Photos: http://www.geocities.com/tiswango/0930orion/
 

Team: Jody (Lead) and Matt (deco)

Time: 8 PM

Seas: Flat

Temp: 82 degrees

Water: 80 degrees

Visibility: Past the nod of light beam, 40 ft horizontal

Gas: Jody 30/30 Matt 32%

Current: .25 knot on bottom, .50 between 20-60ft, and little on the surface

Depth: 94 feet (planned 100ft for 30 minutes

Bottom Time: 40 minutes

Deco: 70/1 60/1 50/1 40/1 30/1 20/3 10/3 = 11

Jody called me at 2 PM and said that it was just us for the dive Tuesday night and he would understand if I wanted to cancel since there wouldn't be anyone on the boat. After reading the weather reports, and more importantly, staring at the flat calm sea all day in the webcam, I told him we were a go. I have spoken and written out against diving off a boat with no one on it. Its certainly not my first choice and I had done everything possible to prevent it, I was down to calling the dive and something inside of me said to go, so I did. This way I can at least say that I have done it once.

One quick load from the car to the boat and we were off. It was a perfect evening with the exception of a little rain. I asked for the best 80ft night dive without drifting or swimming to other wrecks like we have done in the past. We decided on the Orion, which has been down since the early 80s and is heavily grown over and covered with life.

On the way out we reviewed failure points that might separate the dive team from the boat. Feel free to comment on the list:

1. Anchor slips
2. Shackle between anchor and chain breaks
3. Winch breaks or isn't secured (end of line is tied off to boat, we just have a long ascent)

If the boat was truly gone for any reason, we would have to swim to shore or wait to be rescued. A West wind would prevent the swim and blow you out to sea which would be very dangerous. This calm night would also make the swim tough, but we could probably swim down the boat. We decided that a Gavin scooter would make an excellent safety device as we could scooter down the boat.

We pulled up, dropped anchored, stopped and waited. After three minutes the boat had only moved 30ft and the anchor was never going to grab. We suited up and checked the anchor one more time. Jody joked about tying a reel to the bow and tow the boat as a flag, it was that calm.

We headed down the straight line and at 20 feet it bowed out, we went through the current and found the plow anchor on its side right were it was dropped! Jody secured the anchor line to a smooth part of the wreck and we headed off.

Jody's light woke up a chub and it went spastic, it scared me and I was 5 ft away. We continued around the base of the wreck and looked at the French and Gray Angelfish. Then Jody pointed out a strange looking creature. It took the brain cells a couple of seconds to process that we were looking at a crap with a sponge on its back! It was the wackiest thing I have yet to see underwater, check out the photos!

At the stern I was trying to get a wider angle photo of the large prop, but my camera just couldn't hack it. As we went around I saw a Trumpetfish head down, swim fast and pile drive into the sand. He came too, saw us, and swam off. Around the next corner was a beautiful Black Grouper. He swam off before I could get a good photo of him, they are so shy.

We checked on the anchor again, it hadn't moved. Then we went up to the deck. A pencil urchin caught my eye and I noticed an eyeball looking back at me. It was the coolest baby octopus I had ever seen. He didn't like the HID and was swimming in patterns trying to loose us. We were playing "Wack-a-pus" trying to get him in the open for a photo. His body was changing colors from fluorescent blue to brown trying to blend it. I shot 20 photos to get these three keepers. This was almost the highlight of the dive.

On the deck there was a stern hold with lots of stuff in it. Jody penetrated first, went down in the hold, and came right back up with a puff of silt. I looked a him and he gave me the "eel" sign. I thought, "Cool, I want a picture!" I headed in and didn't see anything? Then I looked to the left and saw my mystery fish! I found one of these fish under Tenneco Towers in 115 ft of water without my camera and I could not ID it! I scoured the brains of fellow fish watchers, books and websites with no luck.

http://www.geocities.com/tiswango/0930orion/pages/miapro050.htm

Lad at Reef told me it was a either a Conger Eel or a Mannytooth Conger and the difference is based on the length of the jaw. Now I need to start carrying a tape measure underwater to ID fish?

I snapped several photos and saw Jody up out of the hold looking at me. I came out took a few more photos. There were terminal phase Creole Wrasse tucked away in the structure sleeping for the night.

Back on the deck I thought I saw a thumb in the distance. I didn't respond to it and notice Jody had turned and moved the anchor line away from the wreck so it was be easy and snag free to ascend. There were several ropes around the wreck and old lobster traps so it there was lots of stuff to get hung up on. He gave me another thumb, I responded and we headed up.

At 60 ft we went up the line hand over hand with Jody right above me, watching my signals as I timed the ascent. There were little squid all over the place. At 20 ft I was buzzed by a passing Moon Jelly in the current. Yipes, Jelly-kline! For the next 6 minutes we kept scanning in front of us with HID beams looking for incoming Jellyfish. One light continued scanning while the other one was checking a gauge.

Back on the boat we were stoked from a great dive! Looking North, we were squared up between the red and green lights of the gambling, disco boat, again. Both the Alpha and Diver Down Flag were displayed and we left all the deck lights on. It changed course as we broke down our gear, still anchored.

I asked Jody why he was afraid of the little eel I found? He responded, "Oh man, didn't you see that HUGE green moray swimming around in the hold?!?" Jody went on to tell me some good Green Moray eel encounter stories on the trip back in.

–Matt