New Jersey Scuba Diving

All the content from the old site has been loaded into the new one. I didn't leave out anything. After fixing obvious errors, now it is time to start improving.

Six new lines of PHP code allow me to now have two titles for each page. The standard WordPress title is used for all the navigation structures, where it needs to fit in a prescribed space, hence needs to be short. In most cases that is also fine for everything, but sometimes I'd like something more descriptive for page title, headers, etc. Now the short title can be very short, and the long title can be very long - no more need to compromise. This is actually a simple fix for a major shortcoming of WordPress. I am continuing to force it into becoming a real CMS.

More: Polishing ...

Started putting the content in. Figured out how to replicate almost all of the styles of the old site. This is going to take a while - there are over 1100 pages to fill in. Most of them should be quick and easy, I've been tackling the tough ones to start with.

More: Progress ...

I've been working on my slideshow WordPress plugin, and I think it is about finished. This took just a few minutes to do, with no problems:

The Mohawk

The port side of the hull near the bow. The lower part still stands, while the upper part has collapsed.

Fallen hull ribs near the bow.

A large winch and machinery, perhaps for the anchors.

Empty rivet holes on hull plates now lying scattered across the bottom. The curved opening at lower-left looks like it might once have held a porthole.

Rear axle, differential, leaf spring, rubber tire and wheel from a truck, near the bow. The cast iron differential casing has rotted away, but the steel spline gears remain.

An old flathead-six truck engine, with one of the front wheels just behind. You can make out the intake runner, minus carburetor.

Amidships, the front (north) side of the half-buried boiler. There is a second boiler in front of this one, collapsed.

Amidships, the front (north) side of the half-buried boiler. There is a second boiler in front of this one, collapsed.

The back (south) side of the remaining boiler, showing caps for fire tubes. The front side of the boiler is solid. Note the large crack in the corner.

Looking forward at the main reduction gears, just behind the boiler.

These huge gears converted the high-speed of the steam turbines to the much lower speed of the propellers. From the geometry of the exposed portion, I estimate that they are approximately twelve feet in diameter, with about two feet exposed. That places the prop shaft about four feet below the sand, and the bottom of the hull more than 10 feet down. These gears would be connected to the propeller shaft, and surrounded by a casing and smaller drive gears. See marine engines for details of such an installation.

Close-up, with some of the marine growth wiped away to show the diagonal teeth.

Moving aft (south) from the boiler along a crumpled framework. This reminds me of an overhead monorail, and is easily big enough to swim under.

More car parts, near the stern.

The aft port side of the wreck is collapsed inward. This is plainly evident in the side-scan image above.

Some kind of heavy machinery.

The Mohawk is mostly just an incomprehensible jumble.

It takes a lot of diving to learn your way around this mess. I've been diving it and studying it about once a week all season (2004), and it's starting to make sense. For the casual diver without such experience, a wreck reel is strongly advised. If nothing else, you can use it as an upline once you realize that not using it from the start was a mistake.

A scene at the extreme stern end of the wreck. For scale, the 'pipe' in the scene is actually a deck support, and is over a foot in diameter.

The Algol

The bow, looking down over the rail of the starboard 40mm gun platform.

Looking down from the forward winch house at a doorway on deck, starboard side. Railings and catwalks are rusting away fast.

The cut-off mid-ships winch house, from the port side ...

... and from some other side.

Looking down on ventilators while swimming aft. I'm not certain, but I think this is the small deckhouse on the port side near the mid-ships winch house. Marine snow streaks across these long exposures like driving rain.

Looking down into the #3 cargo hold.

Various things on the roof of the superstructure, more ventilators, I think. Many an AOW student should recognize this spot.

The cut-off smokestack, from the port side.

The cut-off smokestack, from in front. A small person could fit down the circular hole in the middle.

Looking down off the port bridge wing at the deck below. The leading cunner swam up and bit me a right after I took this picture. They really are little bastards.

More: Slideshows ...

I've been using the browser extension Grammarly to check spelling and punctuation in the site. This is a big job that will take a week or two in small pieces, but is actually not difficult. In fact, it requires very little thinking, it is almost mechanical. I had the necessary functionality to do this quickly and efficiently already built into the WordPress back-end, this is the first time I am using it.

More: Spellchecking ...

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 ...