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Homer

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.

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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.


I added a slew of new features and capabilities to my standard "Simple" theme, and I think I'm done ( except for the inevitable bug fixes. ). It is still simple to use, but actually pretty sophisticated behind the scenes. The major additions:


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.


ShipBuildingHistory.com is a resource that I have often used to look up many of the reefs and a few of the wrecks in this website. I recently sent in an update, and received a notice that the author had passed away. The next thing that usually happens in these cases is that the website disappears when the hosting goes unpaid, so I immediately grabbed a copy for myself.

That's when I found that the original site was almost a gigabyte in size, and 95% of that was formatting. So I cleaned it up, and cleaned it up, and cleaned it up, and added some navigation structures and other niceties that you would expect. Then I posted my copy as a sub-site here:


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.


After about a year of stable operation, I fixed a few minor bugs in my WordPress theme and plugins, mostly in the back end. The only thing noticeable is that I got the broken tide tables working again. Other than that, the system seems pretty mature, I can't think of any new features to add, and my code seems to be pretty resilient against changes in the WordPress core. In other words, try as they might, they have not broken my extensions in a long time.


Ha ha ha, I spelled its name wrong. But it caught it!

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.


A thousand monkeys at a thousand computers would be guaranteed to produce WordPress. In fact, they already have.

In a WordPress site like this, the look and feel are determined by the 'theme'. Working on the theme seems to be a never-ending task. First, I keep thinking of new features, and almost everything is baked into the theme, rather than in a stand-alone 'plugin'. When a feature is built into the theme, it can't be accidentally disabled.


Featured

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:


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


Uncategorized

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Manasquan Chart

  1. Barge #10
  2. 120 Wreck
  3. 3 Sisters
  4. Ambrose Buoy
  5. A Street - Shark River
  6. Across
  7. Adele
  8. Ajace
  9. Alex Mac
  10. Allenhurst Jetty
  11. Anastasia
  12. Antioch
  13. Arnoff
  14. Arundo
  15. Asfalto
  16. Aurora
  17. Ayuruoca
  18. BA Wreck
  19. Shark River - Back Bay
  20. Balaena
  21. Bald Eagle
  22. Barnegat Inlet
  23. BD1738
  24. USS Benson
  25. Beth Dee Bob
  26. Blue Boy
  27. Bonanza
  28. Brick barge
  29. Bronx Queen
  30. Brunette
  31. Cecilia M Dunlap
  32. Cornelius Grinnell
  33. Catherine Jackson
  34. Chauncy Jerome
  35. Caddo
  36. Cadet
  37. Capt Smitty
  38. Catamount
  39. Charlemagne Tower
  40. Chaparra
  41. Chesapeake
  42. Choapa
  43. clam boat
  44. Continent
  45. crane barge
  46. Creole
  47. Daghestan
  48. Delaware
  49. drydock
  50. Dryland
  51. dump
  52. Duncan
  53. Edmund Phinney
  54. Elberon Rocks
  55. Emerald / USS Hibiscus
  56. Eureka
  57. Francis A Perkins
  58. William R Farrell
  59. FF Clain
  60. Finance
  61. Fort Victoria
  62. Gassoon
  63. German
  64. Lady Gertrude
  65. GL78
  66. Glen II
  67. Glory Wreck
  68. I.P. Goulandris
  69. Granite Wreck
  70. Great Isaac
  71. Gulftrade (stern)
  72. Gulftrade (bow)
  73. Gypsy
  74. Horseshoe Cove
  75. Alexander Hamilton
  76. Hankins (Big)
  77. Hankins (Offshore)
  78. Hankins 3
  79. Happy Days
  80. Cornelius Hargraves
  81. Harry Rush
  82. Harvey's Schooner
  83. Thomas Hebert
  84. Ida K
  85. Immaculata
  86. Inshore barge/tug
  87. Irene/Truro
  88. Irma C
  89. John Minturn
  90. Jack I
  91. Joan La Rie III
  92. Klondike Rocks
  93. Lizzie H. Brayton
  94. Lana Carol
  95. Larsen
  96. Lavallette Wreck
  97. Leon Walter
  98. Lillian
  99. Lizzie D
  100. Long Branch locomotives
  101. Logwood
  102. H.W. Long
  103. Macedonia
  104. Mahogany
  105. Malta
  106. Manasquan Inlet
  107. Marion
  108. Maurice Tracy
  109. Mediator
  110. Meta
  111. Middle Barge
  112. Mistletoe
  113. R.C. Mohawk
  114. Mohawk
  115. Manasquan Wreck
  116. Nautilus
  117. Navesink River
  118. Northeast Sailor
  119. New Reef
  120. New Deal
  121. New Era
  122. NW Barges
  123. Olsen
  124. HMS Pentland Firth
  125. Park City
  126. Peerless
  127. Persephone
  128. Long Branch Pier Rubble
  129. Pinta
  130. Pliny
  131. Plymouth
  132. Pocopson
  133. Remedios Pascual
  134. Ruth Shaw
  135. Ramos
  136. Ranger
  137. Reliable
  138. Relief Lightship
  139. Rickseckers
  140. Ridge Schooner
  141. Riggy
  142. Rjukan
  143. Rockaway Belle
  144. Roy's barge
  145. RP Resor
  146. Manasquan River Railroad Bridge
  147. Rudder Wreck - Pocono
  148. Rump
  149. Rusland / Adonis
  150. Scotland Buoy
  151. San Saba
  152. Sandy Hook Pilot Boat
  153. SC-60
  154. Sea Girt Inlet
  155. Sea Girt Wreck
  156. Sea Hag
  157. Seaside Crane Barge
  158. Shark River Inlet
  159. Shrewsbury Rocks
  160. Simala
  161. Spring Lake Sailor
  162. Steel Wreck
  163. Stolt Dagali
  164. Sumner
  165. Southwest Mohawk
  166. Sylvanus
  167. Tampa III
  168. Thurmond
  169. Tolten
  170. Train Wheel
  171. Troop Carrier
  172. USS Turner
  173. AWOIS 8087
  174. AWOIS 8097
  175. u11
  176. AWOIS 7509
  177. AWOIS 7932
  178. AWOIS 9768
  179. AWOIS 12966/11422
  180. AWOIS 1609
  181. AWOIS 8084
  182. AWOIS 7940
  183. AWOIS 7938
  184. AWOIS 8076
  185. AWOIS 4600
  186. AWOIS 8075
  187. Valerie E
  188. Vega
  189. Vivian
  190. Vizcaya
  191. Warrior
  192. Western World
  193. Edward W Winslow
  194. Yankee (G+D)
  195. Yellow Flag
  196. ZPG-3W