The 6th traditional non-competitive meet of the New England Freedivelist members took place in Jamestown, Rhode Island, on October 6th, 2001. Participation was limited (11 people) due to gale conditions, 4-5 foot seas and Southwest winds up to 45 mph in and outside Naragansett Bay. Against all odds, a group of freedivers consisting of 11 people still gathered, at least to get wet, anywhere in the Bay. Here is the detailed story from my perspective:

At 19:30 on Friday, after a longer than usual, traffic-jammed 5 hrs drive from Hanover, NH, to Burlingame Campground in Charlestown, RI, I met Jose Fernandez and Patrick Lacchia, who already put up their tents. It turned out that Jose already dove from Monahan's Dock, Naragansett, after a long 9 hrs drive from NJ via NYC, earlier that day. He had tautogs for us to eat at dinner and a nice sized black sea bass. His dive report did not sound very encouraging for the next day since it reported 5 foot visibility and skittish fish. What worried us most was the fact that one of the tautogs that he claimed he hunted turned out to be large leaf of kelp that Patrick threw away silently while filleting Jose's catch. We did not want to ruin Jose's night by telling him the disturbing truth.

In about 2 hrs, while sitting around the campfire, drinking grape juice and defining Rene Potvin and Olivier Resca's personalities based on their phenomenal 53 lbs striper hunt 2 weeks earlier, we were joined by Soner Tunay, his girlfriend Ozlem and Tom Campbell, who drove down from Boston, MA. Luckily, they brought some more grape juice that we were running out of at that point. The night continued with diving stories, more grape juice, tautog burgers cooked on campfire and more grape juice. We finally retreated towards the safety of our tents around midnight, when Jose became kind of agressive in his jokes and when our firewood stocks declined and the eerie shadows of the pines of Burlingame appeared in a more pronunced way under the sweeping light of a beautifully bright moon.

The night slipped away with no major events, except for an ever increasing Southwest wind and a loud "thud" that my flaslight made when it fell on my forehead around 2:00, leaving a nice red scar. Next morning, I opened my eyes around 05:45 and could not sleep again, probably because of an upset stomach and a painful forehead. This, however, did not keep me from enjoying my tent and dreaming about 53 lbs stripers... Around 07:00, I was dragged out of my dreams by a voice with a French accent, which reminded me of my duty as the organizer of the NE meet. I had to be at King's Beach around 9:00.

When we left the tree shelter of the campground, we found our cars shaken by the strong gusty winds. No good!... Pass the Jamestown Bridge, white caps; pass the Newport Bridge, even more white caps. Going through Newport, we saw bubble blowers diving in the marina... No good at all!... Finally on the Ocean Drive... I felt the ocean spray on my face and on my windshield before I could even see the water!.. Damn!... It can't be that bad!... Well, guess what, it is!... Around Brenton Point State Park, the pavement was covered with kelp and rocks that the waves were carrying. Passing through there, I had a nice sea water spray through my sunroof that I forgot to close... No diving anywhere open to the ocean and Southwest winds today. We should dive somewhere in the Bay, but where? I hope local guys have an idea!...

When I reached King's Beach fishing area, old friends were there, enjoying the wind and the surf and the salty air... After a quick hand shaking ceremony, we all concentrated on the fact that we were actually in pretty bad shape as far as diving was concerned. Dave Drew talked to John Warnock on the phone in the hopes to get a secret bad weather location name from him, but nothing positive there!... Some even suggested that we go directly to Aidan's and get wasted but it was too early for that. Besides, that was going to be my last dive of the year so there was no way I was settling for a Guiness dive instead... I rather would have drowned in the Bay than in beer in a gloomy Irish restaurant... After taking a couple of pictures to document the conditions of the day, we decided to head for Potter's Cove, in Jamestown. In case you do not know, this is that little cove which always looks blue and flat that you see on the left just before you hit the toll booths in Newport Bridge towards Newport. Olivier and Patrick, who was eager to try his new kayak, decided to head to the Dumplings and try their chances there... Just before we headed towards our destinations, we did the drawing for the traditional little raffle that I have been able to do over the past 4 years, thanks to the generous donations from Roger Yazbeck (Picasso USA) and Mark Laboccetta (Omer US). Thank you so much guys for making this little community, called the NE Freedivelist divers, happy... TomC, Tino, Steve won the Picasso gift certificates, while Matt won the beautiful set of Omer Millenium fins.

When I arrived in Potter's Cove, people were almost ready to get in. Tom and I joined them soon in murky water. We headed towards the center of the cove first, in the hopes to run into some bluefish, but the visibility was quick to switch our direction towards the point. When we reached the point, depths increased to about 5 meters and we started to see flat mussel beds on muddy bottom and some isolated rocks too. The visibility also increased to 10 feet or so. When I surfaced from my first dive at the point, I found myself 25 meters away from where I started. That's when I understood that there was a nice current pushing all of us towards the mouth of the Bay. It was going to be a difficult swim back to the cove!... On my 5th dive, I was greeted by that school of scup that caught me at the end of my dive. I surfaced and reported my buddy Tom that there were scups down there and dove again and nailed my first one. While stringing it, the current took me probably another 30 meters. After 4 more dives, I was halfway between the pilings of the Newport bridge and the point at Potter's Cove. The current slowed down there, with the main flow heading somewhat towards the center of the channel. That gave me a good opportunity to enjoy some beautiful rock formations there and also to dive a little deeper, up to 9 meters, where I started to see tautogs. On one rock, I was circled by about 20 or so small tautogs, all barely legal or even smaller than that. While heading up from that dive, I looked left and saw that winter flounder looking at me in a head up position. I kind of felt bad shooting it because it was so funny and non-suspecting but I did it anyway... After all, that was my reward on a very bad day of diving!... When I reached the pilings of the bridge, there were rain already pouring down and it was pretty dark. I enjoyed the pieces of steel and small fish scattered around. It was weird to hear the sounds of the cars passing through on each dive. I was hoping to maybe see some stripers there but nothing appeared. I went closer to Tom to talk to him about what he saw or did not see but right next to him, in a vertical U shaped piling, I noticed the white chins of a perfectly vertical tautog. I adjusted the shaft angle so that it will not hit or bounce back from the steel and let the shaft go. This gave me my only tautog of the day. Tom later told me he was seriously worried about seeing me aiming at a steel piling which looked completely empty from his angle!... We then took a small break on one of the rocks there. We were talking about tautog behaviour on a rock in gale conditions under the Newport bridge!... What can beat that?

On the way back, it got darker and darker and rain started to pour more and we felt the front passing through, with cold weather replacing the warm. I was still hearing the tautogs but was unable to see them. At one point, I took the snorkel out and opened my mouth to drink some rain water. When I was done, I saw Tino swimming towards me in a weird way. He then told me that I just did not look right on the surface with my mouth open and my head angled back and he thought something happened to me. It is good to know that we have people around us who actually look around and check on others...

When I hit the current zone, I stopped hunting and concentrated on my muscles and kicking. Half way in the zone, there was a moment when I was kicking as hard as I could but I was actually going back. This made me swim closer to the shore which decreased the current a little bit to a point where I could make some headway. At one point, I stood up on one of the rocks to see what TomC, Soner and Tino were doing agains the current. Indeed, they were having problems!... I watched them slowly make it to the shore and get out of the water to walk back to the parking area. I again got in the water and started kicking. There were at least 30 dead skates there, right at the foot of the cliff that fishermen were fishing earlier that day. I think they just kill them and get rid of them when they are accidentally caught. What a waste! Almost at the tip, I saw another school of scup in 4 meters of water and was able to string a second one there. Then I turned the tip and the current ceased and the visibility got worse and sand started. I was actually pretty happy to get 4 fish in those conditions, so I started enjoying the cunners and gobies and crabs hiding in 1 meter of water. I fed cunners some mussels and watched green crabs steal them from the fish. I was also visited by small schools of baitfish on a couple of occasions. Then I turned left and saw that huge black thing that scared the hell out of me... That turned out to be TomC, who chose not to walk to the car but fought the current back... Way to go man!...

We were the last ones out that day... TomJ, Dave and Steve were already gone. Jose told us that Dave actually saw some stripers but they were small... Tino said he saw a solitary bluefish right under the bridge that he shot but missed. I do not know about TomJ, but I think noone else caught any fish at Potter's Cove that day. Patrick later told us that Olivier got 2 bass, bluefish, scups and tautogs at Dumplings, in extreme conditions. However, I will let him tell this story...

Typically after the dive, we went to Aidan's at Newport and got some food and beers. We could not get calamari though, since for some reason their cook was refusing to make calamari before 17:00!... Go figure!... I think Aidan needs to get new cook! ;) ... The waitress (Kristina?) though, was nice!... Right Jose ;) ? After about 2 hours there, Jose, Tom and I decided to go rod-reel fishing (Actually, I think the beer decided that). Jose cleverly rejected Tino's desperate attempt to get a ride to his car, which was on the other side of the Newport bridge. His exact words were:" No, we do not have to give you a ride back...". Consider that both I and Tino drove to Newport from Jamestown in Jose's car.. That's the spirit of Los Tiburones! :) ... Tino finally got a ride back in Matt's car and we went to the little pier by the bridge. After a half hour of unsuccesful attempts, we decided to call it a day. This decision was also influenced by the machoism and honor, that required us to leave that place as soon as possible when little kids around us started to land scups and started looking at us like we were the amateurs... Hey, what do they know, right?... A personal highlight of that fishing time was to see Cunard's Caronia (ex NAC's Vistafjord). She actually arrived while we were diving and left Newport around 18:00. She is a beautiful ship with a liner character, dating back from the 70's. They do not make them as handsome anymore and I am glad she is still in service!...

Back in the campground with some fruits, corn and chips to eat and 3 bags of firewood, we were all tired. There was not much grape juice that day and stories were quieter and mellower. This is setting aside the fire craze led by instincts of keeping warm in 40 degree air temperatures. Jose was again feeling a little agressive that night and tried hard to keep Patrick and TomC in line by not allowing them to throw eaten corn husks in the fire. TomC still did it though, after Jose left for bed, mainly to kill the fire and claim his individuality! First Jose, then Patrick went back to their tents. After a short while, we were all in the cold of our tents. It was a long and cold night, probably in the 30F's. I remember waking up at one time, finding myself completely sheltered in my sleeping bed, with only a small opening so that I can breathe.

Sunday morning, my feet, head and hands were cold and I was very unwilling to do the last dive of the trip that we planned the previous night... Patrick and Jose left around 08:45 to go to Sachuest Point, to do another dive before heading home. The rest of us stayed in the campground to warm up in the morning fire and to have some hot tea and breakfast. In the meantime, we also dried our tents and wetsuits under the morning sun. We left the campground around 10:00 and went to Sachuest Point. Jose and Patrick were in the water. We waited for Jose to come back from the dive. He had 3 tautogs that he worked really hard for. He said the visibility was pretty bad but there were some huntable spots. We enjoyed the rocks of the Sachuest in cold winds while Jose was filleting his catch. I do not know if Patrick got anything that day...

Since Jose's dive report was not really encouraging for people like TomC, he decided to sit the last dive out and went to a soccer game instead. After Jose left for NJ, Soner and I got in the water in the East side of Sachuest to find litterally 0 visibility. Let me only tell you that I was not able to see my hand in the water!... After bumping my head into the rocks a couple of times, I decided to go to the spot that Jose said was clearer. It was indeed clearer and provided me with 2 nice tautogs. There were others that I could hear but it was getting late and dark and cold so I decided to get out. Soner was already out and he told me that he did not even see a fish. After the short hike back to the car, we had some chips and dried fruits together and headed for home...

Unlike the trip down, the trip North was easy and enjoyable and took me a little over 3 hours. I even had my first glimpse of snow on Route 89, around Lebanon, NH. The first sight of snow before winter always makes me gloomy and I consider it to be a very definitive reminder of the end of the warm and short summer days. This sadness had me for about 20 minutes, until I reached home, where the smile of my 3 month old son Derin brought back my happiness in the blink of an eye... After all, he is my best catch this year!....
 
See you all next spring...

Conditions:

This is funny!... Check out the pictures below and then we'll talk about conditions.

Participants (in alphabetical order):

Ata Bilgili
Tom Campbell
Steve Conroy
Dave Drew
Jose L. Fernandez
Tom Jerussi
Patrick Lacchia
Constantino Rago
Olivier Resca
Matt (Catfish) Richards
Soner Tunay

Fish Taken:

- Olivier Resca: 2 stripers, tautogs, bluefish and scups (caught at Dumplings, Jamestown).

- Ata Bilgili: Winter flounder, tautogs, scups (caught at Potter's Cove-Newport Bridge, Jamestown)

Raffle Winners:

- Matt Richards: Omer Millenium fins from Omer USA.
- Constantino Rago: $100.00 gift certificate from Picasso USA.
- Tom Campbell: $75.00 gift certificate from Picasso USA.
- Steven Conroy: $50.00 gift certificate from Picasso USA.

Other Stories from the Meet:

- From Olivier Resca
- From Jose Fernandez
- Jose Fernandez's Togburger.
- From Patrick Lacchia

The following are some pictures from the meet taken by Tom Jerussi and Patrick Lacchia.

Conditions!.. (jpeg, 25.9k)
 

Conditions again!... (jpeg, 92.2k)

Cars in King's Beach fishing area parking lot.(jpeg, 86.6k)
 

Participants discussing and enjoying the conditions. From left to right, Soner Tunay, Tom Campbell, Tino Rago, Olivier Resca, Ata Bilgili, Steve Conroy, Patrick Lacchia and Jose Fernandez.(jpeg, 85.5k)
 

Participants. From left to right, Ata Bilgili, Olivier Resca, Matt Richards (hiding behind Olivier), Soner Tunay, Steve Conroy, Jose Fernandez, Tom Campbell and Tino Rago.(jpeg, 103.9k)
 

Participants. From left ro right, Tom Campbell, Soner Tunay, Olivier Resca, Ata Bilgili, Tino Rago, Steve Conroy, Jose Fernandez, Tom Jerussi, Matt Richards and Dave Drew.(jpeg, 135.3k)
 
 
 

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