The Susan Rose was re-sunk as an artificial reef in February. Over two months later there still has been no public announcement. Here is the NJDEP contact form if you would like to inquire:
If you would like to visit this or any other of New Jersey's new unpublished reefs, contact New Jersey Artificial Reef Coordinator Peter Clarke at Mad Hatter Charters in Neptune City.
I finally added two "new" artificial reefs, the Carrabassett on the Axel Carlson Reef and the New England Coast on the Shark River Reef. I have been waiting patiently for the numbers to be released, and was just informed that these two sites are undergoing "a period of successional development and monitoring" before publication. These studies were never announced at the time, in fact the New England Coast was kept out of the newspapers entirely, obviously so the science would not be tainted by the public. I imagine this study is a lot like this one, conducted by NJDEP fisheries biologists Jennifer Resciniti and Bill Figley over the course of 8 years, published in 2003.
More: "New" Artificial Reefs ...
I started this site way back in 1996 for my new hobby. In all that time, I gladly carried the annual cost of hosting and domain name. But it's time to admit that my diving years are over, and my interest has waned.
I have kept the site up as a service to the diving community, but I don't know how much longer that makes sense.
If you would like to make a small donation to help defray that cost, it would be greatly appreciated, and help to keep the site online.
Simply click the PayPal button below or anywhere else you find it:
More: Support NJScuba.net ...
Since starting the site, I used charts with white water and gray land, and when I re-built all the charts in OpenLayers, it was easy enough to duplicate that. But I noticed that when you print a page, the gray land disappears. I have never found any documentation on the OpenLayers json map specifications, but I picked-apart some examples and eventually hacked-together a solution where the land is green and it does print. So hooray for that.
More: One Last Change to the Charts ...
SS United States Finally Leaves Philadelphia to Begin Its Last Chapter
By Forrest Brown and Danny Freeman, CNN
Wed February 19, 2025
After months of multiple delays, the SS United States finally left its longtime home of Philadelphia just before 1 p.m. ET Wednesday. The storied ocean liner's next stop is Mobile, Alabama, where it will be prepared for its final mission - to become an artificial reef off the coast of the Florida Panhandle. The American maritime icon, nearly as large as the Chrysler Building, was launched in 1951 and set the transatlantic speed record in 1952.
More: Reef Program Dodges a Bullet ...
The Susan Rose has been raised and is presently at a dock in Point Pleasant. Hopefully it will be sunk on a New York reef, for all to use.
Dragger Susan Rose Raised One Year After Sinking
National Fisherman Staff
Mid-Atlantic Northeast News
November 22, 2024
The Rhode Island steel trawler Susan Rose was raised from the sea floor this week a year after sinking off Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., removed as a hazard to navigation.
More: Susan Rose Update ...
I figured out how to customize the map graphics and made them much better for the purpose here.
More: Not Quite Done ... ...
... I hope. There may still be an old-style chart lurking somewhere, but I think I got them all. Above is the new weather chart, with extant stations and buoys. The old chart still showed ALSN6 - the Ambrose Tower that got knocked into the water so many times that they finally gave up on it. The replacement buoy is in the exclusion zone of the shipping lane, where it should be safe.
More: Just About Done ... ...
Actually, the shape of things that have come. While re-doing the artificial reefs charts, I refined and extended the mapping plugin to the point where it seemed like it could do the shipwrecks charts as well. There is a structure and order to the artificial reefs while the shipwrecks are a big jumble, but I figured I'd give it a try, and it worked.
More: The Shape of Things to Come ...
The charts on this site have always been a pain to update. Starting with a spreadsheet of coordinates, converting DMS to decimal and then to pixel coordinates, then precisely placing markers in an image editor. Then generating a corresponding html image map for the links, and putting the whole thing in WordPress in such a way that WordPress doesn't simply eat it, as it is prone to do with a lot of things.
More: New Reef Charts ...
Lake Hydra, formerly Dutch Springs, has re-opened. However, it is strictly for certification classes, and all the land-side facilities are gone. Still, much better than nothing!
