Diving in Scituate with Tom Mulloy

Today Kim and I drove up to Scituate, Mass to dive with Tom Mulloy- and his dog Bailey. Before we got the boat ready to go, Tom showed us his artifact collection and the stained glass projects that he makes. Both were very impressive. He has a great boat to dive from because the stern is very spacious. The first dive site was Mino Light. On our way out we stopped to say hi to Tom’s friend, a lobsterman who had just pulled and set his pots. The lobstering right now isn’t as good as it has been; he only had two in that whole catch!

Diving at Mino Light was awesome. The historic lighthouse sits on top of huge rocks that form mini canyons just large enough to swim through- which was awesome!. The rock walls are covered in all different types and colors of seaweed and are filled with fish and hiding spots for lobsters. The site is not too deep so it was a nice long dive-and oh yeah, I caught my first New England lobster! I grabbed it quickly but then dropped it when it started to bring its claws back towards me-Tom was laughing, but I got it again and brought it over to him. The lobster was too little to do anything with, but I was wicked happy that I caught my first one!!

Kim piloted us into the harbor where we docked quickly to see the memorial to the lightkeepers of the first Mino Light, then we were off to the next dive site: The wreck of the Forrest Queen. The Forrest Queen was a wooden hulled ship that sank in 1852, and has been worn down by the salty, current-filled New England water. Because the wreck was in 13 feet of water Kim was able to snorkel down to see it, and we were both surprised to see big looming chunks of conglomerate on the bottom rather than something in the shape of a boat . Tom taught me how to use a crowbar and hammer, and we found lots of stuff in the conglomerate-mostly all wine bottles, but I found a corset lacing snap, and Tom found some hand cut nails. It was awesome to think all this stuff was from the 1800s. After that, he let me try out his underwater scooter. Wicked cool, but I got totally lost underwater and ended up surfacing far far away.

Later, Tom took us to the local sailing museum. He’s found lots of treasures on the Forrest Queen, from intact Tabasco bottles, all sorts of hardware made by blacksmiths, and best of all a 73 lb silver ingot! Holy cow was that thing massive. He puts his treasures on display at the museum so local kids and citizens can learn about some of their coastal history. It’s all very neat.