A very spooky dive......a Halloween treat.

Yesterday, I dove the Larchmont. Located 3 miles Southeast of Watch Hill, this is the wreck of a paddle wheel steamer sunk in 1907.  The story of its sinking is very sad. On an extremely cold and stormy night in February, the Joy Line Steamer "Larchmont" left port in Providence en route to New York. The winds were strong and the seas very rough when the Schooner Harry Knowlton ran into its side.  The two ships collided with such force, they were momentarily stuck together until the rough seas tore them apart again. The gash in the Larchmont was so large that icy water began rushing into the lower decks immediately.  There were 150 passengers and 50 crew members taken by surprise when the ship started to sink.  Only 19 people were able to survive the freezing conditions. All of the survivors were treated with frostbite and pneumonia.
      The dive itself is also a bit spooky. One hundred and three years later, there are just skeletal remains of the paddle wheeler.  (No, thankfully nothing of the victims..) It is one of the darkest New England dives I've done. We started out with Atlantis Dive Charters on an absolutely perfect morning. After my dive buddy Pete and I did our giant strides, we started to follow the anchor line down.  Normally the light from the surface still lets you see down to the wreck site. On this dive, the surface light cuts out after about 70 feet, leaving you dependant on your dive light. Bob, our Divemaster set the descent line perfectly on the remnants of a paddle wheel. Pete and I set down briefly in the sand at 122 feet to get our bearings.  Gary, the captain of Atlantis had told us about the pieces of wood with brass nails that could be found. The site is so dark however, I wanted to keep the ascent line close at all times!! We swam around for a while, looking at the fantastic variety of marine life. The picture above, is the real view of where we ended the dive. After a long slow ascent, we surfaced and agreed that this had been an awesome dive.
Next week....the Grecian with www.atlantis.nu