The weather was unusually warm for this time of year on Saturday, 10/6.
I arrived at the dock in Tuckerton, NJ at 0600 and loaded my gear onto
Tuna Seazure, a 37 ft Topaz being run as a 6 pack. We departed in dead
calm with very low visibility due to fog. When we got to the sea buoys,
the water was fairly flat and we had nice fast run for 28 nm to the
wreck known as the Southern Lillian. AFAIK, the wreck has not been
positively identified, and I've been told that it may be either the
Kennebec or Oklahoma.

I suited up and splashed into 68 degree blue water. There was almost no
current, and the descent to the wreck at 112 ft was an easy one. The
bottom temperature was in the mid 50's and the vis was about 40 ft. The
boat guys didn't have a lot of knowledge of the wreck's lay, so I
decided to explore a bit. I went north, and found some pretty big
boilers laying in the sand by themselves. I went farther north looking
for the engine, but found nothing that I could identify. I tried going
back the other way, and started sightseeing and looking for groceries. I
saw a lot of winter flounder, which are out of season. There were a lot
of really big mussels that I didn't want to eat, and on this dive I only
saw one scallop, which is not enough to mess with. There were a lot of
lobsters, but they were well out of reach in between cascaded steel
plates. I saw 2 kinds of really big eels which I think are what the
locals call congers and pouts. There were some sea ravens and lots of
some smaller swimming fish. There were lots of gorgonians and some
pretty big starfish. After 30 minutes it was time to head up, and after
a few minutes of hanging in warm blue water, I got back on the boat for
lunch.

Conditions were about the same on the second dive except for a little
bit of current. I tried a different route and saw a lot of lobsters I
couldn't reach and flounder I couldn't take. I did find though that
there are some other big pieces of wreck to the east and west of the
boilers, so I have a landmark and a place to look the next time I get to
this wreck. It looks like some large piping runs to the east.

The run back to the dock was fast and in bright sunshine and a flat sea.
It was the perfect end to a great day of diving.