Scooter-Bound To The Eastcliffe Hall

Sunday, October 21st, 2012 ~ 

Today’s adventure was to scooter to the Eastcliffe Hall, from shore. It is not an exceptionally easy task due to navigation, poor visibility, and some very strong currents.

We arrived to some locked gates at the park, so went next door, and did actually see someone working security.

Eric, chasing down the security fella, to find out where we could get in…

An entry that we did not use…

We checked out a couple of entry points, and opted on one close to the docks.

Since the boats are out of the water, we found a neat little spot where we dropped our gear in. It was extremely gooey here, and as we got in, there were places where we sank right down, into the mud. That made for some tricky fin donning and bottle clipping.

Once we finally got ourselves finned and clipped, we started off, out of the bay. The visibility was absolutely horrible, to the point where you couldn’t even see much past your hand, on your scooter. We knew the vis would be bad in the shallows, and we surface scootered out for a bit, until we got to the marker buoys. We dropped down, and we still could not see anything. The vis just wasn’t opening up. I could feel my thumb get a little itchy, and threaten to come out. I am not afraid of a little bad vis, but to do a 2 hour + dive in this stuff seemed just pointless.

I figured I would have a little faith, and see if we got a little reprieve from the milkiness. Finally, we started to see a little more of our scooters. Still not great, but it was getting better. Ok… my thumb tucked itself back around the goodman handle of my light, and we carried on. On our way out, there was a freighter that passed overhead, that was so incredibly loud, that it felt about 2 inches away from us (no, it wasn’t really that close). It made the earth shake!

After about 30 minutes on the trigger, the visibility really started to improve, and was actually really good! We took a couple of detours (which was inevitable, with the vis that brought us here), but finally made it to the wreck. The current was down, and about 30′ of vis, on the wreck. Way better than when Eric and I dived it last.

We scootered over some really nice sand banks, that could have been taken right out of a desert, as well as maneuvered over some large boulders and rocky areas, in absolutely ripping current.

We toured around, played for a bit, dropped into a couple of the holds, and decided to head back. Along the way, my scooter started to get very tired. Instead of drag behind, I hitched a ride on Steve’s crotch strap, and we were back on track, as we made our way through the shallows. There was quite a bit of surge going on, and I trying to keep from feeding the fish (yes, I was successful). 😛

La la la la la…. We’ll be there soon… La la laaaaaa.

We made it back to the mud, where we all had pretty big grins on our faces, from yet another most excellent adventure! It is definitely never boring in the St. Lawrence River!

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Max. Depth: 90′
Water Temp.: 57
Visibility: Varied from 3 inches to 25′ (but pretty milky). Really decent vis on the wreck.

Chatting, after our dive!

Dusk crept up on us, as we packed up…

Once we got packed up, we went to a neat little pizza joint, that Eric knew about. It took forever to get it, but once we got it, it was delicious!

So, I finally got to scooter out to this wreck. For one reason or another, I had not been able to do it! I look forward to doing it again, in the spring!

*Note to self* Bring Magnum. 🙂