Northeast Wind Farm: Deepwater Spearfishing
There's a lot of controversy over these wind farms from them being deafeningly noisy, especially to the marine life which can be very sensitive to sound in an ever-growing more noisy ocean already, to being unsightly from shore and a national defense obstacle because of radar interference to name a few. I'm 100% for green renewable energy and phasing out oil but I'm not 100% sure where I stand on the wind farms, the one thing I AM sure of though is that they create artificial reefs which marine life thrive on. Just as FADs* are placed to attract fish for fishing and old ships are cleaned and scuttled to build reefs for marine life to live and divers to explore, these massive oil rig-like structures create a whole environment for an ecosystem to be built.
These structures aren't more than 13 years old and already as you can see on the descent the legs are covered in mussel growth, which attracts sea stars and mollusk eating fish like cunner and tautog while the structure is a place for plankton, krill and small shrimps to congregate, bringing in the small baitfish which then attracts the bigger predatory and pelagic fish that pass by seasonally. The state of our oceans is in dire straits, I've personally noticed the decline in ocean life over my life so far which has always been spent in and by the sea, but diving on these wind farm rigs gives one a little hope that there are still a few places you can go to get a glimpse of natures' awe and amazement and be able to imagine what the abundance of wildlife was like hundreds of years ago before humans f**ked it all up.
All that bulls**t leaves your head the moment you plunge into that murky green water from the safety of the boat. The cold ocean seeps into your wetsuit and you get your bearings with your awareness at its absolute peak, out here you're not only the hunter but the hunted as well. In reality the wind farm rigs are sort of a far cry from what normal New England diving usually is, which is generally cold, dark and murky/low visibility. This trip was in September, one of the warmest months but I was still pleasantly surprised to see 73°F at the surface and even only got down to 61°F at depth (24m/80ft) which was almost tropical to us. The visibility also can be fantastic, the current runs strong and brings in patches of clean and dirty water, the viz mostly have changed about every 20-40 minutes but at the bottom was an incredible 18m/60ft easy, which is absolutely wild for around here. The mid water was usually the dirtiest with the current effecting the surface viz considerably, the current was pretty brutal, its the dangerous kind where you don't realize you're working so hard to stay in position and swim until you realize how heavy you're breathing and that you're all of a sudden already out of air, it sneaks up on you. All in all this was my first trip to dive a windmill in the middle of the sea but it was absolutely epic and will not be the last. Thanks a lot to B-Hagz Baits & Adventures for getting the SubSurface Marine Solutions boys out there to slay and Liquid Origins for getting the shots and putting the video together. Shout out to Hammerhead Spearfishing for making some epic gear and the necessary Action Masks with GoPro mounts built in.
SubSurfaceMarine.com - Diving/Marine/Boat/Mooring services
Hammerhead Spearfishing - HammerheadWebstore.com
B-Hagz Fishing - @b-hagzfishing
*FAD= Fishing Aggregation Device and is usually a buoy submerged just under the surface and anchored to the bottom to attract the small algae and growth which then continues to attract things up the food chain)
