Coral Reef Travel

Having climbed from the scummy water of far too many quarries with a scant eight feet of visibility, I wondered if Pennsylvania diving was everything it was cracked up to be. Then I found Dutch Springs. ñWe refer to it now as a lake,î says Stuart Schooley, the owner. ñThe word quarry conjures up images of a dark, cold place where things are waiting to pull you under. This place is different.î For one thing, you can see the bottom sloping away through clear water. Visibility averages 15 feet, though it can reach 35 feet. The lake is spring-fed and that means full wetsuits or dry suits, though the upper 25 feet hovers around 76F in the summer. Four entranceways lead divers to the numerous training platforms and pieces of sunken machinery that fill the 47-acre body of water, and thick cables connect nearly everything, so navigation isnÍt a problem. My buddy and I suited up and followed the first entranceway into the water. We hit the first thermocline and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. Before we hit the next one at 40 feet, the outline of the Silver Comet rushed up to greet us. The 50-foot pilot boat rests on her keel in 65 feet of water; you can safely penetrate into two rooms. After swimming through the rooms, we followed the cable running off the stern to another wreck, a large, wooden cabin cruiser in 55 feet of water. Though still intact, the wooden hull has become an underwater wall of graffiti, where divers carve their initials and a soft, short carpet of algae covers them up. From there, we sailed off along a cable and past a slope strewn with boulders, then watched the outline of a single-engine Cessna come into view in 30 feet of sunlit water. From other entranceways, itÍs possible to follow the cable to a fire truck, more cabin cruisers and a trailer truck where huge bass approach and wait for food. Divers are welcome to feed them natural goodies such as worms and crayfish, but human food isnÍt allowed. Still another route leads to more boats, training platforms and an underwater staircase that descends 60 feet. The newest attraction, sunk in December, is a Sikorsky H-37 transport helicopter thatÍs 75 feet long and 30 feet tall. Eighteen large training platforms make the area a favorite for scuba classes and a Diamond Reef buoyancy course challenges experienced divers to practice their skills. Excavated in 1933 as a source of limestone for the National Portland Cement Co., the quarry filled with water when the company went out of business in the mid-1970s. Schooley and four friends bought the place in 1980 with an eye toward fishing. By the time the last partner bowed out, Schooley had turned the place into a regional dive mecca. Although the quarry is also a popular swimming hole, the future for Dutch Springs is diving. Schooley says he wants to sink a new attraction each season.

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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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