Coral Reef Travel

A tiny, quaint French-Canadian village laid out along a half-moon of rocky seacoast, Les Escoumins might seem at first merely a hideout for honeymooners and thieves. But this diminutive settlement on the banks of the tidal St. Lawrence River is one of the Northeast’s best-kept diving secrets.

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Like a giant can opener, the rock called Nova Scotia has split the hulls of even the stoutest ships daring to challenge its shallow, jagged coastline. A graveyard of 5,000 vessels clutters the scenic shores of this 350-mile-long Canadian peninsula: the highest density of shipwrecks per linear mile of any location in the world.

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You hearty adventurer types who leap at the chance to submerge yourself in water so cold it would freeze solid if not for the currents, read on. The rest of you, hop a plane for Hawaii.

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Ghostly plumose anemones shroud the peak of Tyler Rock, glowing in the diffuse emerald light. Descending through the narrow canyon that splits the crest of the reef, we drop quickly to a sandy ledge at 70 feet. Suddenly, a massive shark appears, swimming straight toward us. Twelve feet long and as big as a barrel, it moves with effortless grace, closing fast. In seconds it’s within touching distance, near enough that I can count the six distinctive gill slits and stare into coal-black eyes as the Volkswagen-sized shark cruises by, leaving us in its powerful wake.

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As we arrived in Bamfield on a cool October morning, the rain started to pour and a violent wind made it seem all the colder. Tired, dirty and wet from a four-hour cruise along Barkley Sound by packet freighter, we were still too excited about diving this wild coast to be discouraged by the weather.

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The Adams River is running red against the current. Upriver as far as I can see, the shallows seethe with the violent splashing of ragged fins, green toothy beaks, decaying corpses and wriggling scarlet bodies. This October, Nature is on schedule for sockeye salmon spawning. And in this seeming chaos, everything is as Nature intended it to be.

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A playground for the wealthy since the 1700s, Newport, R.I., is better known for its annual jazz festival, sailing competitions and rows of stately mansions than for its diving. However, if you’re invited to “go for subs” while in this New England resort hamlet, grab your dive gear, because it probably isn’t a lunch date.

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Willow Springs Park offers a unique opportunity for anyone who ever fantasized about being the plastic hard-hat diver at the bottom of a home aquarium. On two weekends each year – Memorial Day and Labor Day – this Richland, Pa., quarry hosts rallies by real hard-hat divers, the Northeast Working Equipment Group of the Historical Diving Society – U.S.A.

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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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