On Sunday, May 27th, I was able to get a much desired spot on the private Manni-Yunk II sport fishing & Diving boat out of Cape May, NJ. I was diving with Sean, Kevin, Jeremiah, and Andy. We left the dock at about 8 am, after Kevin did a shallow no-vis dive to tighten the right prop. at the gas dock. On the way out, we decided to hit the City of Athens. The "City of Athens" was a liner that was built in 1911, and sank in 1918 with 67 casualties after a collision with the French Navy cruiser "La Gloria". It sits on the bottom at about 110' about 24 miles off the New Jersey coast. I dove this wreck last year with these same guys, and we had 50' viz. I was hoping for the same today, but was not that lucky. It was 15' at best. We left under clear sunny skies and flat seas. We hit a patch of moderate fog for a little while, but that burned off.After the hour + ride out, and a quick tie-in, it go time. I descended with Jeremiah, but spent the majority of my time around the boilers taking video. I left my spear and bag on the boat, and hoped I didn't come upon any keepers. There wasn't too much in the way of sea life for me to bring up, but I did see a monster eel stuck down in one of boilers. You can see him on the video that I will post here soon. I kept my two dives relatively short and conservative, with a total dive time of 1 hour exactly, and a maximum depth of 97'. Bottom temperature was 54 degrees, and viz. was 10-20 feet. There was a distinct thermocline at 55' which separated the warm blue water with the colder and murkier green water.
Logged dives #419 & #420. As always, diving with the guys on the Manni-Yunk is a great time.
Link to the video: Youtube Link
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