After I got back from the Shootout, Sea Rovers Dave Caldwell and his wife Heather Knowles invited me to join their charter boat, the Gauntlet, to dive the famous Chester Poling wreck on the Fourth of July!
I drove up to Beverly bright and early to meet Dave, Heather, and the rest of the folks on the charter that day. I was happy to learn that Sea Rover Maura Keane and friend of the Sea Rovers Ferdinand Vesely were also going to be diving with us! I got to catch up with the two of them and with Dave, and met the other couple divers I didn’t already know.
As we got closer to the mooring of the Poling, we broke out the Fourth of July themed donuts and Heather drew up a diagram of the wreck to show me what we would be seeing. The Poling was a coastal tanker that sank off Gloucester in 1977. It got caught in a huge storm that ripped it in two before it sank. The bow end is still diveable, but only for tech divers since it rests at about 180 feet. At 90 feet, the stern end is a much more popular site, and it was this end that we were going to dive! I had heard of the Chester Poling before, and knew it was somewhat of a rite of passage to dive it as a new East Coast diver, so I was really excited that Dave and Heather had offered to take me along.
When we got to the wreck, we divided into groups and entered the water one group at a time. Heather and I were the second group to go in, so after we suited up we did a giant stride entry off the back of the boat and started to descend along the line. This was my first real dive with my new dry glove system, so we took it slow as I got used to the feeling. Diving in a drysuit feels a bit like getting shrink-wrapped, and you add just enough air to the suit as you descend that you aren’t getting pinched or squeezed, but it’s still a weird sensation that I wasn’t used to having in my hands. You can also feel, as you move your hands around, that the air travels to or from your gloves depending on how elevated your arm is. It’s weird but cool!
As we got to the bottom of the line, the wreck came into view. For our first dive, we did a big loop – swimming down along the starboard/right side of the deck all the way to the stern, then heading back up the port/left side then back to the line. As we went along, I could see that the entire deck was covered in teeny tiny sea stars, each less than half an inch!
There were plenty of fish that took refuge around the wreck too, including the resident wolf-fish that Heather and I saw under the stern! After we made it back around to the line, we ascended up to the boat to get ready for our next dive. When we got back on the boat, Heather told me that we would be penetrating into the wreck on our next dive! She gave me a rundown of what to expect and what rooms we would try to go to while we offgassed on our surface interval. Soon enough, it was time to head back to the wreck! We swam back to where we saw the wolf-fish and swam into the wreck via the open hole in the stern. We swam through and emerged a little farther up the ship, through a large hole that had formed in the deck of the ship. We then swam down the length of the ship to another hole, this time in the side of the ship. From there, we swam from room to room, through corridors and between the skeletons of collapsed walls. In some rooms light found a way in through gaps in the wall or ceiling, or through a porthole, but in many of the rooms our flashlights were the main source of light. As we swam through, I could see lengths of rope with algae growing over them, and the remnants of the galley’s kitchen appliances. It was super strange to think that this was once a working ship that people lived on! Finally we swam up through a gap in the deck and made our way back to the Gauntlet, but my mind was still on how otherworldly and exhilarating it felt to swim through a sunken ship!
Back on the boat, we changed out of our gear in time to sing Happy Birthday to Dave, (his birthday was two days prior!) as Maura and Ferd brought out the beautiful cake they had made! We all handed out slices as we made our way back to the dock.
I had an absolutely amazing time on the Gauntlet with Heather and Dave, and I’m so so grateful they offered for me to join the charter! It was lovely to see Dave again, and to meet and dive with Heather. It really does feel like I’m a True New England Diver now, and I can’t wait to dive more wrecks in the future!
— Sofia