Welcome to NJScuba.net, a website dedicated to exploring the New Jersey / New York region underwater -- "Wreck Valley". Here you will find information on dive sites, marine biology, artifacts and activities, gear and training, and many other subjects.
Fishing vessel Susan Rose was bound from her home port of Port Judith, Rhode Island to Manasquan to begin fluke fishing off New Jersey. Instead, just before 5AM * Friday November 17, 2023, she ran aground approximately 350 yards ** south of the inlet centerline. All four crew were safely gotten off. After de-fueling and de-watering, she was successfully pulled off the beach on the second attempt, at about 2AM Sunday morning, after rolling in the rough surf for almost two days. The vessel rapidly filled with water, capsized and sank, a few hundred yards ** off the beach, in approximately 50 feet of water. Again, everyone was gotten off safely.
* about 90 minutes after low tide ** news reporters said half a mile, but ... well, reporters
I turned on the strictest and most verbose error reporting in both WordPress and PHP, and got a pile of non-critical error messages. It was pretty ugly. So I spent a while and fixed them all; actually, it didn't take that long. I don't like to be sloppy, just because the system can tolerate an error doesn't mean you should leave it.
Stubbed-in all the remaining extra files in Dive Sites and Artificial Reefs, and organized them, with Contents pages listing everything. Then I did the same for the Home section. Now up to 660 (blank) pages. Next - Biology.
Don't know how I missed this, but back in August, Stu retired and sold Dutch Springs to a developer who plans to put two warehouses on the property:
click to enlarge
As you can see, one warehouse fills the small wooded area (lower-left) that was basically unused, while the other obliterates the entire area between the quarry and the road. This leaves no room for parking or facilities. The property is approximately 95 acres, but more than half of that is water.
Sad, but Stu built the place and ran it for 40 years, and he has a right to retire. As we all know, anything having to do with diving brings insurance into the mix, and thus far no other solution has been found.
The quarry will be fenced-off, and Dutch Springs will enter the history books.
I love the part where they dynamite the coral reef to get the boat through. For science! They also run over a baby whale, and kill the poor thing. At least they didn't fondue it. I have so say though, science was manlier in those days, and scientists weren't afraid to wear short-shorts.
Finished stubbing-in all the artificial reef pages, and integrating the dive sites and artificial reefs sections. It actually works better than the old hand-made site. Lots of nice automatic menus everywhere. Over 600 pages, and a lot more to go.
Still finding and fixing bugs, but the basic architecture is sound. I think the best plan is to put in blank pages for everything and get the 'tree' right. Then I can fill in the content, or 'leaves'.
The two Delaware reefs are now fully up to date, with the graphics re-sized for the new layout. I also built the structure for the New York reefs, after finding where New York is hiding all the data. And I do mean hiding, you'd be lucky to ever find it, I ran across it completely by accident. They have put it up in a way that is completely impenetrable to Google - you could search forever and never find it. Next up will be filling in all the missing New York reefs.
Rockaway Belle is listed as Army tug-transport T-1, built by Simms Brothers, Dorchester MA, 1942. 'T-boats' were 65-foot, 45 ton diesel-powered, passenger-cargo boats that doubled as harbor tugs. 170 of them were constructed during WWII, and many more afterwards. From 1940 through 1951 all T-Boats were built of wood, thereafter steel. Rockaway Belle was T-1 of the T-1 class, sold as surplus in 1947.
