Seeker 2000 Goulandris II

Welcome to the world of perpetual midnight -- the New Jersey Mud Hole! The Mud Hole is the deep, silty ocean trench running from the mouth of the Hudson River to the abyssal dropoff of the Hudson Canyon, over 80 miles offshore. Being in smack in the middle of the approaches to New York Harbor and the Port of Newark, it is filled with shipwrecks from the past 300 years. Most of these wrecks are difficult dives -- they are deep (ranging from 150 fsw to 250 fsw), covered with nets and monofilament, and very dark due to both the usually poor visibility (most of the time just a few feet) and silty bottom which absorbs most of the remaining ambient light. For these reasons, the majority of the wrecks here don't get visited very often and still have many interesting artifacts.

The Greek freighter Ioannis P. Goulandris lies upright in 200 feet of water with a 20 degree list to port, is 362 feet long, and was sunk in a collision with the SS Intrepido in 1942. With the exception of the Arundo, which is on the edge of the Mud Hole, all major WWII Mud Hole wrecks were sunk in collisions, due to the practice of running with their lights out night to avoid being spotted by U-boats. The Goulandris still has many artifacts, but they are of generally poor quality, since the Goulandris brothers were cheap.

The following pictures (all images from video) are from the voyage of the Seeker to the Goulandris, Saturday, June 10, 2000 (continued from page I). The original destination of this trip was the WWI Black Sunday wreck of the Winneconne, but offshore conditions were not suitable.

Entering the crew's mess on the stern of the Goulandris. As you can see, visibility is not great.
	Swimming along inside the crew's mess. There is still china in here, you have to dig in the 1-1/2 foot layer of muck to find it.
A large, brass deadlight on the stern of the Goulandris. Someone has been working on it, some of the bolts are removed.
	Despite the bright, sunny conditions on top, it is so dark down on the wreck that this is what a strobe looks like just a few feet away. This strobe is on the anchor line at the tie-in point.
This is Bob "Bates Motel" Wilson doing his deco at the 50 foot stop. Keep an eye out when you're on the anchor line alone with this guy! ;-) Visibility was so bad at the shallow stops, however, that you couldn't watch out for him even if you wanted to!
	Mikey Trapani with a demitasse saucer recovered from the crew's mess. Danny Crowell takes credit because it was his boat, the SEEKER, that brought Mikey here, not any other boat!
John Yurga gets ready to go pull the hook, assisted by Joe "Julio" Mazraani (and some guy in the background that doesn't want to be identified). ;-)
	Dishes and cup from the Goulandris, recovered by Gene Holmes. Unfortunately, the china found on this wreck is cheap cafeteria style.