August Diving

I had a 4 day weekend and was lucky enough to spend most of it diving off of Gloucester. 3 of us, Pete, Laurent and I, dived Rafe's Chasm on Friday. Beautiful spot however we rarely ever go there because it is exposed to boat traffic and the open ocean. I had 2 goals; lobsters and filming a scene for Laurent.
Laurent had me swim down the anchor line than when I was about 10 ft above him to let go of the line and swim over his head. After that scene I was then to swim back around and swim over him again so he could get me swimming away. That was easy.
The lobstering was tougher. Lots of small lobsters but very few that were "legal". I was able to find 3 good sized ones. The water was freezing and somewhat fuzzy but that was because we were so close to shore and the chasm. Lots of swaying.
Saturday was fun too however we had to reshoot the scenes from Friday. The water was too fuzzy. We went to Graves Island also called The Wreck of the New Hampshire. We all wanted to search the area for trinkets from The Wreck. I went shallow and found a nice place I thought would be a good area to search since there were stones that looked like they had been on fire. I found alot of small nails. I had a lobster bag with me that I could put my stash in to however i didn't get anything big enough to put in it. While I was busy trying to clear the area a hand thrusts a lobster in my face. Of course I jump! The lobster is good so I put it in the bag, wave at the group that has been watching me and go back to my digging. It was very hard to dig and make sure i didn't crush the lobster. Finally looked at my gauges and saw i was under 500 psi. Took one last look at the hole and turned back to the boat.
The next dive was to the backside of Kettle Island. This is where Laurent and I refilmed the scene. Back down the line and up and over Laurent as he filmed. We went deep because and found lots of tiny lobsters. Saw one that was no longer than my finger. It was hanging under a piece of seaweed that I moved to see if there was a lobster behind it. Laurent pulled my fin to get my attention and when I turned I jumped. He had the biggest lobster I have ever seen and I have caught a 10lber. He hands me the lobster so he can film and I had to use both hands to hold it. He grabbed my bag and poker in his claws so I let go of them. Once I relaxed my grip slightly so I could still hold him but let him move around a little he calmed down. I put my hand on his crusher claw and he tried to bite me with his other claw. Even if I spread my hand out it wouldn't fit across the crusher claw. Pictures will be coming. Laurent is going to send them to me. We think he was about 20 lbs. To figure out whether it was a male or female I looked for a notch in his fin and since there wasn't one I turned him over and found he was a male. How was he able to survive this long without being caught. Amazing.
At the end of the day I had 6 lobsters to bring to a dinner party that night. Life is good!
Sunday morning my ears were feeling a little squishy, that is a medical term, so I took 2 sudafed. Laurent wanted to film some more but I didn't think my ears would take it so we put it off until next weekend. We went to the restaurant at Folly Cove, a nice dive. I went down the down line which helped me control my descent so I could clear my ears slowly. I made it down and came across the anchor. Was going to head towards an area where I heard there is scarlet solstice but then saw Pete and decided to follow him. He went deep out into the cove. It was cold and dark and sandy. I was wondering where he was going because there was nothing out there but then we started seeing lobsters sitting in holes in the sand. The lobsters dig holes and hide in them when they feel there is danger. As we swam we came across huge boulders that housed more lobsters. They were all shorts. I did find a shell from a moon snail. Very nice. While we were deep, 65 ft, I added air to my drysuit and now that we were going shallow I was very floaty. I was holding onto rocks to get the air out but it wasn't working. We ended up back under the boat and decided to call the dive. My ears were holding up so I decided I would go in on the 2nd dive.
The last dive of the weekend was in Hoop Pole Cove. Lovely place, the cove slopes down and then comes back up in the middle and then slopes back down (like a mountain in the middle of a bowl). The rocks are covered with Irish Moss. I only saw shorts so I decided to go back to the boat. About an hour later my ears where a little sore then by the time I got home they hurt a lot.

Totals
Dives: 20
Lobsters: 10