Diving on the Mohawk - NJ coastline

NOAA forecasted Friday June 20th to be a calm ocean day with 15-20 Knot winds.  Hold it a second -  calm AND 20 knot winds?  Am I missing something?

Well, actually not, NOAA was missing something.  Seas were rough and choppy with a howling wind that keep the surface stirred up.  And a very strong surface current made it a good day for burning off those extra calories I've been stuffing into my mouth.

We were on the Gypsy Blood, one of my favorite NJ dive boats.  Gypsy Blood is a 50 foot dive boat with twin 450 HP engines that make any destination a quick ride.  Today, Captain Jim was taking us to the remains of the steamship Mohawk, which lies in 80 feet of water about 8 miles east of Manasquan, NJ.

If you dive out of New Jersey, chances are you've been on at least one trip to the Mohawk.  It's an immensely popular dive site because of all the fish life and artifacts that can be found there.  Also, with its relatively shallow depth, a diver can get in a nice long dive without having to go into deco.  Rich Galiano has a very well detailed write up on the Mohawk, complete with pictures on his website at www.njscuba.net.

For me, no trip to the Mohawk is complete without a run into the sand to look for fluke.  I use a wreck reel to make sure I end up at my starting point, and for this wreck, a reel is very important because it's been wire dragged and doesn't resemble a ship - it's just a huge, huge debris field, rising up 10 -12 feet from the ocean bottom in some spots.

Anchor found on the Mohawk

On today's trip to the sand, I found a small debris field about 150 feet off the main wreckage.  I"m not going to share too many details, because every diver likes to have their own "secret spots," but there was enough debris for a tribe of lobsters to dig themselves a few caves, and there I found them waiting for me. Separating the mom's from the dad's, (you don't want to take a lobster with eggs on it) I was able to get 3 bugs to make a nice dinner for the family that night.    I never found any fluke, but I did find a collapsible anchor twisted up in some abandoned fishing nets.

Like most divers, I have my own collection of worthless crap found on the ocean floor, and I'll be adding this artifact to it.

It was a great day for diving with the ocean warming up, good visibility and an experienced Captain who really knows the right way to run a dive operation.  In case anyone's keeping score, my computer said 52 degrees on the bottom, and vis was about 15 feet.