A week or so ago I read that one of the ‘hot tubs’ OK benches had broken off of the side of the dock at the Crater. My first thought was I wonder what the people sitting inside thought when it let go. Then I hoped it didn’t come to rest so it was leaning against the side. All we need is some ‘knuckle head’ to swim under there and get stuck or muck up the vis more than it usually is. Well this past weekend we had some classes scheduled for the Crater so I was all excited to see the ‘wreckage’ like everyone else. You know you need an ocean dive when your excited about something on the bottom of the Crater. On one of the dives we ventured down to the diamond for some buoyancy drills and sure enough there it is. Had this flashback of Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Vacation standing on the edge and looking at the Grand Canyon ….yup there it is…let’s go.
Well the good news is nobody will get under it to get stuck. The bad news is everbody (self included) wants to go down and look at it. The Crater has plans to break it up and clean it up but no time has been set. In the mean time to curtail the curious they have a sign on the rope. “Do not go below this sign.” Makes you wonder how many people can’t read or obey some of the simplest requests. So on our dive we made a depth limit of 50 feet. With or without lights we could see the ‘wreckage’ pretty well. While we’re lurking around the triangle here comes a couple ‘knuckle heads’ down the rope, past the sign on their way to the bottom. Ohh my, what do they spot…you got it..the wreckage. What did we see? Not much except a silt blum.
Let’s all remember to please stay off the walls and bottom. The good news is the space left by the dock is a great place to rest, grab a drink of water, debrief and best of all it’s not affected by the Crater current. That will be another post in itself.
Dive safe