Who had the better dive?!

The plan was to dive the TBM Avenger on Wednesday this week with Ben Lair & Justin Judd. Thursday was scheduled to dive a new target that Tyler Stalter had found. Well, those plans got disrupted on Wednesday when we had engine troubles and had to return to the dock before we got on-site. After some heroic efforts, the boat was ready for a Thursday attempt at diving the Avenger.

Ben, Justin & I all got suited up and jumped in. There was very little current at the surface but then about 20 feet down it started to kick up a ton and Justin & I couldn’t get back to the downline. We resurfaced and got his scooter. After multiple issues, we ended up 245 feet deep, in sand, with virtually no chance to find a tiny airplane wreck. Ugh.

Ben did his dive and got some awesome photos of the TBM. We think it has been about 10 years since anybody has dove that wreck. Here are a few pictures Ben took:

Pretty epic dive for sure and I was jealous!

Justin and I decided to go look at the target Tyler had in mind. After going down a long, long down-line, we ended up at 253…in sand!

There were a few odd metal pieces around but very distributed. Justin scootered around a bit after tying off a line to the anchor, but didn’t see much either. Of course, deco racks up pretty quickly at 250 feet so we paid with close to an hour of deco in a pretty strong current. Tyler still thinks something is there so we will have to go back and do another dive.

The upside? I got to see this very cute octopus in a sand hole. Photos weren’t easy as I had my 10-18mm wide angle lens.

So, I ask the readers: WHO HAD THE BETTER DIVE?

The guy who got to see the iconic TBM Avenger or the guy who got to see the cute little baby octopus?!?!

Don’t worry – I don’t give up that easy. The plan is to book another dive with Justin to go back in early December to go see the TBM!