The visibility was still about 30-40′ but lots more ambient light than the Jodrey. We definitely had a lot more current than usual but other than that the dive was fun. We turned right before “Lisa’s Gift” before heading back to the wreck of Islander. It’s kind of funny. Since I usually stay at Bonnie Castle that is normally where we enter the water. The last time I actually entered at the Islander was probably about 10 years ago. I’m not a fan of the ramp that goes into the water there. Stairs would be much better but I’m not quite sure if the ice would destroy them.

Sunday braille dive on the Jodrey
Saturday night’s heavy rainfall continued with 60-65kt winds blowing straight down the river and I guess pushing water from Lake Ontario into the St Lawrence seaway. It was pretty crazy. I don’t remember what Dana said but I believe the river level went up more than a foot overnight.

I suspected that we would have some diminished visibility but I was not expecting what we got in actuality. Usually in the winter it’s hard to get skunked with bad conditions. In fact you go up to St Lawrence to find guaranteed good visibility when the ocean is trashed. Oh honey, bless your heart..

We arrived at the usual spot, tied the bow up to the line and begin gearing up. Immediately as I was tossing my bailouts into the waist-deep water I noticed something odd. Man there is a lot of particulate in water. I should have known this was going to be a low visibility dive when I couldn’t see my 50% bottle in 2ft of water. I’m dead serious. I knew we were in for a real treat. We soldiered on thinking that perhaps the low visibility only applied to the surface water and that maybe, just maybe we would be greeted with that illustrious and beautiful green glowing 30-40ft visibility that we had yesterday but perhaps with only a few more particulates.

As we begin our swim to the pipe to descend on the wreck things did not improve. Me and Sang opted not to take scooters as I didn’t feel like going back to the stern with potentially unknown currents and reduced visibility. Our plan was just to stick around the bow on this dive. I felt like our swim to the pipe took ages. I couldn’t really see anything until we practically ran into the side of the pipe. For those that have never dove the Jodrey you follow the wall contour at depth of ~20-25′ until you run into an old water intake pipe. From here there is a cave line that goes straight down the wall from 30′ to 145′. You basically super man off the wall and follow the line down to the bottom of a “shoot “and then make a leap of faith at 145′ to open water until you hit the top side railing of the pilot house. It’s basically like a cave dive. For deco you follow the line up the wall and hide in the alcoves doing your deco stops out of the current.

The wrong way to dive the Jodrey
On a completely unrelated note the first time I ever dove the Jodrey I had no idea there was a guideline that brought you down to the wreck. Perhaps this was not always the case. I was diving off the Canadian side of St Lawrence river and we were using a charter boat that was not known for technical diving. The captain was not a diver. He may have actually been drunk but that’s a story for another day. His only briefing was to basically jump off the wall descending as fast as possible and drift at 150-160′ until you hit the wreck. If you missed it you might end up in the middle of the channel and he would have to call the USCG and stop all river traffic which would incur a hefty fine. We did exactly that and thankfully hit the wreck. My first two Jodrey dives ever were like that until I dove the wreck off Andrew Driver’s boat. I thought that was just how Jodrey dives were done. During Andrew’s thorough and extensive briefing he informed us of the intake pipe and a thick paracord guideline that brought you down to the wreck. Holy shit..that sounded much easier and it was.



Back to our Sunday dive
We finally got to the intake pipe and begin our descent. I figured fuck it we’re already here and we might as well give it an honest try. Visibility did not improve. We basically OK’d (held onto the guideline) following it all the way down to 145′. I could barely see the wall in front of me. Sang said all he really could see was the beam of my canister light. Chris was below me and I could just see the back of his rebreather and light beam

Let me just say that I’ve been called a low visibility warrior before. My 20-25′ of visibility estimate often equates to someone else’s 10-15′. The running joke here is when I say 20′ I mean that I can see 10′ on each side of me.

Most people will honestly tell you that I am never one to call a dive on the account of poor visibility. I honestly don’t believe we had more than 1-2′ of visibility. Calling it 3′ of visibility would be an embellishment in my opinion.

I thumbed the dive. Yes I’m that asshole. We could have soldiered on, felt our way around the wreck and saw nothing but what the is the point? I came up here with the promise of good visibility. I’ll save the decompression for another day. Anyway that was our Sunday dive. We descended to 145′ in pea soup 1-2′ visibility and I aborted the dive. Can you really call it a Jodrey dive at this point if you never saw or touched the wreck? I digress..

Saturday was the most extreme current I’ve ever had on the wreck and Sunday was the worst visibility I’ve ever experienced on the wreck. Despite that it was fun weekend of diving. Until then, looking forward to April early season Jodrey dives with 33-35f degree water and the promise of 60-70’+ visibility!

If you don’t want to read all that here is the abridged version of my trip report.
TL;DR – Saturday Jodrey dive = extreme current. Sunday Jodrey dive = 1-2′ pea soup visibility.