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.