iPhone 7 Plus in.......Diver down! Why, why, why. All I wanted to do was just get the boat wet, ride around a bit, and figure maybe catch a bluefish. Seems simple, right? Well not if you're me. Let me start out with this morning. I know it's been a evening bite on the beach but one of these days a few good fish will wake up hungry, I was hoping today was that day. Did my dark fly thing and ended up with a trio of tiny bass. Switched over to my one-eyed secret weapon and got the best fish of the morning while out on the rocks. Took a walk to fish some other rocks but didn't get a tap. Before leaving I mugged Richie who had some big bluefish and I pulled another baby out.
Yesterday I got my package from Andrew at the Orvis Marlton store. I had ordered the wrong line weight, 250 gr, after it snapped last week on one of those big river blues. I like the Depth Charge 300 and 350, and yes, to me, the 50 gr difference makes a difference. I was all packed up last night for this years maiden voyage. After the beach I put her in and snapped the below picture, in less than a minute from that I was staring down into the abyss as my iPhone 7 Plus
drifted down to the bottom and out of sight. I thought about stripping down and diving in on the half ebbed tide, but I looked and looked for 40 minutes. It was gone and I was sure that the bogus Otterbox, which seems to let moisture and water in during a rain when it's in my StormR jacket would be no match for the brine water. I figured thats done, let me go out and ride around. I went out front. I came back close and drifted the rip near the party boats that were anchored and chunking. Then I motored over to where a lighthouse once stood and found bunker heaven just nothing on them. There were a few boats also chunking but nothing came over the rails.
But my mind was on my iPhone. Maybe at dead low I could reach down and pick it up and at least I would have it. I knew exactly where it was. So I got back to the dock at 1130 and looked down, down into water that was 4 feet lower then when I dropped it. I still couldn't see it. I went over to the dock guys garage and asked if they had a net. They gave one that was about 8 feet long. This would be easy, I'll just dredge it up. Well, that would be fine but the problem was the water there is still about 12 feet deep. I leaned way over and held onto the cleat enough to just brush the bottom. I felt it, but couldn't get it.
Then I heard an angels voice over me. "Hi, are you looking for something?" I turned and saw her silhouette, and then I saw her, standing there in a wetsuit. Her name was Donna, Donna the Diver as I came to think of her. She was a commercial diver there working getting the marinas moorings set. They were watching me from the control tower and she felt bad and wanted to help.
She got her tank, her flag, her flippers and gave it a hard try. The problem was I dirtied up the water and she had poor visibility. She went down about a half a dozen times and on the second to last one she said, "Sorry I can't find it", but I was so indebted because of her efforts. She said, "Let me give it one more shot". She went down, and up she came with my iPhone, and she held it I could see the screen was lit up. How lucky am I? But more importantly how nice is Donna the Diver.
