Johnson’s Sporting Goods Blog

Before I say anything I need to say a huge thank you to Jamie and Joanne at J&J Lobsters for their hospitality. They own a local lobster buying station out of Rockland Maine and own the boat Rockland Gulf. They were kind enough to take a large group of the local divers out to Matinicus Island for a day of diving, eating and maybe a beer or two or three…after the dives were over of course! It was a perfect day to make the 20+ mile trip out to the island, it was sunny and around 65-70 degrees. On the way out we saw a whale jumping out of the water, it was the highlight of the day for me! I have lived in Maine for 33 years and never seen a whale, it was awesome! We did a dive just off Ten Pound Island and a dive right at the mouth of the harbor on Matinicus. The water was nice, and the visibility was about the best you will ever see in Maine. Visibility was 20′ , it can be as much as 40′ at times. We found some old bottles and pottery, a couple people said they saw an old car. It was great to get back on the boat after the dives and smell the food already cooking on the grill. It was a great group of divers and I hope we can all go diving again soon. Click on the comments to see additional pictures. Dallas

Dallas, Lee, Pete, and Brian had a great day of diving on Friday. We did 2 wreck dives near Islesboro Maine. We did our first dive on the F.C. Pendleton. It was a 145′ 3 masted schooner that was built in 1882 and sank in the 1930’s. The visibility was about 2 feet at best, but we had a good time poking around the wreck with our lights. There is still plenty of ship left to see on this wreck but it is breaking up and getting soft. The second wreck we went to was the Alice E. Clark. It was a 227′ 4 masted schooner that was built in 1898 and sank in 1909 after hitting a ledge off Islesboro. The visibility was 6′-7′ and there was a strong current running. This ship was carrying coal and it is everywhere on this wreck. We poked around the bow area and there is a lot of beams and some large pieces of iron machinery. The info we had said the stern section should be intact but with the strong current and limited visibility we did not have the time to look around to find it. This is a very large, spread out site. If you did the dive on a slack tide you would not have to fight the current and would have better luck finding the stern section if it is in fact still intact. We scanned this site with our bottom machine for 30 minutes and didn’t see anything that looked like a large piece of ship, but we could have missed it.

This was the most exciting day of diving of the week. We did the shark dive that we all came to Nassua to do. It was an absolute blast to experience sharks so close that they bumped into us several times as they swam by. It was also funny to hear everyone on the way back to the house say that they did not experience any fear while they were watching the sharks feed. It was a funny thing to hear people say after the quite ride out to the dive site. Nobody said they were scared, but nobody was saying much either. What a Blast!

We had another good day of diving after a fun night out at the casino. Most of the group went out to the casino last night to play a little roulette. It was a great time, not sure what the casino thinks of the group from Maine. They may never be the same after meeting Eric, what a fun group!

Today we did 2 more dives. We did the ” Sea Viking Wreck” and the “James Bond Wrecks”. The James Bond Wrecks are from the movies “Thunderball” and “Never Say Never Again”.

Well we had a much better day today. Transportation went allot better than Monday morning. The dive sites today were alot more interesting and we have finally seen sharks. Our first dive today was on a site called Pumpkin Patch, we saw schooling horse-eye jacks, angelfish, barracuda, parrot fish and a variety of groupers. On the second dive we went to a wreck called the Ray of Hope. In 2003, the island diving operator, Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas, placed the wreck of the ship, “Ray of Hope”, on the ocean bottom increasing the size of the manmade “reef” where fish and divers can play. The 200-ft long wreck is sitting upright and is located directly behind another man-made wreck, the “Bahamas Mama”. You’ll encounter the “Ray of Hope” at 40 feet. The bow rests at that depth and slopes down to the stern at 60 feet. As soon as we got in the water we could see sharks swimming everywhere. We probably saw 15 sharks. It was a great dive site. I will post a few pictures from today.

Wow, what a day! First off we had a few problems at the house this morning and left for the dive shop a few minutes late. Then the traffic was very bad to get to the other side of the island, which made us get there an hour late. We had a boat that was reserved just for our group and they were able to wait for use to show up. We were only able to do one tank each instead of the two that we reserved because we were so late. Not a good start, but we did get to dive on a wreck called Willaurie. Here is a  little info on the dive site Willaurie…”The Willaurie Wreck is a 130’ former water barge resting in a semi-sand area surrounded by tongue and groove reef formations. This wreck was intentionally sunk in 1989 as an artificial reef dive site. A large amount of red and orange encrusting corals have attached to the wreck, making it vibrant in color The surrounding reef is made up of a variety of soft and hard corals. Schools of Cubera Snapper, Master fish and Nassau Grouper are seen here” It was a good first dive for everyone to get back in the water and adjust weight etc. There was alot of nice coral and sponge on the boat and the surrounding reef. So even with the rough start to the day we still had fun and look forward to the dives tomorrow. I will post some pics in this post of our dive today, so please open and take a look. Feel free to comment or leave a message for someone in the house.