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Luis Figueroa
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With the down time after my hip replacement surgery, Lauren Steigerwalt, one of my dive buddies, joined me for a drive along the coast of New Hampshire to check out some of my favorite sites and also to explore other future dive sites. We started from the south at Rye, NH and worked our way up north to Portsmouth, NH. The diving conditions were spectacular as the seas were relatively calm with light winds from the southwest. The sites we checked out were:
SEAL ROCKS Our first stop was to check out Seal Rock in Rye, NH. It’s a great dive site and best to dive at high tide when the prevailing winds and waves are from the west. The site can be rough when wind blows from the east. What I love best about the dive is the underwater topography from the years of pounding seas and waves that have carved cracks, cuts, crevices into the ledges. There are even some swim throughs and small bowls. The Dive - As you get in the water, follow the rocks offshore, then follow the rocks around the perimeter. The rocks extend further out to where you finally get to a sand and gravel bottom (around 25 fsw). No need to go further out. We dove mostly around 15 feet heading south until it was time to turn around.  Seal Rocks at high tide (Aug 6 2022) Getting there - There are pullovers along the side of the road off 1A. Parking is free, however, parking is limited to 1 hour. Finding it is straight forward. You can enter “Seal Rock” on Google Maps to direct you there. Since we were coming up from the south, we parked at the nearest pullover closest to it.  Pullover where to park Entry & Exit. There is a small path to the water at the right side of the pullover. It’s not a bad walk to the water. You want to enter from the left looking out to the ocean. To the right, are large rocks that make entry/exit very difficult.   Path leading you to where go in. Go to left of the rock formation  Another view of the area. You can see a layer of uneven rocks in the shallows that make it tricky at low tide. PULPIT ROCK Getting there - Continuing further north, is Pulpit Rock, a site I have not tried before but I am eager to dive. When you see the tall tower on left side, pull into the pullover in front of the tower to your right (if you are coming from the south). You’ll want to park as far to the right end as possible to easily access the path to the water. Like Seal Rock, you have 1 hour of parking. You’ll know you’re there as you will see huge bedrock formations extending out into the water. There isn’t really a beach, just a narrow stretch of gravel and rocks between the rock and the road.  Landmark tower opposite the pullover. Entry/Exit - The right side of the parking pullover (where you want to park), you’ll see a path to the beach. It’s easier to get in and out there than it is on the left side. There are uneven layers of rocks blanketing the shallows so you need to be careful going in and out, especially at low tide as you’ll have to scramble over slippery rocks.  The Dive: Swim straight out following the rock formations from one end to the other. Similar to Seal Rock, there are lots of cuts, crevices, small pinnacles, and short, sheer drop-offs from years of waves pounding on the granite ledge. Where the rock begins to dip into the water, you’ll come across of a mix of small to medium sized rocks. The maximum depth is 25 FSW at high tide.  Where head down to the water. You can see, at low tide, you’ll be walking slippery rocks to get to the water.
SUNKEN FOREST, Rye NH From Pulpit, we had to make a quick detour to check out the Sunken Forest which is just south of Ordione Point. I have previously written a blog post with a more detailed description of the site- the link to the Blog Post.  The Sunken Forest is best dove when the prevailing winds are from the west. The winds/waves were calm from the south west which made the visibility of the water was spectacular. 
FORT STARK, New Castle NH Continuing further north, we headed in the direction of Fort Stark in New Castle, NH. The entrance to the Fort and the parking lot was closed due to ongoing construction. There is parking there when the gate is open but DO NOT park along Wild Rose Lane or to the area before the entrance to the Park as parking is limited to New Castle Island Residents only. The New Castle Island Police do patrol the area.   Ariel views of Fort Stark The Dive: This is a good dive for new divers as there is little current and the site is relatively shallow. It can be dove regardless of the tide but best is to dive it at high tide as like the Sunken Forest, it is too shallow to dive at Low tide. The depth of the water is 15 to 25 feet. The bottom is mostly small boulders covered with kelp and rock weed before coming to eelgrass.  Entry/Exit from facing North.  GREAT ISLAND COMMON, New Castle, NH Continuing north, just after Fort Stark is the Great Island Common which is a park overlooking Portsmouth Harbor with lawns, picnic tables and BBQ pits and a great place for non-diver friends and family to hang topside if you want to get a dive in. Like the other NH sites, it needs to be dead calm for conditions to be good. The visibility can be stirred up with red seaweed if there is any chop or waves. There are two areas to dive. One is the rocky shore side to the south and the other is the sandy beach to the north. The sandy beach area starts off as eelgrass before turning to sand. It’s really a site for those that just want to get wet or do some skills. It’s relatively shallow. The Rocky shore part is a mix of small to medium sized rocks close in the shallows and small-to-medium-sized boulders further out. Depths are around 20 to 25 feet. The entry/exit is a bit tricky as it is blanketed with uneven rocks making entry/exit quite tricky.    Views out to Portsmouth Harbor and to the north with Fort Constitution  View of Fort Constitution. Fun fact- there may be some old Cannon Balls to be found in the water! FORT CONSTITUTION/ HARTS COVE From Great Island Common, we headed to Fort Constitution in Harts Cove. This is one of my favorite dive sites. (I’ve logged close to 50 dives). We were just at low tide when we arrived and were amazed at the spectacular visibility of the water from the surface. Like Pierce Island, this is an advanced dive and should only be done with someone familiar with the site and tides given strong currents in between slack tide. You need to be very comfortable diving in currents before diving here. This is a site I always do at high slack after an incoming tide. I usually enter/exit to the left of the pier but one can enter/exit to the right- but you must not go too far out as you may interfere with NOAA or USCG operations. To the left of the pier is mud and muck and it can get very silty but if you are persistent, you maty find old artifacts such as antique ceramic pipes. Most of my dives are directly under the UNH Pier checking out the critters.  View of entry/exit at Low tide from the left of the UNH Pier.  View to the left of Harts Cove  View from the UNH Pier of entry / exit  View to the right of UNH Pier with amazing visibility!  Close up view of entry/exit from the beach to the right of the Pier  Panoramic view of beach with Fort Constitution to the right
One of the dives I have not done but want to do is to go to the other side of Fort Constitution to check out the area for antique Cannon balls. (A “Cannon-ball Run”) We would have to enter at the normal entry/exit point to the left of the pier, follow under the pier to the end and cross over towards Fort Constitution in the direction of Portsmouth Harbor. It would be easiest to do after slack tide on an outgoing current going with the current to the leeward side and heading south looking for Cannonballs. We would exit at the beach at the end of Ocean Street and walk back to the Car at the UNH Pier. There is NO PUBLIC Parking at the end of Ocean Street so don’t attempt to park and dive from there.   View of beach at the end of Ocean Road where we would exit from “cannon-ball run”  View of Ocean Street where we would exit from “Cannon-ball Run”  View south towards Great Island Common. This is a site I would like to try one day. Park at Fort Constitution and walk down Ocean Street. PEIRCE ISLAND DOG PARK Of course, I cannot do a trip to Portsmouth without checking out Pierce (or Peirce) Island. At 218 dives and counting, it is one of my favorite dive sites. To find it, Google “Luis’s Ledge.  One of my buddies submitted “Luis's Ledge to Google Maps as a site! You can even write a review! Link to reviews Like Fort Constitution, this is a dive you should not dive unless you are with someone very familiar with the site as there are tides and strong currents. I have blogged about this site in detail in my iDive New England blog post Yes, I’m a “River Rat”. This is a dive that you need to dive at slack tide. It’s best to dive at high slack with an incoming tide. The day we visited, the visibility at low-tide slack looked great.  Easier entry/exit point. Factoid, the building in foreground was where the Subs were initially built and launched from at Naval Yard. Today, Naval Yard only services/overhauls the subs.  Nice beach entry/exit.  This is the tougher entry/exit.  The is the more challenging entrance, exit  Small beach to right where I normally enter/exit. This is a low tide.  Spectacular viz from the beach to the left. It was a wild ride having a hip replacement surgery, and quite frankly a bit nerveracking being out of the water for so long. My gills remained dry for more than I would have liked during the recovery. But I found myself making the most of it rediscovering the beauty of my favorite sites along the New Hampshire coast.
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Those that know me well, know of my passion for SCUBA diving. The ocean is one of those things that gives me a gentle reminder to just stop to charge my soul. And being fully immersed in the sea amplifies those feeling for me all that much more. The image below, was taken just after surfaced on a recent end-of-week dusk dive at Nubble Lighthouse in Maine. This will be one of the many fond moments I will remember about diving. This was soul food.  I’m also the type of person that when I find something that inspires me, I go all in like diving. My wife Carol was a runner and suggested I try running. In the spring of 2015, I took her suggestion and immediately loved it. I was hooked and very quickly progressed to running over 1,000 miles a year. Between the spring of 2015 and 2021, I ran over 5,300 miles and, in that period, I ran my first marathon, countless half marathons 5K and 10K races. I know the question on everyone’s mind at this point. Yes, during this time, I was still diving. To some it may seem like a decent amount- 82 dives in 2015 and 80 dives in 2016- but for those who know how much I dive, you would understand that is a fraction, less than half of the amount, of dives I normally do annually. What’s worked out nicely to maintain a diving and running balance is that close to the spots I like to dive, there are also great areas to run. For example, Nahant (MA)-Canoe Beach to end of Causeway, Nubble (ME) to Long Sands, Fort Getty (RI) to Fort Wetherill and New Castle Island.
During my running phase, I also started skiing again. Both my wife and daughter were instructors at a nearby mountain so it only made sense that I should ski. It was just a matter of time I quickly ended up on leader board for the number of number of runs I completed. I was second, and only behind someone who lived near the mountain so for me I couldn’t com \plete with that. The year I took up skiing, I somehow managed to juggle all 3 passions- running, diving and skiing.
Fast forward a few years to the winter of 2020, I started to up-my-level of diving. I completed the certifications needed to complete Dive Master and then earned my divemaster certification in Spring of 2020. I swear my car mileage tapered to just under 700 miles as I was spending more time in the water logging just under 200 dives that year. The following year, I was full on diving and logged 263 dives. I have since logged 698 dives since becoming dive master. This past year, I have already logged 178 dives and counting. So, back to the title of this blog post, Do I have a dive problem? Does my diving interfere with my work, family, and personal relationships? The answer is no. As I stated at the start of this blog, diving, running and skiing keeps me whole.
As for work life balance, I need to be tremendously focused at work to find the time needed to train for races, dive and ski. I’ve been able to capitalize on my time- high focused at work, and wisely planning my days to accommodate the dives, runs or ski runs.
I am asked frequently about the diving on Cape Cod, especially since spending most summers at our family’s cottage and regularly diving there. With the level of interest there is for Cape Cod (MA) and the increasingly widespread discussion surrounding the Great White, I wanted to provide details for those not familiar with Cape Cod Diving. First for a little history, the Cape and the nearby islands were formed an estimated 18,000 years ago, when glaciers receded from the area and left a sandy substrate. Basically, most of the Cape and the islands -- particularly, the Outer Cape and Nantucket -- are just giant sand bars. And that’s what the majority of the shore dives are here.  Harborview Beach in Dennis The popular Cape shore dives are Sandwich Town Beach (Sandwich), Garbage Beach (Woods Hole, Falmouth) and Corporation Beach (Dennis) and Harbor View Beach (Dennis), both of those which are close to our place, all of which are amazing night dives with easy entry/exits. Like much of the coast of New Hampshire, shore diving here is relatively shallow and best to dive at high tide or divers will be walking long distances to get to any significant depth.
Like much of the coast of New Hampshire, shore diving in the Cape is relatively shallow and best to dive at high tide or divers will be walking long distances to get to any significant depth. Sandwich Town Beach in Sandwich, MA offers an easy access for divers to get in and out of the water. This site is best to dive at high tide for less of a walk car to water. At high tide, most of the dive will be 15- 25 feet. The bottom is a mix of small rocks and sand close into shore. As divers traverse further, there will be an area of larger rocks and clay bank reefs with lobsters burrowed in the clay, moon snails, crabs, sea robins, flounder, Tautog (blackfish) and the occasional mating horseshoe crabs. It’s an excellent site for night dives with lots of comb jellies and schools of squid. Tide: High Tide Winds: NW winds not ideal Depths: 15-25Ft Entrance: Easy beach entrance Tidal: Recommend 1 hour before high tide Corporation Beach in mid-Cape in Dennis, MA is much like Sandwich town beach in terms of ease of entry, exit and in my opinion, one of the best shore dives on the Cape and an awesome night dive. If you want to see squid, this is the spot to have best chance to see them and just about any kind of marine life native to Cape Cod Waters. Also as with Sandwich Town beach, it is best to go in within 1 hour before and exiting 1 hour after high tide. You do not want to dive the site anytime the winds are from North, NW as it impacts the visibility greatly. It’s a pretty good location too for lobsters where the large boulders and rock fields are. Depth can get beyond 20 feet but requires a very long swim. I tend to dive Corporation Beach early in the morning or at the end of the day as it’s less crowded with beachgoers and I can find parking closer to entry /exit point. During the day, when the lifeguards are present, divers will need to surface swim and descend away from the swimming area as there is no diving permitted in designated swimming areas. Tide: High Tide Winds: NW winds not ideal Depths: 15-25Ft Entrance: Easy beach entrance Tidal: Recommend 1 hour before high tide  During the day, when the lifeguards are present, divers will need to surface swim and descend away from the swimming area as there is no diving permitted in the swimming areas designated by lifeguards.  There is an airplane wreck further out that can be accessed from a boat. The remnant of a Douglas AD-3 Skyraider off Corporation Beach at 35 feet but not much is left . Harborview Beach near Sesuit Harbor, MA is another easy shore dive. Parking during the day is limited to Dennis Residents but it’s permitted after 4:00 PM. Like Corporation Beach, it’s best to dive within hour of high tide. As the site is 10 minutes from our house in Dennis Port, it’s nice to go there (or Corporation Beach) when it’s high tide and conditions are ideal for quick end of day dusk/night dive splash. Navigation is easy – keep the breakwater to your right exploring in the rocks for critters. Divers do need to be mindful of fisherman fishing off the breakwater. If you swim out further beyond the breakwater, just remember there is incoming and outgoing boat traffic right there. It’s a relatively shallow dive, high tide max depth is about 20ft at the end of the breakwater, but most of the dive is around 10ft at high tide. It’s a great site for beginners. Tide: High Tide Winds: NW winds not ideal Depths: 5-20ft Entrance: Easy beach entrance Tidal: Recommend 1 hour before high tide Divers that explore beyond the breakwater, remember there is incoming and outgoing boat traffic close by. With that in mind, it's a great site for beginners.   Diving along breakwater at Harborview Beach Garbage Beach, (a.k.a. Woods Hole Waterfront Park) Woods Hole/Falmouth, MA is a small narrow lawn overlooking a small sandy beach in Woods Hole Harbor with several small piers to the left extending out. The entry / exit is off the small stairs leading down to the small beach (“Garbage Beach”) that is to the right of 2nd Marine Biological Labs (MBL) pier. Don’t be turned off by the name of Garbage beach. I have no idea on how it got its name but It’s actually also a nice beach for non-divers while divers are in the water. As for the dive, divers have two options to enter. One is a giant stride entry off the MBL Pier, the other is to walk down the small set of stairs off Garbage Beach. into the water. Tide: High Tide Winds: South winds are not ideal Depths: 70ft Entrance: Easy beach entrance Tidal: Recommend 1 hour before high tide  Buddy, Jessica Cote, doing textbook Giant Stride off the MBL Pier  During the descent, divers will first encounter eel grass and then will find a mucky, muddy bottom that starts to slope deeper (it'll be important to maintain buoyancy or divers will quickly silt up the bottom that will greatly impact visibility.) I head due south towards the end of the Pier, and then to the west there is a rocky boulder formation with lots of soft coral and rocks smothered with yellow tunicates. Divers should be careful not to stray too far left due to heavy boating and docking areas. There really is not much to see. Also, divers are NOT to dive under the any NOAA ships that may be docked at the Woods Hole Pier nor under the Woods Hole Pier which requires a permit. Most of the dive I stay above 40-50 feet staying close to the Formation of rocks near the MBL Pier or under the Pier. In the winter, it’s a great site for Nudibranchs and in the late summer a great site for coming across Gulf Stream Orphan (GSO) Tropical fish, Pipe fish and Northern Puffer fish.  Will see GSOs, such as this butterfly fish. What is there to see? I’ve been fortunate to find a lot of antique bottles, clay pipe stems (probably why named Garbage Beach?). Mostly old Soda/Pop and milk bottles.
But mostly I find Tautog/Blackfish, Flounder, Spider, Horseshoe Crabs, Sea Robins and the occasional spiny dogfish. This time of year, there are a lot of squid nests. Garbage beach is by far a great dusk/night dive as you’ll be blessed with comb jellies, squid.  Though the site is protected, you want to avoid diving there any time the wind blows from the south. Also, need to be aware of heavy boat traffic during the season as a popular spot for recreational boats to fish from. Also, you will hear the rumble of the constant Woods Hole Steamship Authority’s Ferry’s heading to and from nearby Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, but they are far away from the area you’ll be diving as you will not be going out to the channel. It just sounds like they are above you as sound travels far in the water.
Close by is the NOAA Fisheries Woods Hole Science Aquarium a 2 min walk away from the beach and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Science Center a 5 min walk away. So good apres dive things to do on a day down there  The Cape also offers some great dive spots offshore. Unfortunately, there are no dive charter boats operating out of Cape Cod. Divers options are to charter a fishing boat for the day or rent a boat. A great dive site is the Target ship (James Longstreet), a liberty ship sunk in the 50s off Brewster in relatively shallow water (16 fsw at high tide). It is called the target ship as the ship was used for Target practice by military aircraft. Lots of great sea life, fish hide in the hunk of the wreck. Another good dive site for lobsters is Scorton Ledge near Sandwich. It’s a popular fishing spot so you have to be careful of the boat traffic. I’ve also had luck in the past finding Scallops nearby. And yes, there are plenty of wrecks off the Cape. A couple good books are “Exploring the Waters of Cape Cod Shipwrecks and dive sites by Donald L. Ferris and a shore diving guide to New England by Jerry Shine. Nowadays there is no talk about diving on Cape Cod without bringing up sharks. Yes, the Cape is known to have one of the highest shark populations in the country. There have been more sightings of sharks over the past few years, mostly off the eastern end of the Cape in areas such as Nauset Beach, head of meadow beach, the Chatham peninsula, and Cape Cod National Seashore. Most shark incidents are close to shore where there are large populations of seals, the Great White’s food source. These are mostly in areas where most divers do not dive as visibility is poor from churning sand and there is also pretty much nothing to see. (Curious to see where sharks are appearing? Use the Atlantic White Shark Sighting and Resource App. ) My only shark sightings in diving on Cape have been the rare sightings of Spiny DogFish. The chances of seeing a shark while SCUBA diving are low, and chances of being bitten by one are meager–one in a billion! Even though shark bites do occur, the risk of fatal bites is low. The incidents that have happened have been to swimmers/bathers swimming or surfers surfing in the areas the sharks feed- where divers do not dive. To put it most simply – we are not their food, they do not seek us out, we are not a natural prey of sharks, and they do not like the taste of us divers! It is not right to say that sharks do not attack divers, however such incidents are rare. Last documented Shark attack on a diver was in Rockport, MA in 1965! Similar to Rhode Island, is the number of dive shops on Cape Cod offering full service of instruction, gear rental, service and more importantly air fills. Since I have been diving on the Cape, one shop (Cape Cod Dive Locker) closed and the other Cape Cod Sea Sports got out of diving altogether and focused on sales of Kayaks and cycling gear. Options for air fills on are to get tanks filled before reaching the Cape (on the way to the Cape) at Divers Market, a full service dive shop in Plymouth, MA, or once reaching the Cape, the spot to go is Adventure Diving in Eastham which offers instruction, services, rentals and air fills. Contact Bob Peck to arrange for fills.  I believe Aqua Center in Sandwich is also still offering fills. The proprietor is now focusing on Ice Cream business there. (Shipwreck Ice Cream). Note during busy peak periods on hot summer days, one may need to be very patient if in need of fills. Cape Cod is also blessed with hundreds of freshwater lakes and ponds of which many offer excellent diving opportunities. One of the more popular freshwater locations is Hathaway Pond in Barnstable which is a very popular diving spot for divers of all levels and for SCUBA Training. (and a great post ocean 2nd dive spot so won’t have to do a full on gear rinse!) It's recommended October-June.  One of entry points at Hathaway Pond in Barnstable Always looking for new sites to try, a local NH dive site I have heard a lot about but have never done before was the “Sunken Forest” off Odiorne Point in Rye. It’s called the Sunken Forest as it’s an ancient coastal forest, or remnants of one, with cedar and pine tree stumps peering from beneath the sand and stone and now just stubs and bits, worn down by thousands of years of waves. The site is one of two “sunken forests” in New Hampshire waters. The other “drowned forest” is at nearby Jenness State Beach in Rye. Due to the tectonic shift about 3,500 years ago this forest, and the land it was once was, was swallowed by the Atlantic Ocean. The stumps are only a few inches tall but are several feet wide as in this image below:  It is difficult to find the stumps as the bottom changes, but they can be found in shallow water in very low tides. At low tide, you can walk over them. Most of the stumps lie in the right side of the cove. As the depth there is very shallow, this site is best dived within an hour of high tide. The maximum depth will get will be 10-15ft of water. You’re also going to want to dive the site when the winds/waves are calm and westerly, as the site faces east. It’s an easy dive which would be good for beginner divers. The entry/exit is not far from where suit up and it’s an easy entry, exit. The day we dove it was warm, sunny, and dead calm with amazing visibility which really made for a spectacular dive. The sun’s rays shone through the water making dramatic underwater pictures.  Below is shot of our group of divers and one free diver/snorkeler.   The easiest way to get is if you're travelling south on route 1A, there is a pullover on the left side just as and Odiorne State Park. You can park at the first or 2nd pullover. To access the entry/exit, just walk over the dune and you will see the cove that is known as Sunken Forest.  Are you for Ski SCUBA? A play on the great line from SCUBA Claude of Along Came Polly (2004)! I get asked a lot about the picture below from my iDive New England Blog Profile, so I wanted to do a quick blog post about it. Plus, as it’s snowing out today, it was the perfect day to write about it. I’m an avid skier during the winter and I have been a regular season pass holder at Crotched Mountain, one of the mountain’s closest to my house. Every year in the spring, the ski resort holds Spring Fest that includes an annual Pond Skim, where competitors attempt to skim across a small man-made pond with their skis and snowboards. One of the annual Pond Skim award categories is Best Costume so I got creative and thought to combine two of my favorite passions, skiing and SCUBA diving.
 You can imagine the looks on the other skiers’ eyes during my practice runs down the mountain!
In my inaugural iDiveNewEngland blog post “I’m a River Rat”, I wrote about Peirce Island, a spectacular dive site in New Hampshire found along the Piscataqua River. It’s a dive that’s not recommended during summer months given heavy boat traffic that’s coupled with strong river currents. But when the conditions and tides are just right, divers will take the plunge to explore all the site has to offer.
It’s known for its variety of sea life such as lobster, crabs, sea raven, hydroid fields, an abundance of anemones, as well as it’s cool underwater topography. In winter months, luckily when boat traffic has just about halted, macro photographers dive there to capture images of nudibranch that begin to appear in January. 
For those not familiar with nudibranchs, they are sea slugs, (like snails without a shell).
Nudibranchs are animals within the phylum Mollusca, class Gastropoda. Other gastropod mollusks common to New England waters include limpets, moon snails, whelks, and periwinkles. The nudibranchs seen at Peirce are in the scientific order Nudibranchia, which contains ~3,000 different species. At Peirce Island, a few species of aeolis nudibranchs are the most common. Coryphella verrucosa (formerly Flabellina verrucosa) are smaller, growing to around 1.5”, and can be found throughout New England waters. The real star of Peirce Island is a species in the genus Flabellina that has not been officially described (i.e. it doesn’t have a full scientific name). These look similar to Coryphella verrucosa but grow as large as 4”! Peirce is the southernmost extent of this species’ habitat range.
Aeolis nudibranchs are sought after by macro photographers for their distinctive, colorful, white-tipped cerata that contrast beautifully against their partially transparent, milk-white body.
So, are you curious yet to why there are so many nudibranchs at Peirce Island? The reason is the abundance of their food source, specifically the hydroid fields there that litter the bottom of the river floor and taste great to nudibranchs.
The following images are the two commonly seen species of aeolis nudibranchs feeding on the hydroids off Peirce Island taken in January/February 2021 by Jennifer Polinski. 
Diving in the Piscataqua during winter means braving water temperatures in the upper 30s, but during certain periods in between winter storms, one can be blessed with visibility upwards of 25 to 30 feet! Adversely, with snow melt runoff, the visibility in the river diminishes.
The nudibranchs slowly start to appear in January, with February being the peak season to encounter them. As March approaches, they lay their eggs and reach the end of their life cycle, but I have seen them as late as May. Roughly only about 30 of the 3,000 species of nudibranchs can be found in the Northeast. 
Andrea Dec pointing Nudibranchs out to Maren Cao May 26th 202
iDive New England features great resources for more information. I strongly recommend you get Jerry Shine’s book Nudibranchs of the Northeast which some dive shops carry, or you could purchase online.
I also recommend you sign up for notifications in the Marine Life- North Atlantic mobile app by Andrew J. Martinez so you can see specific dive site locations nudibranchs are being seen.
WMUR Chronicle featured a cool episode in February 2021 about this dive site you can check out at Diving for Nudibranchs in the Piscataqua River.
As I’ve mentioned in past posts, diving the Piscataqua River isn’t for the faint of heart. The currents are treacherous which is why you should only dive with a professional dive guide or someone very familiar with the tide cycles, entry and exits, experienced diving the site. For those that are able to make it January through February, keep your eyes open for nudibranchs! Folly Cove in Gloucester, Massachusetts is one of every local scuba diver’s go-to dive sites on Cape Ann. Day or night, Folly Cove rarely disappoints. There is a shore dive along the left side of the cove, a shore dive along the right side of the cove and boat dive locations that begin towards the mouth of the cove. On the left side of a shore dive, divers explore pink granite formations loaded with life and sea critters. There are frilled anemones, green urchins, longhorn sculpin, rock gunnel and colorful sea stars. Certain times of the year divers will see nudibranchs that aren’t commonly seen in Cape Ann during peak dive season. Divers will often also spend time on the bottom sand as there are moon snails, flounder, northern pipefish, northern puffers, burrowing anemones and for the lucky diver there is a torpedo ray sighting. During night dives, divers will often be entertained by groupings of bobbing squid along the grooves of the sand. But while divers explore Folly for so many reasons, most aren’t aware there is a resident Northern Red Anemone on the left side of the cove that has been in the same location for over 30 years.
Photo’s courtesy of Jennifer Polinski Marine Photograph The scientific name for the Northern Red is urticina crassicornis, and the name Northern Red is used for multiple species found around the world. Sometimes divers feed it as they pass by, and many divers use it for a focal point for underwater photography. In addition to being alluring for its graceful movement and vibrant color, it is used as a navigational landmark at this site. “We started heading back after the red anemone…” Finding it isn’t too difficult either.  I dive along the sand on bottom with the rocks on the left and about 2/3 of the way to end of the wall, there is a small overhang.
As for feeding it, as some divers do, green urchins seem to be a favorite. Closely related species are known to eat fish, and this resident doesn’t appear to pass up anything tasty caught within its tentacles. During a feeding divers can observe the tentacles moves prey toward its oral disc where it feeds. If the resident Red Anemone is closed, don’t bother as it’s just had a feeding.
Enjoying favorite Green Urchin  Closed after feeding Seeing the Northern Red Anemone is a highlight of Folly Cove dives, especially when guiding new divers at the site. The lifespan of a Northern Red Anemone is about 60-80 years so there is no telling how long it’s lived there before I started diving Folly over 30 years ago, but I’d be interested if any divers encountered it before then!
Many thanks to Jennifer Polinski for the pictures. You can follow Jennifer's Marine Photography account on Instagram: jmp_photograsea With ongoing angry seas in December, there wasn’t a window of calmness long enough to put the Christmas Tree out on the water at Nubble Light. For those not familiar with “the Tree dive”, it’s a tradition that began in 1979 by the late Gary Thullier, a member of the United Divers of New Hampshire Dive Club. The tradition brought together dive club members to participate with the York Parks department’s Annual lighting of the Nubble festivities. The “Lighting of the Nubble” event was held every Saturday after Thanksgiving. Divers would show up the afternoon of the event to assemble the tree, attach the tree to the base, secure floats to the base and rig the LED lights and then everyone pitched in to “trim the tree”, which also involved adorning with glow sticks. The tradition was to raise the Christmas tree, complete with lights, out of the water just after the countdown to light up the lighthouse.  York Parks would allot several parking spots closest to the water allowing us room for the tree but more importantly room for a tent canopy with walls to shelter us from the elements. We did this right, complete with space heaters and propane stoves to boil water cups-o-soup, cocoa and to have warm water to warm up gloves, and wetsuits before going back in. Not all divers were diving in dry suits. Some of the divers, including my daughter, participated in the dive in wet suits. In between the dives, we would grill stuff (Roz’s BBQ Ribs!!), feast on holiday goodies and play holiday music while trying to stay warm. After bringing the tree out of the water, kids and families would line up to get pictures with the scuba divers and lit up tree. We would hand out glow sticks off the tree to the kids.  It always takes a small village to organize and execute the tree dive event. The tree needs to be assembled and trimmed before being hauled down to the water. We then rely on divers to tow the tree out over to the mooring and submerge it in anticipation of the countdown. Divers need to reenter the water once again before the lighting to pop the glow sticks underwater and ready the tree for the raising as the lighthouse was lit up.   With the passing of Gary Thullier, who was integral in coordinating the tree dive, others were only too glad to pitch in to help. Members from the former Finatics Dive Club, and NH dive shops Aquatic Escapes of Londonderry and Aquatic Specialties in Merrimack all helped to keep the tradition going. The original base that Gary had made was crafted of steel rebar. As you can imagine, over time it would rust and corrode due to the salt water, and this was amplified by being stored outside. The base eventually needed to be replaced, and Erika Parsons stepped up and used her pipefitter skills to build a new stainless-steel base. The original LED lighting Gary had fashioned also needed to be upgraded. David Hubelbank, an RPI Electrical Engineer, upgraded the LED Lights with a proper LED lighting system which was a more reliable system than in past years. We also switched to a much bigger winch that significantly simplified the process of submerging the tree. David Coyle of Aquatic Specialties donated the current tree. (We’re on our 3rd “neutrally buoyant” tree).
We had our share of problems over the years, including years where we needed to scrub the tree dive all together. The conditions had just been too rough, windy, and not safe to be on the water or topside. One year, the lights flashed on the lighthouse after the countdown only to go out immediately. Another year the tree toppled over as it surfaced only to have the tree becoming separated from the base and promptly ending up ending up on the bottom of the ocean. The following morning, Mike Nalen of Aquatic Escapes had to do a “tree recovery”.  I first became involved in the tree dive in 2010 and have looked forward to participating every year with my wife and kids. As we raised the tree from the water, it was a rush to hear the crowds cheering and see the flashing lights. I would also enjoyed towing the tree around for a “victory lap” before towing it back to shore for the photo op. I remember divers being greeted to the warmest thank you’s (and sometimes even hugs from the younger kids)   A few of the years, there were challenges getting divers to help as many longtime supporters had family commitments. One especially quiet year, it was just myself and Ben Tong as divers and Matt Rosenburg, the Nubble Lighthouse Keeper, to help topside on his dinghy. We managed to successfully submerge and raise the tree with bystanders pitching in and help bring the tree down to the water and back up afterwards. The Town and the public had always looked forward to the tree being there, so we just made it work. That was until the event had become a victim of its own success. The holiday festivities would draw over 1,000 people into quite a small area. The Town of York and York Parks Department made the decision to do away with the countdown over safety concerns, such as access for first responders. While there is no longer a large gathering with an annual countdown, divers still make an effort to keep the tradition of the Nubble tree everlasting. Last winter, we were blessed with calm seas, so Dave Coyle from Aquatic Specialties and a few divers pitched in to put the tree out for the first time since the Pandemic. A local diver, Bobby Joe, stepped up to take some spectacular drone footage.  While Mother Nature didn’t allow us to bring out the this year, I’m looking forward to putting the tree out on the water for Christmas in July 2023. We hope that you will join in the event.  Let’s continue to keep our traditions going strong.
 Nubble Lighthouse in Cape Neddick, Maine, holds a special place in my heart as Nubble was the first dive site I dove when I first moved to New England. Whenever I’m looking to get out for a dive, I usually check conditions there first given it’s one of my favorites. After Pierce Island in Portsmouth, it’s the 2nd site I’ve dove the most in New England with close to 200 dives. Nubble never disappoints. I’ve personally have had some of my all-time best encounters with marine life diving off Nubble. I encountered my first sightings of Torpedo Rays, Seals, Sturgeon and last December, came across a Blue Fin Tuna right off the northern point of the island. On multiple occasions I came across the largest schools of bait fish. Some bait balls of Pollack, Menhaden (“Pogies”) were so big right above me, the water would darken. This past October, two of my regular dive buddies encountered a humpback whale. Night dives at Nubble are also special with some of the largest schools of squid and occasional bioluminescence. Nothing like surfacing to a beautiful starry sky lit by a full moon. In the Spring of 2008, as my buddies and I were suiting up, the Lighthouse Keeper at that time asked if we would be willing to do him a favor and secure his mooring ball to the mooring in the cove. We were only too glad to help. To thank us, the Lighthouse Keeper offered to row us out on his dinghy to the island for a tour of the lighthouse. It was special as I got to experience the inside of the house. It was still the same as when Town of York became Guardian of Nubble in 1997. There were wood paneled walls, 70’s shag carpet, GSA issued office desks and bookshelves full of USCG manuals. The real highlight though was getting to go up to the lighthouse for the panoramic view. Several years later, I introduced myself to Matt Rosenburg, the new Lighthouse Keeper who replaced the previous one that had retired. I offered to help Matt with the mooring ball which he really appreciated. Putting the mooring ball out in the spring and removing it in the fall has since become an annual ritual and Matt and I have since formed a special bond. A couple years ago, while talking to Matt after one of my dives Matt shared he was diver and that he hadn’t dove since he completed his open water dives at Nubble when he was a student at UNH 25 years ago. I’ll never forget the look of excitement in Matt’s eyes when I offered to take him out for a refresher, kit him up with set of gear. We went out August of 2021 and for Matt, the dives we did that day were the highlight of his summer. Matt had an amazing experience and said diving was better than he remembered. We’ve since have done several dives together and I even had the opportunity dive with Matt on the other side of the island off his boat this past July. So the next time you’re out diving at Nubble and see Matt working, please say hi! Below is link to Matt’s Instagram account. His pictures and artwork are amazing! https://www.instagram.com/nubblelightkeeper/?hl=en Nubble Lighthouse decked out for Christmas: Meet the keeper who keeps it bright    By Luis Figueroa – iDive New England Team Member
An iDive New England Diver bud had a great idea to post stocking stuffer, gift ideas you can give to your non-diving friends, spouses, or significant others struggling with what to get you. Admit it. We’re very particular when it comes to our gear which makes it difficult for non-divers to know what to get us as gifts this holiday season. I am blessed as my non-diver mother-in-law has been trained well that knows to give me air-cards from my local dive shop each year. Certainly, gift cards or gift certificates make great stocking stuffers for your diver loved ones but the following are other ideas to add to your list:
What are your stocking stuffer suggestions for your significant other? Leave ideas in the leave a comment below. Leave a comment |
AuthorLuis Figueroa Archives
January 2024
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