Christine and I spent last weekend diving at Eastport Maine (the eastern most town in the US). We stayed with Jonathan Bird and did six dives during the three days up there.
You can only dive during slack tide (high or low tide), but there is only time to do one dive during the slack time. The tides up there are over 18 foot so there is barely any actual slack time. The current just slows down to nothing and then reverses in the other direction.
The visibility was very good for up here… a bit over 20 ft and very consistent.
The water flow brings a lot of nutrients and the marine life is fantastic. I can unquestionably say that this has to be the best cold water diving I have done to this point.
We saw several wolf-fish, and other fish, lots of anemones, lots of nudibranchs (I need to add reading lenses to the bottom of my mask), lobsters, and lots of other marine life.
Jonathan was not able to dive with us since he had a cold, but he was a great host. His house is right on front of a great dive spot and it has an outdoor shower to rinse gear.
The water temperature was a very comfortable 55 F (with a dry suit).
One of Jonathan and our friend (Mia) got to try one of my Phoenix HPR… She used it a couple of times and was contemplating how to get one.
This was a great dive spot and we are looking forward to going back.
Take a look at this link to see some of the marine life in Eastport:
http://www.jonathanbird.net/eastport.html
Here is a picture that Jonathan took of Gene, one of his neighbors. How cool is that… we got to meet Gene and fed him… his other buddies were a bit shy.
Here is a link to a short special Jonathan did about wolf-fish.
http://www.blueworldtv.com/webisodes/watch/wolffish
Here are some pictures of the top side… sorry no underwater camera with me, but below are some links to Jonathan’s web site and a couple of his pictures.
Mia (trying a Phoenix HPR):
The dive site: