First China

6/17/2006 – Independence II trip to the Oil Wreck

I said it last week, I’ll say it again this week… the Oil wreck (Ayuruoca) is absolutely one of my favorite wrecks! Today I joined Capt’s Bartone and Tempe on another cruise to this massive intact Brazillian freighter in the Mud Hole of New Jersey. We had beautiful weather and calm seas making for an enjoyable (almost too short) ride out to the wreck. Arriving on site I splashed with Capt Jay and Christina Young to tie-in. We found the shot in the mud (172fsw) right next to the wreck at the break of the stern section and I was able to scout out openings in the decks I could enter on the way down. We quickly retrieved the chain and brought it up to 135’ in the same general location we were last week. Once my working portion of the dive was complete I set off to explore. The visibility was a decent 15 feet or so at the main deck level but I tied off my reel and headed inside. I headed a good ways down a corridor which had many doors tempting my way off here and there but this being my first time in this section of the wreck I decided to keep it simple and stay straight. On the way out my light reflected bright white off the edge of something under what appeared to be a fallen table. I carefully reached down and plucked it from the muck and managed to keep the black cloud to a minimum. I inspected my find and sure enough my first piece of china! It was just a broken saucer but it still had most of the Rio de Janeiro stamp on the back so I gingerly placed it in my bag. I thought maybe there would be more and hopefully intact pieces in the area so I did some minor excavation of some tables and after plunging my hand into the muck and feeling around all I accomplished was a completely blacked out room and some pissed off eel pouts. After my 30 minutes was up I reluctantly headed up but had a pleasant deco reflecting on another awesome Oil Wreck dive.

Not much, but its mine ;-)