Episode 2: Transcript
Brittany: Hello, this is the Dive Long Island Podcast, and I am your host, Brittany McCabe. Joining me today is Joe Sferrazza.
Joe has explored more of the waters off Long Island than most divers. He is a technical and rebreather dive instructor. He is also a cave diver and a world traveler. Joe brings a depth of experience and a thoughtful perspective forged from years of challenging dives and community involvement. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Today,I’mhere with our first guest, because it’s our first episode, Joe Sferrazza. Joe, thank you so much for coming.
Joe: Thank you.
Brittany: First, I want to start off by asking, did you always enjoy being around the water?
Joe: I loved the beach as a kid, body surfing, snorkeling along jetties, stabbing crabs with a little three-prong thing.
Brittany: That’s great, Joe. I found that many divers grow up with some aspect of the water being a large part of their developing years. Did you get certified young, like in high school?
Joe: No. I went on to college, and I came out of it with my certification. The checkout dives were Friday, Saturday, and Sunday over Thanksgiving weekend off Riverhead.
Brittany: Oof, in wetsuits? Joe: Yeah.
Brittany: That’s chilly.
Joe: And I loved every second of it.
Nice. I mean, you never saw someone so excited to pick up a dumb little starfish off the beach—well, off to under the water.
Brittany: No, I think—I don’t know—I think we all start off that way, you know, if we’re truly enamored with diving.
Brittany: Mm-hmm. So you mentioned that was after law school, you said, right? Joe: Correct.
Brittany: So how does being a lawyer impact your diving? How do you tie those two things together? Joe: They’re two different worlds. Well, they’re entirely two different worlds. I wanted to be a lawyer as a
way to make a living, and I enjoy it very much. Sometimes it’s too much of a good thing, butI’mgrateful to earn a living that way. I got certified in 1988, started doing some dive travel, started diving locally. Our first kid was born in 1991. My career was really taking off, so by’92I was kind of off the local scene between having a young child and working very long hours. But I kept vacation diving. Eventually there
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were more kids, more career, so I was off the local scene for quite some time. But I always continued vacation diving in warmer destinations.
Brittany: So when did—about approximately what time of the year—did you end up pulling yourself back in and into the local diving?
Joe: 2009. Brittany: Okay.
Joe: The youngest was in high school, the oldest had just started college. Career was established. It
was definitely time to reclaim some hours, and I got back in the local scene, which had changed so much since the early nineties, and it really took off. And where I ended up wasn’t so much by design. I just sort
of kept showing up and taking the next step.
Brittany: Joe, I asked you to be on this podcast because you are such an avid wreck diver and such an avid local diver. And of course, we will talk more about traveling, because that’s such a huge part of the
industry. But what was it about the northeast wrecks that really drew you in? I mean, you start off talking about a starfish that really caught your eye, soI’mwondering what that first wreck dive was like for you.
Joe: Well, before I came off the local scene, I had made it as far as the San Diego. This is before nitrox, and I had also done some of the smaller inshore wrecks. But when I saw the San Diego, every shipwreck tells a story, and I was like, you could dive this 10 times and it could be 10 different dives. You could dive it 100 times. And I knew I would get back to that. Yes, local conditions can vary more than tropical, and there are days when you’re like, well, didn’t work out the way I hoped. But when local conditions are
good and you’re on one of these wrecks that we have locally, it is off-the-charts great.
Brittany: Off the charts.
Brittany: Yeah, it’s an experience like no other.
Joe: Mm-hmm. It’s true. It’s true. You’ve gone where not a lot of people go.
Brittany: That actually segues into my next question perfectly. So some people, when they—I mean, first of all, a lot of people haven’t heard that there’s wrecks on Long Island, right? So that’s usually a big mystery. But then when they hear about the reputation that some of them have, it can seem very intimidating. So for that person that maybe is just getting into diving—maybe they were a tropical diver—what would you want them to know about wreck diving on Long Island that you think is such a huge misunderstanding that makes it intimidating?
Joe: Well, I don’t know if it’s a misunderstanding. It is intimidating. They have the right feeling. Most of us started as tropical divers on vacation, took a course, did a Discover Scuba Diving class or whatever, and locally it is intimidating. There’s a little more equipment involved. The water can be rougher than in some
of the tropical destinations. People seem to think, based on their experience at the beach, that visibility is going to be dreadful. That’s often not the case. And there’s just a lot of unknowns about not diving in clear blue water. Plus, our wrecks tend to be deeper than you’re going to go on a typical recreational warm-water dive. They’re still within recreational depths, some of them, but they do tend to be deeper. I think mentoring is much more important in our local environment, because the certification is just a snapshot in time. And that snapshot might be fine for you to now jump off a boat in the Virgin Islands or Bonaire and do your first 40- or 50-foot dive in essentially what amounts to a follow-the-leader group. That’s great. You’re off to the races. We’ve all been there. Locally it’s not like that. We don’t dive in
follow-the-leader groups, and there’s a lot of customs and practices on our boats that don’t exist down there. There’s no crew that’s going to take care of your equipment. You’re self-reliant, so mentoring
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plays a big role.
Brittany: So one of the things I wanted to highlight—you said, you may go to the beach, but the visibility that you see at the beach is not necessarily what you might see on a wreck. That was one of the misunderstandings I wanted to highlight because, yes, the visibility here can
certainly be challenging. There are days where, you know, sometimes one foot, two feet, right? Being honest, right? But there are some days where you go diving and you can see 40, 50 feet. And that’s one of those things where, so many people have no idea that that’s a possibility.
Joe: Hundred percent. At the beach everything’s turbid. There’s waves breaking. I don’t care if they’re
one- or two-foot waves—there’s waves breaking, there’s tide going in and out, I mean, the bottom’s all stirred up. But when you’re on a wreck that’s 8, 10, 15 miles out, none of that applies. Typically our viz is somewhere between 5 and 20 feet. Five’s a little tight. There are days where you just kind of give up with it if it’s less than five feet. But typically, you know, you can do a dive in five foot of vis, and if it gets out to 10 to 20, you could do a very nice dive. Our water is green, not blue. We’re in an area where the Labrador Current from the north sort of mixes with, outside the edge of the Gulf Stream, which is blue, and that does lead to a lot of turbidity in our area, but that’s not always the case. And there are times, especially in August and September, when an eddy will spin off the Gulf Stream, which is closer to the coast during the summer than it is in the winter, and some blue water will move into our offshore wrecks. And those days are second to none. When you get 50 feet of really clear-water visibility, it’s staggering to see the wreck in all its majesty. It’s really amazing.
Brittany: Beautiful, yeah. So is there anything that we can see up here? I mean, some people go, can you even see anything in those waters? Is there any life? And I think there’s been more discussion online about how we see a lot of sharks up here, but there is a lot of life that can be seen in our waters. Is there any dive that you remember or that jumped out at you where you saw something—
Joe: Yes. Brittany: —yes?
Joe: That’s a great question. When I got back into local diving, 2009, ’10, ’11,’12and onward, people who I was friends with who lived in the Virgin Islands, who I would go visit a lot, would say to me, what do you see up there? Is there even any life? And it was the most ridiculous question, becauseI’mlike, no, the ocean’s dead up there. There’s absolutely nothing. There’s nothing living there. You see beautiful anemones. You see bottom life. You see lobsters. You see blackfish. You see fluke. You see
non-tropical life. Atlantic spadefish are beautiful. They look like large butterflies from the tropics, except they’re black and silver. They’re not as colorful. You’re not going to see the same color except maybe in some anemones. They’re interesting and fascinating. You can focus on more macro stuff. Like you’ll see a snail eating mussels, and you might just want to hang out there and just watch for a while. So there’s a lot of life up here. It’s different. In August and September we do get some tropicals in some areas that ride up on the Gulf Stream, and they’re doomed because they can’t get back and the water’s going to cool off. But that’s nature’s way, and we do see them. We do get some sharks, mostly sand tigers and
others, and occasionally you’ll hit the golden—you know, the Holy Grail. In 2014 I was diving over a wreck named the Linda, which is a little deeper at about 140 feet, a little bit beyond recreational depths, and I was doing my decompression stop at 30 feet, and I saw a huge fish in the distance. And the guy doing the decompression stop right above me gave me a signal like this, meaning it was a shark. And I’m like, if that’s a shark, it’s very big. It’s got to be a white.I’m not really scared of sharks, because we’re not
on the menu. Sharks in the surf area, whole different conversation. But I really wasn’t anxious to have a
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white going around. And it kept going back and forth out in the edge of the visibility, andI’mthinking, all right. And it was actually scarier when we couldn’t see it. But then it starts coming closer, kind of like heading straight for us at a very casual speed. And as it came more and more into view, it had a horizontal tail fin, not vertical, all right, and it had like this smile, and it was a 30-foot juvenile finback whale.
Brittany: Wow. Joe: Yes. Brittany: Wow.
Joe: And the kid—I don’t know where its mom was—but the kid hung around and all through the 30-foot, 20-foot, and 10-foot stops just kept going around us, approaching, going away. At one point he showed us his belly. And I’ve had other experiences like that, but experiences like that are magical. A dolphin
pod—experiences like that are few and far between, but when you have one, it changes you. It’s amazing.
Brittany: Yeah, it really sticks with you, keeps you wanting to keep coming back and want to replicate more and more of this. So Joe, what’s a good first step? If you were to talk to a recreational diver, what would be the first step? To get in touch with a dive shop? How would you recommend that they figure out what is the direction that they can go in, where they can start wreck diving and exploring the waters? For someone who is certified or not yet certified? You know what, we haven’t really touched on the not yet certified, so maybe we start there. Maybe somebody that has been snorkeling, lived on Long Island a long time, and they just don’t know how to get started.
Joe: So the worst thing that can happen is you have a bad experience on your first dive, okay? So I would suggest that if it’s in the budget, you have the time, you have the money, you go to a good tropical destination, go to a reputable dive shop, and do what’s called a Discover Scuba Diving. And they’ll give you a two-hour class, take you on a 30-foot dive, and odds are you’ll have a very good experience. It’s warm, clear water, which removes a lot of challenges, and go get yourself hooked. You know, go catch the fever. And if you come out of that feeling blasé, well, it takes a certain amount of willingness to dive locally.I’mnot so sure it would be for you. But if you come out of that like a lot of people do, like this is great, well then you have a beautiful set of choices. You can keep doing that. There are a million active recreational warm-water divers at any given moment. And the beauty of the sport is you can do it at the level that you want to do it at, or you can choose to progress. The answer then is you have to come up here and connect with a good local dive shop, and there’s only really three or four dive shops on Long Island, and maybe one or two that are really good. I would get certified up here regardless, because I got hooked on Pennekamp Reef, and I did a Discover Scuba Diving in Saint Martin and also in Saint John in the Virgin Islands. And I, even at that young age, chose to get certified up here because I wanted to make it more challenging. And even if you don’t think you’re going to end up diving here, getting certified in local waters is more challenging than getting certified in the tropics, so it’ll be a bit of a breeze when you take your next tropical vacation and then you can decide if you want to do it. The only way to really get into diving locally is to establish a relationship with a local dive shop, and local dive shops all offer travel, which is a great opportunity to go with the community of that dive shop. Warm-water travel and local dive shops can also outfit you with tropical gear.
Brittany: It’s a great point. Such an important aspect of diving is the community, you know, the community part of it. Because yes, you could technically buy your own gear, maybe rent a tank, and then go diving by yourself, but it’s really not recommended. You should have a buddy. And when you have
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somebody that consistently—I’ve met several people who, they’ve had the same buddy for decades. Joe: Yeah.
Brittany: And when you have someone that really understands you underwater and you have that connection, it makes the hobby so much more fun.
Joe: Yes.
Brittany: So going to a dive shop, you can really, right, get started there, but then you can travel with your buddy. The community aspect is very important. And you’ve always been involved in some part
outside of diving in the community. You were a part of the Sea Gypsies for a while, yes? It seems important to you too, Joe. Can you speak to that?
Joe: Yes. So there is such a thing as solo diving. It’s kind of way beyond what we’re talking about. Unquestionably, you should start diving with a buddy. It can be different buddies. You can get buddies through the dive shop. If you go on a trip through the dive shop and your regular buddy can’t go, that’s great—if they can’t, they’ll connect you with someone. But you should gain a substantial amount of dive buddy diving with a buddy before you even consider taking solo training. Solo for a new diver is just out
of the question, in my opinion. And even if you have a buddy and you’re both committed and you decide to just get certified and buy some equipment and learn on your own, you’re really putting yourself at a disadvantage. The shop relationship is very important. In warm-water destinations, it’s typically an instructor in front, six or seven people following, maybe a divemaster pulling up the rear. It doesn’t work that way here. So you asked me about the Sea Gypsies. They changed their name a few years ago from the New York City Sea Gypsies to Big Apple Divers, and they are one of the leading clubs in the nation. They’re great. I was on the board for a long time. I was president for a couple of years. And what’s true there is also true on the local boats. I meet people from all walks of life, and to me that’s fascinating and great. Lawyers tend to hang out with lawyers, teachers with teachers, cops with cops, doctors with doctors, you know, up and down the line. Being with people from all walks of life on dive boats and in a club like the Sea Gypsies—Big Apple Divers, sorry—
Brittany: I set you up for that.
Joe: It really broadens your horizon, exposes you to other viewpoints, gives you a reality check on whatever bubble you may live in in your world, things like that. And larger, more established clubs like the Sea Gypsies also offer opportunities like what they call Intro to Northeast Diving, which is a mentoring program for people who are already certified and want to transition from warm water to include some local diving.
Brittany: You’re a rebreather diver, correct? Can you tell us how you ended up going from open-circuit recreational into cave diving? We’ll start with that one. And cave CCR, and Cave CCR, yeah. And instructor.
Joe: Well, it wasn’t by design. I remember when I got back into diving in 2009, I was really loving it again. I was going to the Virgin Islands for a couple weeks at a time several times a year, sometimes with my wife, sometimes without. And I remember thinking that my whole goal was just to become a divemaster so I could—which is below instructor—just so I could be qualified to guide dives and dive for free. That was my entire goal. Well, I was a divemaster for about five minutes before—and divemasters frequently assist instructors—and I was a divemaster for a New York minute before I was like, you know what? I thinkI’dlike to teach. So I set about—I thinkI’dlike to teach—so I set out about becoming a recreational instructor. And I took that course at a local dive shop on Long Island, in Riverhead, great
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shop. And while I was doing that work, I got introduced to decompression diving, which allows you to go deeper and longer with more gas. And I was like, you know what?I’dlike to go deeper and longer and carry more gas. SoI’mtaking both courses at the same time. This is 2010. I became an instructor and then became a certified decompression diver in the same season. I became an instructor somewhere around October of 2010, and I finished my decompression training in 2010, but I think the actual checkout dives and certification may have been in like May of ’11, not—I don’t really remember. But that was a lot to take on. Fortunately, being in my own law practice with just one partner, that allowed me to be a little flexible in my schedule. And then, like I said earlier, I just kept showing up. We had a fellow instructor at the shop who loved cave diving and couldn’t say enough about it. So at some point I said to myself, you know what, let me go to Florida, sign up for the basic cave course, see what all the fuss is about, which the very first day is caverns. But I took that course, which is typically four days, sometimes five. I was totally hooked. And then you usually go back within a year after practicing within the limits of that basic certification and get your full cave certification. And I thought that was it, but then I wanted to dive even longer and maybe even a little deeper, so I got my what they call trimix certification, which is when you mix some helium in. We’re getting sort of far afield now again. People can dive in warm water and pretty fish their whole lives and be thrilled. That describes our oldest daughter. But our youngest daughter got the fever, and she’s very much at my level except for the CCR part. And I buddy with her a lot to this day. And then eventually something called rebreather diving or closed-circuit rebreather has become a lot safer in the last 20 years. Listeners, watchers can Google it. And I never thoughtI’dspend the time or money to get into rebreather diving, but I did. And that was 2018. And then, as if I haven’t gone down enough rabbit holes in terms of time and money, in the last year or so I’ve started getting into underwater photography, andI’mvery much a novice. It takes a lot of learning, but that’s interesting too.
Brittany: Because you touched on a lot of points there.I’mgoing to go backto—it’sone step at a time, yeah, and there’s no rush, no rush at all. So you went down to Florida, you became cave certified,
mm-hmm. Now what was the biggest change for you mentally to go from—you know, northeast diving has its challenges, especially mentally—but now cave diving is a whole another animal. What do you think changed for you mentally when you went through that training?
Joe: Well, you learn a lot about yourself when you dive, starting from the basic recreational level all the way up. You learn a lot about yourself—how you react, how you handle things, your mental processes.
It’s a fascinating journey mentally. So two of the biggest things that anyone will learn right from their first day in training is buoyancy and trim. Trim is your position of your body in the water, and buoyancy is your ability to hold yourself vertically and horizontally in a relatively steady spot unless you’re intending to go up or down. And I thought I was pretty good at that with local wreck diving. Then I went to Florida, where their emphasis in cave diving on buoyancy and control is much stricter and the mental process much more intense. Well, obviously you start by going into caves that are well worn and on the beaten path, and myself and everyone else who was a newbie at cave diving, we pretty much sounded like a bunch of pinball machines hitting the walls, the roof. It was awful.
Brittany: Can you hear the tanks clanging?
Joe: Oh my gosh, it was awful. And I went back to my hotel room that night, and I was like, you know, you got two choices here. You can drop out, or you can step up your game. And I didn’t want to drop out. So it was an intense transition, and a lot of cave divers will tell you this about the initial course. Now remember, several years into my return to diving at this point, so it’s not something you could do all at
once. And eventually I got the hang of it. I had a terrific instructor. She gave me some one-on-one time. And since I knew when I returned after the basic course and getting the basic certification, I knew what I
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was getting into for the full course. I don’t think I knew what I was getting into very seriously the first time
out. It was awful. I wasn’t sure they were going to let me back into the park the next day.
Brittany: Sure it wasn’t that bad, Joe.
Joe: Oh, ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, it was.
Brittany: So when you returned, right, you said you were doing a lot of practicing and everything, but did your mindset for local diving change too from those experiences?
Joe: Well, even just taking the basic course in cave diving is a game changer for your local wreck diving because it makes you, it forces you to be a much better diver, get to a level I didn’t even know existed. And right from the time I got back—I did that initial training in March or April, so the local season kind of starts in May, June—right from my first local dive that summer, I was like, wow, this is so much better. I really got a grip on this. Even if you have no intention of cave diving ever, if you want to become a great wreck diver, you might want to consider taking the basic cave diving course. It’s rigorous, but don’t take it until you’ve got a lot of dives and hours under your belt.
Brittany: Yeah. So we touched upon basic training. So just to throw some terms out there for those of you that don’t know, basic training usually starts out as an open water diver, right?
Joe: Right.
Brittany: And then you would go to an advanced diver for more depth. Then there’s rescue diver, and then you enter into the professional world of being a divemaster and then an instructor, mm-hmm. Cave diving takes you down the technical diving path. Joe, can you talk about what that looks like for those who aren’t familiar?
Joe: The requisite for cave diving in Florida is that you actually be a technical diver trained in decompression dives, wearing doubles, meaning two tanks on your back. You have to get to the technical level first. And you could take that training in Florida too, but you could just as easily take it here. The requisite in the Mexican caves is a competent what’s called sidemount diver. The Mexican caves are shallower vertically, shallower just as long horizontally, and as long as you’re a competent sidemount diver who can use two tanks, you can start in Mexico without having your decompression certification. But you might as well get it first because they’re going to insist on it pretty quickly.
Brittany: Yeah, that makes sense. So we talked about technical diving, and you don’t really need to be a technical diver to dive our wrecks here or sites here. It’s advised, though. And why would we say that?
Joe: Well, so the three certifications you really need to dive around the world are, first, get your basic
open water certification, get some experience, and then get your advanced open water certification, which is still a recreational certification. One is limited to 60 feet. Advanced is limited to 100. If you take an extra course called deep, you can go to 120—still all recreational. And you should also take a course called nitrox, which allows you to dive with a tank with more oxygen in it. That does not allow you to go deeper. It allows you to stay down longer because that oxygen replaces some of the nitrogen, and nitrogen is the culprit that limits our diving. So with those three, you can have a great and happy, wonderful recreational diving career. Here, our wrecks tend to be a little deeper. There are some wrecks in the 50- to 80-foot range, but really the action here is from 85 to 200 feet, something limited to 120, 130 feet. If you want to go deeper, you’re in technical diving territory—decompression. But we’ve got plenty
to do. Between Long Island and New Jersey, we have plenty to do from 85 to 130 feet. The problem is that the deeper you go, the shorter your stay on the bottom. All right? And if you’re going to spend the
money, get up at five in the morning, take an hour-and-a-half, two-hour boat ride in each direction, and
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do a wreck at 110 feet, and you can only stay down there 20 minutes, it’s rather limiting. You will on most boats have time to spend an hour at the surface and do a second dive, which is probably going to be in the 15-minute range because you’ll have residual nitrogen in your body. But if you enter the world of technical diving, meaning decompression stops and two tanks on your back instead of one, all of a sudden you could do two 40-minute dives at the bottom plus your decompression. And if you push it further and learn how to carry more tanks, instead of doing two dives, you could do one one-hour dive and be done—an hour plus your decompression stops. So I think most people who dive locally and get into it eventually become decompression divers. They don’t have to go any further in the technical world, but it opens up a lot more bottom time in the 90- to 120-foot range, and we have a number of great wrecks off Long Island and New Jersey in those depths.
Brittany: As somebody that’s getting started into tech diving, what kind of equipment would they expect as a big change?
Joe: Well, if you’re an advanced recreational diver with significant experience looking to make the jump, it’s a little different than it was years ago because now you have a choice. You can go to doubles—two tanks on your back—what’s called open-circuit technical diving, or you could go directly to rebreather diving, closed-circuit rebreather, CCR. There’s a very good teaching agency out there named TDI, which has come up with a course known as Intro to Technical Diving. Now that course doesn’t get you certified to do anything more than you’re already certified, but properly done, what will happen in that course is you will spend several hours learning about technical diving. You will go in the pool. You will try doubles. You will try a rebreather. And you can decide which way you want to go. Going rebreather is very pricey, and you can have a tremendous diving career locally being an open-circuit technical diver, or you may someday decide to go CCR. I know people who have been diving open-circuit technical diving for decades, and I did it for quite a few years before making the leap to CCR, which I was very uncertain I would ever do. I was glad I did it, but it does add another layer of complexity. So more tanks—is that the core of the question?
Brittany: Ha ha ha.
Joe: Well, what you’ll do is you will switch from smaller aluminum tanks to larger-capacity steel tanks. They hold more gas. You’ll have two of them, plus you’ll probably have at least one tank on one side of you containing a decompression gas, which is a gas with a very high percentage of oxygen. You might even have one tank on each side of you. One could be additional bottom gas, the same as what’s in your doubles, or it could be a second decompression gas. That’s all stuff you’ll learn about in Intro to Tech. The important part is you get the feeling of what it’s like to dive doubles. Some places call them twin
sets, which is not a difficult transition from diving a single tank with a BC. I think it’s a terrific course. It is not mandatory. You can go directly to an open-circuit decompression course or closed-circuit rebreather, but I think it is highly advisable to take the Intro to Tech course and learn about the different routes because technical diving is much broader than recreational diving. Recreational diving is very well defined: 130 feet max, no decompression stops, you can ascend directly to the surface, there’s nothing
over your head. You can go straight up vertically. Nothing over your head also means no decompression stops because that’s a virtual overhead. Recreational divers do do a safety stop at 15 feet, so I’m excluding that, but the point is you can go directly straight up.
Brittany: Yeah, meaning you’re not obligated to spend a certain amount of time at a certain depth, right? So the difference between a safety stop is—a safety stop for a recreational diver is, in essence, an
optional decompression stop. Highly recommended, standard practice to do it, but technically not required.
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Joe: In decompression diving, you will have multiple stops—30 feet, 20 feet, 10 feet—for varying periods
of time that must be done, and if you don’t do them, you are at substantial risk for decompression sickness, DCS, casually known as the bends. Okay? So that’s the definition of recreational diving: no decompression, no overhead. You can ascend straight up slowly, but straight up, and not deeper than 130 feet. Everything else is technical diving, which is an extreme. Technical diving is not really defined. The best definition is it’s not recreational diving. So you can go as far or as not far as you want. I’m excluding from this conversation things like public safety diving, police and fire departments, evidence gathering—that’s a whole different conversation, that’s a whole different type of professional,I’mjust putting that aside. But in the world of sport diving, let’s call it technical, is everything that’s not recreational. And some people are very happy to learn how to dive doubles, take a single decompression gas, learn how to go to 150, 160 feet, and they love it, and there’s an awful lot to do between 100 feet and 160, which is what the world of decompression opens up for you. Other people just can’t get enough and want to just keep taking the next step, and it’s all good. There’s no right or wrong. There’s no good or bad. There’s no have to. It’s whatever turns you on, is what you do.
Brittany: I actually skipped doubles and went straight into sidemount and really enjoyed it. I like the flexibility and how they felt in the water. It was great being able to see my hoses and the valves right in front of me. Do you see sidemount as something divers might choose for comfort or configuration preference, and also something worth considering for people managing back or knee issues?
Joe: So if you’ve got significant back or knee problems, sidemount is something to investigate. That’s where you have each of your doubles, so to speak, one tank on each side. In addition, you’ve got to carry a decompression tank. It’s a whole different type of training. It is offered. It’s not the most suitable for our local environment, but it exists. If you’ve got significant back or knee problems—or knee problems—anyone who’s relatively young and healthy can get up the ladder. As you get older, I found
out, ha ha, you probably need to spend a little bit of time in the gym. Nothing heavy, but some basic exercises in the gym will help you greatly as you get through your 50s and 60s in getting up the ladder. But I mean, if you’re 30-something, 40 years old, and basically healthy and fit, you’re not going to have any problem getting up the ladder.
Brittany: Yeah, great point, Joe. Thanks. So we’re talking about a couple of the wrecks. You mentioned the San Diego. The Linda came up once. But I want to talk some really deep, deep wrecks because
there are very few divers that actually make it to—and I mean make it from the standpoint of they’re very intense, the training to have a successful dive is intense. And one of them thatI’mgoing to ask you about, I’ve heard referred to as the Mount Everest of northeast diving. So that one in particular is the Andrea Doria. You’ve dove that dive, right? Right, Joe?
Joe: I have.
Brittany: Would you consider that the Mount Everest of northeast diving?
Joe: In a way, yes. Now, I’ve been out to the Doria three times. I have 10 dives on it. Believe me, there are some divers on Long Island, particularly some of the older pioneers, who have 100 dives on the Doria, maybe more. But I do have some experience on it. At its deepest point it’s close to 250. It’s not in the easiest area to dive. It starts at 210, something like that. It’s a physical thing because you’re going to be out there probably three nights tied in over the wreck far off Nantucket.
Brittany: Can you see land where you are?
Joe: No, no, no. And that’s actually kind of an amazing thing too. So there’s two amazing things about it, about being out that far. You can’t see land, and you realize what a speck you really are on this earth.
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And if the boat’s lights are dimmed or off, you see stars like you’ve never seen them in your life. They are not—nor are they like the liveaboards in tropical areas or the western Pacific. These boats are a little more humble, and sleeping on the boat for two to three nights, more likely three, and diving is a physically exhausting experience. And the dive itself is tough. There can be heavy currents, all right, very dark. Boy, that varies too. So, you know, in the early afternoon, 11:00 a.m. to 2:30, summertime sun,
you’d be surprised how much ambient light there is at 200 feet on a clear day. But yes, it can be dark. You could go in at 4:00. The sun’s not going to set till 8:00, but the light’s already getting flat, and it’s dark down there. So that’s the kind of dive you work up to. It’s a fascinating dive, a beautiful wreck. Now the pioneers who did that dive in the ’80s and into the ’90s, for them it was the Mount Everest of diving. They didn’t have helium. They were diving it on straight air, which raises a whole bunch of issues. They did have some oxygen hanging from the boat at about 20 feet, and it was a tough dive. At that time I think it was fair to call it the Mount Everest of diving. I think now, at this point in time, more of an advanced dive, a rigorous dive, an advanced dive, a dive for experienced people. But with modern gas mixes, including helium, modern drysuits, modern fins, and all we know about diving that we didn’t know in the ’80s, I think it’s, at this point, a little bit of an exaggeration to call it the Mount Everest, but it’s still a heck of a dive and a seriously advanced dive.
Brittany: So for those that aren’t familiar, right, so the Andrea Doria was a luxury liner, an Italian luxury liner, and its sole purpose really was to cross the Atlantic. And it had lots of, from what I understand, artwork that was on display for those that were on board, correct? And it’s now a shipwreck because it collided with another ship, the Stockholm, I believe. And so it rests at about 250 feet. There’s an
opening—I don’t know if it’s still there based on all of our storms and everything and the recent conditions—but did you ever go inside or penetrate that wreck?
Joe: I think you’re talking about Gimbel’s hole, where people went in to get china. Part of the wreck has collapsed, and it’s my understanding that that’s not really accessible anymore. No, I never went through it. I got to that level of diving after the heyday of the Doria. It started collapsing in the mid-2000s. It’s still a great dive. I mean, you know, if you’re inclined to get to that level, by all means go for it. But it’s not quite the same dive that it was from the late ’70s through the ’90s. You know, I’ve spoken to some of
those pioneers. I love the stories. And I wish I had been a little more active. So I didn’t get certified till ’88, so the heyday of the Doria was well underway at that point. If I had stayed on the local scene, I probably could have gotten there sometime in the ’90s when it was still the heyday. But that would have come at the expense of building my career and helping to take care of and raise three young kids, so I don’t regret the decision of coming off the local scene at all, because the kids grow up fast and time flies.
Brittany: Time flies, yeah. So two other wrecks I want to talk to you about too, Joe, the Suffolk and the Bass—also pretty long rides, right?
Joe: Fantastic wrecks. Can we add the Coimbra and U-853? Brittany: Sure, absolutely.
Joe: So the Suffolk is a very infrequently dove wreck. It’s very manageable for a technical diver at 180 feet. I haven’t been there in about 10 years because the boats just don’t go there that often. It used to have a dramatic upright prop in an area that had pretty good visibility, like clear green water, and the wreck itself was very interesting. Just a terrific wreck, sort of southeast of Montauk, southwest of Block Island, in that general vicinity, loosely speaking. I might put together a charter next summer, meaning summer of ’26, contact a boat captain who runs a boat out of Montauk and see if we can put together a trip to that. I’ll call you and Paul first. In fact, it’s a six-pack boat, so it’ll be me and Suzanne, my younger
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daughter, and you and Paul. We only got to sell two other seats. Brittany: Yeah, we would love to see that wreck.
Joe: Yeah, well, I’ll set my mind to it. Brittany: Perfect.
Joe: All right, yeah, that’s a good one. And you mentioned the Bass. The Bass has an interesting history. Very loosely speaking, it’s in the same vicinity as the Suffolk, very loosely speaking. It’s only 150 feet, so if you’ve become a trained technical diver with some experience behind you, it’s time to try that one at 150 feet. And the conning tower comes up to 120 or something like that, 130. It was a U.S. submarine that had become obsolete that the Navy did practice on and torpedoed intentionally, and it sank. A good friend saw a tiger shark go by, so you see some interesting life over that one. So yeah, the Bass is a great one. All right, and you want to mention the Coimbra, whichI’mglad you bring up. It’s my favorite. The Coimbra sits in about 175. It was an oiler, a cargo ship, an oil cargo ship that was torpedoed by the Germans in World War II. Some people don’t realize how active the German submarines were not too far
off the East Coast of the U.S. It’s split in three. It’s a fascinating wreck in an area that can also have pretty good viz. You’re pretty far out. At that depth, it’s very manageable for an experienced technical diver, decompression diver, but it’s far from pushing the limits. It’s very manageable.
Brittany: Yeah, it’s a great wreck. I’ve seen pods of dolphins diving the Coimbra. I’ve seen a finback whale.
Joe: Yes.
Brittany: Just absolutely gorgeous. The water was so blue, mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s one of my all-time favorites.
Joe: It’s a great wreck. Not the easiest to get to because you need calm seas, because it’s not like we’re going out there in hundred-foot boats that can take the waves.
Brittany: I think to the sand it’s 190.
Joe: It might be, yeah. There’s a fair amount of relief on that.
Brittany: Yes, yeah. Meaning, you know, maybe it’s 190 up to 170 or something like that. Yeah,I’mglad you brought that one up, Joe.
Brittany: So you mentioned Suzanne a couple of times. Mm-hmm. I want to dive into that a little bit deeper because, mm-hmm, it’s very rare to hear whole families getting certified, but you managed to do that with yours. Was that something, you know, when you left the dive scene, you thought, I definitely want my kids to be a part of this?
Joe: Nope.
Brittany: How did that end up coming about?
Joe: No one in my family dove, okay? I became a diver because I wanted to. You know, my parents were like, oh, wouldn’t you rather play golf? Golf’s great, I’ve played it, but no, it doesn’t light my fire like that. I never really had any thought of my kids getting into it one way or the other. In 2009 or 2010, I’m licensed to practice law in New York, but I wanted to take the bar exam in the U.S. Virgin Islands and start a small practice there, which I did have for a while, now it’s sort of inactive, again, so I could make some money while I was there diving. And I passed. I had already been a lawyer in New York. I went there once for two and a half weeks to do some legal stuff and a bunch of diving. I was a divemaster at
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that point. And all three kids wanted to go with me. My wife had conflicts, so I would have loved to have her go with me also. My wife had no interest in diving whatsoever. She’s like, look,I’mnot breathing underwater. And that’s the way it was, and we came to accept it. I mean, there’s more to life and marriage than diving. So all three went, and all three did a Discover Scuba Diving, and we did it—I was hanging around in the background. There were two instructors for the three Discover Scuba Divers, which was an appropriate ratio. And the two girls came up and loved it. My son came up, he had done the whole dive, he said, Dad, this is not happening, and that was that. The older one stayed a recreational diver, got her advanced open water, got her nitrox, and loves to dive. But she’s a
warm-water, pretty-fish diver, and that’s great. She’s got a million other divers to keep her company. The younger one, the following summer, said to me,I’dlike to try a local dive with you. I was like, oh, all right. So we talked about it. We did a recreational—and it was inshore—the visibility was limited, and she said, I’dlike to try again. So I took her to the San Diego, which at the top is 80 feet. It goes down to 105, but we hung out at 80 to 90 feet. We had good viz. She saw the guns. It’s an old World War I cruiser. And she said,I’mgoing to keep doing this. I want to do this. And the long story short is she is a fully developed, full-on decompression trimix diver, and I love diving with her. I love diving with both of them. I don’t get to dive with the older one as often. She lives in Virginia. But the other one lives in the Hudson Valley, and we do local diving. You know, it’s great. Again, it was not by design. I just kept showing up and they got interested.
Brittany: Yeah, I think that’s the best way to get into it as a family because you always hear those stories where a parent is passionate about something and they force their child into that, and then you always hear the stories of how much the child really didn’t want that.
Joe: Not going to work. It’s not going to work. So as an instructor, the only people I’ve ever had who dropped out of the basic open-water course were the ones who were there because—usually because they’re dragged by a significant other who wants to get into it, sometimes by a parent, but it’s usually the significant-other scenario. And you can tell right away. And I do my best to make them interested, but usually as the course progresses, I’ll kind of drop a hint.I’mlike, you know, this is optional, right? You don’t have to. And the problem is, if your significant other drags you into tennis, golf, paddle ball, or pretty much anything else and you don’t like it, at some point you confess up and say I don’t like it. But if you don’t like diving, you’re at a significantly increased risk of drowning, and that’s serious stuff. Can’t force someone to dive. It’s out of the question. They have to want to.
Brittany: Yeah, it comes with its own risks. Now, being anxious and having some nerves beforehand is totally natural, especially when you’re learning up here, but—
Joe: Oh my gosh.
Brittany: Being reluctant or terrified, that’s a whole another—terrified is a strong word.
Joe: But to this day, before I step off a boat and splash, I feel nervous in a healthy sort of way, but I feel it. I guess I feel like a little kid jumping off a boat into the unknown. That feeling goes away the moment I
hit the water, but I feel it. If you’ve got some new, inexperienced diver who doesn’t feel that way, it’s a problem. You should feel anxious. You should feel worried. Not to the point of panic, not to the point of terror, but you should have significant concern about what you’re doing. Someone who says, you know, who’s got five dives under their belt, let’s go dive the Oregon at 120 feet, I got this—I’m like, ah, maybe not so much. Because I really don’t want to be using my rescue skills to drag your butt up 120 feet and back onto the boat so that other people can give you CPR.I’mreally not up for that. All right? So caution is the watchword and not taking shortcuts is the watchword. And you should be nervous. You got the
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right feeling.
Brittany: Right. I think a heightened awareness is what’s really important because it’s so easy, wearing a mask and having all that equipment, to have tunnel vision.
Joe: Oh yes.
Brittany: And it’s natural in the education process, right, when you’re going from an open-water diver to advanced, mm-hmm, where you end up building that awareness outside of, yeah, I like to say, almost like your self bubble, right? But adding on to that nervousness or that anxious feeling that you get, having the self-awareness is really important because as you’re diving with somebody else, you have to be aware of how they’re doing and how their equipment’s working. So if you’re a responsible diver, being a little nervous is a good thing.
Joe: Hundred percent. I think heightened awareness was a great way to put it. That’s the goal. At first you’re going to be nervous and blah blah blah, but you should never lose that feeling of heightened awareness. It’s dangerous if you do. Complacency among advanced divers is far and away the number
one cause of accidents. Taking shortcuts, making it normal to take shortcuts even though you know you shouldn’t—oh, this has never gone wrong so it won’t go wrong—which is flawed thinking. You should always follow the rules. If you do diving the way you were taught to do it, recreational diving is quite safe. Technical diving inherently has more risks, but still the risk is very manageable and it’s not high if you do it the way you were trained to do it and you don’t go too far too fast. Someone who says, I got my decompression certification and yahoo,I’mgoing to the Doria this summer—not so fast. All right? How about you go to the Oregon, which is at 120, within recreational depths, and try to stay down for 45 minutes instead of 20. How about you go to the Linda and then the Bass, and how about that’s it for this summer? Maybe next year you get your helium cert, your trimix. We’ll try the Coimbra. It could take a couple of years as a technical diver to get to the Doria, two to three years. And that’s assuming you’re diving most weekends during the season. If you want to rush it, you’re increasing the risk. A lot of accidents are not dramatic, catastrophic equipment failures. Modern equipment, properly maintained, it’s really good. A lot of accidents are more like a set of dominoes falling.
Brittany: And you bring up a really great point there, Joe. So, you know, it’s easy—you spend all this money, you made all these arrangements, maybe you took the day off, right? And you’re on this boat.
Could be a two-hour ride. To make that decision of go or no-go on a dive, because some of those problems do start at the surface, right? Some of those problems could be entirely mental, right? Maybe it’s just seasickness—not that seasickness is entirely mental—but it is a cascading effect for you. When
you’re in those scenarios, what is your thought process with that, go or no-go? Is there a lot of things that build up for you,or—
Joe: It’s really a handful of factors. You have to be prepared to disregard the investment of time and money that went into the dive, and that is easier said than done. If you have the mentality ofI’mout here, I’mgoing to get my money’s worth, you’re at increased risk. All right? This has not happened frequently, but I have forfeited my money because you’re obligated to pay. If the boat goes, you’re obligated to pay.
I can remember two or three Friday evenings over the years where I had a Saturday dive. Work got crazier than expected during the week. I wasn’t really able to set up my equipment. So thenI’mlike,
okay,I’mgoing.I’mleaving work at 4 or 5 o’clock on Friday, going to get all my gear ready, get to bed at a reasonable hour so I can get up at 4:30 or 5 in the morning. And then Friday gets out of control. You’re
not going to tell your clients no. You’re not going to tell your boss no. And I get home at 8 o’clock on a Friday night. Well now, by the time everything’s set up and ready to go, because I couldn’t do it during
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the week, it’s going to be midnight or one.I’mnot going. All right? You’ve got to get a text to the captain telling himI’ma no-show. Usually you’re paid in advance, so you just lose the money. Occasionally it’s not paid in advance. Well, you have to send them a check, Venmo, whatever, because if you don’t,
they’re never going to let you on again. You owe that money. But it’s the best money you ever lost because you didn’t put yourself at risk.
Brittany: You know, it’s a great quote.
Joe: Yeah. So that’s the more common scenario for me, and again,I’mtalking about this happens once every two, three years, four years. The other scenarios—I do remember one dive where sometimes I get seasick. I mean,I’mpretty good, but sometimes I do. And you can get seasick and dive. In fact, you actually feel better once you’re in the water because you’re not on the rocking boat anymore.
Brittany: Absolutely.
Joe: So you can definitely get seasick and dive. But I remember one where it was just too violent, and it messed me up too much, and I actually was halfway suited up, but I was really flushed and really feeling it, and I just said to the crew member, I said, you know what,I’mout.I’mout. And I got unsuited, and I went below and I lay down in a bunk. If you don’t feel strong enough and confident enough to rescue yourself or your buddy, then you should not do the dive.
Brittany: Yeah, it’s a great point. It’s important, yeah. So Joe, when you look back on your diving career so far, do you think you’re the most proudof—
Joe: What do I thinkI’mthe most—oh boy. Wow. That’s coming out of left field. What am I most proud
of? Think about it, hmm. I think you learn a lot about yourself when you’re diving, and I thinkI’mmost proud of how much I’ve learned about myself and my own limits and pushing those limits at times. It’s
given me a greater awareness of myself, if you’re honest with yourself. And I also thinkI’mproud that I became part of a community where the camaraderie is almost second to none. I imagine the camaraderie is greater for people who have served in the military together, served in law enforcement together, but this is just one notch below. You’re really part of a community. And it’s very rare for someone to say, oh,I’mgoing diving, as opposed to saying,I’ma diver.
Brittany: You know, it’s true. It is true. So, to transition to something lighter, divers, we tend to have our routines, our processes, right? SoI’mgoing to close out with this one. Do you have a pre-dive meal or a
post-dive meal, any restaurants that you have to hit up when you get back, after or before? Both? I’m curious.
Joe: Okay, so before, no specific meal, but definitely specific types of meals. You don’t want to eat the morning of unless you’ve got an iron stomach and you never get seasick, okay? But you do want to bring some food on the boat for afterward. I like to eat a full dinner the night before, maybe even a snack afterward. IfI’mdiving out of Montauk, on the way back on Route 27, if you’re driving west, there’s a Carvel soft serve on the left side. That’s mandatory.
Brittany: Okay, nice.
Joe: I don’t care how much trafficI’min,I’mstopping for Carvel on the way back. I don’t eat a lot of ice cream because as you get older it sits in your waistline, butI’mgetting that Carvel ifI’mcoming back from Montauk. And eat whatever you want when you’re done. You earned it. And we always end up so hungry that you’ve got to bring something, some nuts or fruit or snack bars or whatever, on the boat because you are starving on the way back. And this is not 20 minutes back in a tropical destination. This could be an hour and a half, two hours, and you are starving. So bring a small cooler on the boat.
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Brittany: Yeah, definitely, yeah. Well, Joe, thank you so much for being on today. Joe: It’s my pleasure.
Brittany: You’ve had so much knowledge and you’ve shared so much information, so thank you.
Joe: Thank you. This is great, and I hope this podcast takes off and runs for a long time. You’ve done a terrific job getting it off the ground.
Brittany: Thank you, Joe. That means a lot. Joe: You’re very welcome.
Brittany: Until next time, we’ll see you guys soon. Have a great day.
Brittany: Thank you for listening to the Dive Long Island Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. For sponsorship opportunities, guest ideas, or to connect, you can reach me at infoDiveLongIsland@gmail.com,
www.DiveLongIsland.pro, and follow along on social media at @DiveLongIsland. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you between dives.
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