Dive Club Meeting Cancelled

This month’s meeting of the On The Bottom dive club has been cancelled due to a last minute cancellation by the speaker. The November 3rd meeting, however, promises to be interesting with guest speaker Gary Gentile.

There Used To Be A Ballpark Right Here

And there used to be a ballpark
Where the field was warm and green
And the people played their crazy game
With a joy I’d never seen.
And the air was such a wonder
From the hot dogs and the beer
Yes, there used a ballpark, right here.

And there used to be rock candy
And a great big Fourth of July
With fireworks exploding
All across the summer sky
And the people watched in wonder
How they’d laugh and how they’d cheer
And there used to be a ballpark, right here.

Now the children try to find it
And they can’t believe their eyes
`cause the old team just isn’t playing
And the new team hardly tries
And the sky has got so cloudy
When it used to be so clear
And the summer went so quickly this year.
Yes, there used to be a ballpark, right here.

–Joe Raposo

Farewell my old friend. I’ll never forget you.

Geico Offshore Race at Pt. Pleasant Beach

Old timers still refer to this as the Benihana. The race was on September 7th and I’ve only just gotten around to putting up some of the pictures. All were taken using 400 ISO film with a Pentax 35mm SLR and telephoto lens. All pictures were taken from the end of Martell’s Tiki Bar.

You can check out the pix here.

Beach Clean Up Cancelled

Due to permitting issues, the On The Bottom Dive Club’s annual Beach Clean Up scheduled for this Saturday has been canceled.

A Trip to Bikini Atoll

At last night’s meeting of the On The Bottom Dive Club, Skip Huisking gave a video presentation of his trip to Bikini Atoll, the site of more than 20 nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958. Highlights of the presentation included video of his dives on the wrecks of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, submarine Apogon and the Japanese battleship Nagato, the flagship of Admiral Yamamoto’s fleet for the attack on Pearl Harbor. All of these ships were sunk during Operation Crossroads, a series of atomic bomb tests that took place in July of 1946.

In the first test (ABLE, an airburst) the Nagato was positioned the closest to ground zero and, embarrassingly, was not severely damaged. This was in spite of the fact that she was in such bad shape that she almost sank while being towed to Bikini. In the second test (BAKER, an underwater explosion) she was severely damaged, and eventually capsized and sank five days later. According to Skip, she was given a “little help” in sinking after the blast. The actual phone from which Admiral Yamamoto ordered the Pearl Harbor attack was still in place on the bridge although the ship lies upside down on the bottom.

The Saratoga also survived the ABLE blast with only minor damage, but was damaged beyond repair by the second blast which was detonated 500 meters from the carrier. Salvage efforts were prevented by radioactivity, and seven and one-half hours after the blast, she sank. While diving on the Saratoga, Skip heard a loud noise that he later learned was the bridge of the ship collapsing. He and his fellow divers had visited the bridge earlier. The dive boat had also been tied off to the island of the ship and had to disengage and re-anchor in order to reset the deco bottles (75% oxygen). Because of the depth of the dives, bottom time was limited to about 25 minutes with another 30 for decompression.

Unfortunately, due to budgetary problems cause in part by the high cost of fuel, Bikini is presently closed to divers. Some of us joked that it was because Skip “broke” the Saratoga. Hopefully it will reopen as it is one of my dream dive destinations.

I also caught up with Sal Germano at the meeting. I first met Sal on the Cozumel trip this past April. Well, Sal went to Cozumel AGAIN a couple of weeks ago. Man am I jealous!

One Very Clever Octopus

Uh, oh

Here we go again.

Cool Underwater Gadget

Check this out: the Liquid Image Underwater Digital Camera Mask.

Hat tip to Pocket-Lint. You can also check out another article (with Japanese captions) here.

Suunto D9 Dive Computer Raffle

Blue Water Divers is raffling off a Suunto D9 dive computer ($1100 value) to benefit the Denis Murphy Memorial Scholarship Fund and the college fund for Tina Kelly’s daughter Nia. Tickets are $25 and there are only 100 of them. As you know, Denis and Tina were tragically killed in a motorcycle accident back in May. If you’re interested, stop by the dive shop: 806 Route 17 N
Ramsey, NJ 07446.

Frilled Shark

Check out this creepy picture of a frilled shark:

Link

They are rarely seen as their natural habitat is at a depth of 2,000 feet.

Postscript: Here’s a link to another article.