Coral Reef Travel

Northeast divers who need a break from deep-ocean shipwrecks often plunge into the Delaware Water Gap. Trading deep water for shallow, they can explore the wreckage of two locomotives that failed to navigate a sharp curve and plunged down a steep embankment into the Delaware River.

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John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City’s leading aviation hub, is the departure point for many Northeast divers winging their way to tropical dive destinations. As they jet toward dream vacations, many are unaware that a minute into their flights, they are passing directly above a great local beach dive.

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Jutting into New York’s Shinnecock Bay, Long Island and Fire Island reach toward each other with outstretched fingers of sand. Blasted by storms and tides, only the hardiest of scrub brush survive on these spits the native Algonquin Indians called Pauqu qn auke, or “cleared land.” Early settlers in South Hampton transcribed the word as Ponquogue, and like the natives before, took advantage of the sandy fingers to fish the tidal bay waters gusting between the islands.

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The sun was shining and the water was clear. My dive buddy and I were riding the current at a good clip and all was right with the world. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glint, like sunlight off metal. The long, silvery body hovered in the water about 10 feet from us. The mouth was downturned into a perpetual frown and the eyes stared at us. If we turned, it turned. If we slowed, it slowed. It just waited. Watching. It gave me the creeps. Biggest darned barracuda I’d ever seen.

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Whitecaps were whipping against the shores of Lake George and the sky was slightly overcast, but 45 feet below the surface the cool lake felt as calm as water in a well. I was weaving through the narrow crevices of rock known as Basin Bay Wall. Schools of fluorescent green bass and blue gills guided me through a labyrinth of granite, occasionally stopping to look for small crayfish, mussels and other food that lined the lake’s floor.

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With the bright lights of the Cyclone, Wonder Wheel and Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs as its backdrop, Coney Island seems an unlikely place to go diving. But local enthusiasts will tell you, with a note of Brooklyn pride, that there’s more action below water than above it.

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A Different Kind of Rig

In the Cold War of the 1950s, the U.S. and Canada ringed their borders with powerful radar installations designed to detect incoming Soviet bombers. Some of these stations were perched atop offshore platforms similar to the drilling rigs of the Gulf Coast.

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My very first ocean dive was off New Jersey – I forget exactly which exit. I do remember the experience vividly. The boat was an old, deep-sea fishing charter converted to handle divers by the addition of a rinse bucket that smelled strongly of squid. We chugged out of Barnegat Inlet, a bunch of guys from Philly, New York and Jersey with names like Porthole Pete, K-Valve Vito and Two-Finger Franny, the lousy lobster hunter. It was the first time I’d seen anyone use a dry suit, double tank rig or a pony bottle. The BCs were all horsecollars and the gear was either black or rust brown from the assortment of chisels, sledgehammers and hacksaws that hung from belts and D-rings.

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The White Mountain foothills of New Hampshire offer pristine forests, picturesque hiking trails, and – surprise – good wreck diving.

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Descending through the green algae bloom like airplanes through fog, we break out of the haze at 30 feet. The water cleared dramatically, and below us, the wreck of the Chester Poling looks for all the world like she is under way to some ghostly port.

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