Artificial Reef Is Drawing Divers, Fish

By ANDREA SACHS
The Washington Post

Even 65 feet below the ocean, New York subway riders can be pushy.

Here's what happened: As I was exiting the train in New Jersey, near Brielle on the northern coast, a jellyfish with ropy tentacles smacked into my mask. I tried to elbow him aside, then shooed him more forcefully. Eventually, he drifted his way (down) and I went mine (up). The characters you meet on submerged trains these days.

Of course, that's the whole point of artificial reefs like the subway cars -- to attract marine life that would otherwise avoid such barren ocean areas. And New Jersey, despite its heavy boat and barge traffic, is hardly SeaWorld. Because the glaciers ended at Long Island, Jersey's sea floor is like a desert, with few aquatic formations to draw fish and crustaceans. So, goes the thinking, if Mother Nature isn't going to build a reef, man will.

"The artificial reef construction is a winwin situation," says Hugh Carberry, reef coordinator of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Fish and Wildlife. "The marine life have a habitat to attach to, and the fish use the reefs for refuge. The divers use it to explore, or to go spearfishing or to hunt for lobsters."

Artificial reef programs are widespread; basically, if a state has water, most likely it will dump a man-made object in it. For example, Lake Erie contains faux reefs made of rubble from Cleveland Stadium, and Texas, appropriately enough, formed a rigs-to-reefs program that recycles its petroleum platforms. In May, the 8 USS Oriskany, a retired aircraft carrier, was sunk about 24 miles off Florida's Pensacola Beach in the Gulf of Mexico, creating the world's largest artificial reef.

Of states with the most artificial reefs, New Jersey ranks third in the nation, behind Florida and South Carolina. Jersey has 15 sites between Sandy Hook and Cape May, and since the program's start in 1984, 140 ships have been deployed to their watery graves. Vessels, though, are not the only objects to be dropped in the ocean. Other popular materials include Army tanks, reef balls (concrete fish habitats), tires, septic boxes, concrete and, yes, subway cars. (To protect the environment, all foreign objects are

scrubbed clean, and any toxic or dangerous fixtures are removed.) New Jersey received its first shipment of public trains in 1990 from Philadelphia, and five SEPTA cars now lie on the Sea Girt Reef site. Fourteen years later, says Carberry, "the trains are 70 percent intact and fully colonized by reef life." In 2003, when New York City Transit approached its neighbor about unloading 250 steel Redbird cars, Jersey jumped. The trains, which had served the IRT lines for 40 years, were dropped in bundles of 50 at five offshore locations: Cape May and Deep Water reefs (off Cape May County), Atlantic City Reef, Garden State North Reef (off Ocean County) and Shark River Reef (off Monmouth County). Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia each secured a load as well. Yet it was the subway cars in Jersey that had me reaching for my mask.

More than a decade ago, I learned to dive in the North Atlantic's shadowy waters, but since then, I've been spoiled by the Caribbean's warm waters and endless visibility. Now I was ready to return to my training grounds and test my skills.

I met our group of seven from Atlantic Divers, a local operator that runs frequent trips, before the summer sun was fully awake and dawn's mist had lifted. The Sea Lion was docked in Brielle, a beach town about 70 miles north of Atlantic City, and by 6:30 a.m., the 36-foot boat was fully loaded with tanks, scuba gear and coolers. Our plan was to explore two kinds of sites, a natural wreck and an artificial reef -- and trust me, there's an ocean of difference.

Leaning on a railing, Capt. Al Pyatak gave a quick rundown of the rules and regulations, explaining the delicate toilet and the food-evacuation plan (stick your head over the side). He then took his place at the wheel for the 90-minute ride out to our first dive, about 13 miles offshore.

As the shoreline dissolved into abstract lines and squares, I chatted with Mike Nugent about the appeal of Jersey diving. The 50year-old construction contractor, who's spent 20 years diving these waters, said he prefers the slightly ominous Atlantic waters to the sunny Caribbean's "bathtub diving."

"If you can dive off the coast of New Jersey, you can dive anywhere," said Nugent, of Mays Landing, N.J. "Out here, it's a lot deeper, colder and darker, and everything has a green haze to it. But there is 10 times the mystery in the water as there is on land."

To experience that secret world without getting hypothermia, you have to bundle up. Even when air temperatures are in the triple digits, the deep water can feel like an ice chest (about 50 degrees 65 feet down), and the divers on our boat dressed in fleece, thermal underwear and dry suits. In addition, despite blue skies, the water is more the color of kale. "It's strange to look up and not see a boat," admitted Nugent.

However, what really intrigues many Jersey divers are the shipwrecks -- more than 5,000 off the Jersey coast. The combination of New York's busy port, the region's extreme weather and some bad drivers has resulted in an ocean floor littered with wrecks dating from before the Revolutionary War to weeks ago.

"Any conceivable kind of wreck you're looking for is here," said Capt. Al, as he pointed to his Differential GPS screen and its patchwork of black squares representing wrecks. "There's a huge amount of history here, and they're still sinking."

But what about the subway cars, I inquired, unaware that I was raising a topic as heated as butter vs. margarine.

"Have you ever been to Disney World? Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?" dive master Gene Peterson demanded. "With artificial reefs, they drop them down, and they're kind of bland. With wrecks, there's a big mystery about why they sank and what's down there."

I didn't have to wait long for intrigue: How did two 1850s steam locomotives end up resting side by side, in perfect condition, 85 feet below? There was much debate among our crew about our first dive; maybe the trains slipped off a cargo ship, or perhaps they were on a wooden hold that dissolved. (The wreck had recently appeared on the History Channel's "Deep Sea Detectives," adding to the suspense.) The clues were there -- we just had to drop many fathoms to find them.

Taking Peterson's hand (it's easy to get lost), I inspected the machines like a conductor, tapping the nose of one train and tracing the spokes of the wheels. Sea bass and tautog swam lazily around the twin objects, and I felt as if I were a fish in an aquarium with a decorative prop dropped in for my amusement. As we moved toward the rope, Peterson pointed to a hole in the top of the train where an eel was curled up. He pointed his bright flashlight into the creature's eyes; the eel didn't blink.

Before my wet suit even had a chance to dry, we had arrived at the subway cars, about 10 miles north of the steam train site. Lowering myself 65 feet, I was now accustomed to the sensation of feeling blindfolded, then having the cloth suddenly lifted off to see . . . a hauntingly beautiful subway train resting quietly on the sand, frozen in mid-commute.

The seats were missing, but I held onto an overhead pole, as if I were traveling uptown to catch a show. I then floated out the front car, using the driver's windshield as my exit, and bumped into the bobbing jellyfish. As my air supply diminished, I took a final spin around the train, wishing I could take back a piece of it -- but knowing that it belonged there, on the ocean floor.