TRANSCRIPT FROM WRFR-fm AUDIO RECORDING OF SITE VISIT.6/2/06
...Diver Marcy Nelson returns to the boat after surveying the waters of the proposed breakwater aquaculture site. Jon continues his dive.
14:12 Marcy Nelson DMR : What a nice dive. There were lots of boulders with stars and kelp and crabs and lobsters.
Shawn Mahaney, Army Corps: So it was a hard bottom all the way out?
Marcy Nelson: No. Its mud up to here (points to elbow) It was deeper but I couldn't get my arm in any farther,
with interspersed...
Shawn Mahaney: ...Boulders laid over the mud?
14:30 Marcy Nelson: Yeah. Over here its a little harder. (Points toward breakwater)
Shawn Mahaney: Is that where there are boulders maybe from the breakwater construction?
Marcy Nelson: They are big boulders. I had to actually breathe in hard to rise up over them. They were big.
Shawn Mahaney: I bet you they're leftovers.
Marcy: They make some nice little mini-reefs.
14:47 Shawn Mahaney: Cool!
Diver Jon Lewis returns to boat
Marcy Nelson: You wouldn't think there's a resort with a golf course near by would you? (displays a golf ball.)
Jon Lewis Only two? Yeah, I'm surprised.
15:16 Jon Lewis I found an old ship's anchor that's pretty well rusted out. For a while I thought it might be a valuable find.
15:22 Marcy Nelson: That bottle I held up to you is an old cork top. An old cork top but I didn't have a...
Shawn Mahaney: ...Didn't have a bag? You could have handed it to me
15:40 Jon Lewis: That was a lot more interesting than I ever would have believed it was going to be!
Shawn Mahaney: That's good to know.
Marcy Nelson: That's the best dive I've had since coming back!
Jon Lewis: It's one of the better dives I've _ever_ had in Maine!
Marcy Nelson: It was fun.
15:50 Jon Lewis: It's got great rocky outcrops with these kelp beds over it, so there's all this /stuff/ living in those kelp beds
Shawn Mahaney: Natural rock outcrop or pieces of the breakwater?
Jon Lewis: I think its rock outcrops. I don't think it was pieces of the breakwater.
Shawn Mahaney: That may have been dropped when they were building?
Jon Lewis: Maybe. They weren't square.
16: 12 Jon Lewis: You'd get down in these flats and then you see this shadow sitting up about four feet into the water column, and you go over to it and it was just covered in kelp. You never know what you were going to find.
16:45 I thought, let's go get some neat footage and investigate these kelp forests
17:10 Jon Lewis: It's sand, mud (gestures) that much mud and sand and cobble Early on it (further from the breakwater) was softer.
17:22 Shawn Mahaney: that makes sense probably around that point though (Jameson Point) with like an eddy effect it probably deposits that any sediment because of the currents coming in and out.
Marcy Nelson: Closer into here, I could only get in up to my wrist
Jon Lewis : Yeah, there's an underlayment of cobble.
Shawn Mahaney: So long ago it has hardly settled since it was built
17:44 Marcy Nelson I saw one blade of eelgrass actually in...
Jon Lewis So did I: One blade.
Marcy Nelson: It was actually alive but it was around one of those rocks; it was under some kelp.
Jon Lewis : I saw one blade.
17:58 Shawn Mahaney: How was the growth on it: stunted or... just coming up?
M: Yeah it was...
Shawn Mahaney New Shoot or..? I bet it doesn't grow very well in here.
18:10 Marcy Nelson: This blade I was surprised it was actually growing. I found it in amongst a bunch of kelp. It couldn't have been getting much sunlight.
18:17 Jon Lewis: But if you're looking to grow sponges, and there's coralline algae down there already.
Marcy Nelson: Oh yeah.
Shawn Mahaney: That stuff will grow there then. Good.
18:22 Jon Lewis If you're looking to grow that; it's a diverse bottom, it's sand, mud, some cobble and rocky ledges.
Shawn Mahaney. That'll be good then
18:31 Marcy Nelson: After the Damariscotta this was a great dive.
Jon Lewis: This was a great dive. Did you feel like we were going against the current for a fair amount of it?
Marcy Nelson: I was getting a good leg workout.
Jon Lewis: Me too.
Shawn Mahaney: Really; there's a good current. then.
Jon Lewis It seemed like it was going to surge, believe it or not.
18:44 Jon Lewis I can't wait to see the lobster footage.
Marcy Nelson: Yeah
Jon Lewis: I was right in on them
Shawn Mahaney: A lot of lobster?
18:50 Jon Lewis: No. I saw four or five probably. One keeper.
Marcy Nelson. I saw a lot of juveniles.
18:55 Shawn Mahaney: Its still early, though.
Jon Lewis Yeah its early; there's some empty burrows, though.
18:59 Shawn Mahaney: That's a good sign.
Ron Huber: Is that what the bottom looks like, that boulder field? (points at boulders on shore on far side of breakwater)
Jon Lewis: No It may have at some point but now its overlain with silt. Look at these first couple of boulders? (Points to boulders off beach on the harbor side of breakwater.) Its a number of boulders about that size and it goes for a good bit all the way through. They're about the size of these outer two boulders. But there's kelp on them. _Brown_ kelp.
19:35. Jon Lewis That ship's anchor? About this big on the flukes; stood about this tall. I stood it up and I looked at it, and I was going to come up and grab a line, and then I looked at it and said 'this isn't going to last six months if I bring this to the surface. Its just going to rust out and fall apart'.
End of Excerpt
Discussion onboard DMR boat immediately following June 2, 2006 dives by Jon Lewis and Marcy Nelson at aquaculture proposal site next to the Rockland Breakwater. Also on board: Shawn Mahaney, US Army Corps of Engineers; Ron Huber, journalist and stakeholder.