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Snorkeling and Scuba Diving at Beach 8th Street, Queens
A Paradise Not Lost
By Bob Sterner (http://www.sternereditorial.com)
http://www.nedivenews.com
What's old is new is the good news about Almost Paradise. Beach 9th Street, Far Rockaway, Queens, N.Y., is back to being called Beach 8th Street, for the traditional hole in the fence that's given so much pleasure to generations of divers, local fishermen and kids splashing into the cool eddy between the jetties that form the site. Diving here no longer costs $20 a head for everyone in the car to park in the now closed Almost Paradise lot, although I'd still be glad to do so for the showers and facilities to rinse salt out of gear while getting a burger and a soda after a nice dive.
Riding the tide change to the bridge and back is discouraged in post-9/11 days, although serious tautog spear-fishers still return from there with dinner. At least they know what they're bagging. Shore fishers bring home lots of dinner too from this thriving patch of sand just off JFK Airport's runways. When dinner divers miss a shot, they missed it. When shore fishers lose a fish, their bottom tackle stays on the bottom hooking and killing sea creatures for decades.
A fish killed wantonly that Barbara Krooss caught me looking at not long ago tells the story of glittery bottom tackle underwater. It's there to kill generations of fish unless you cut it off and remove it from pilings and other underwater obstructions. It might sound counter-productive, but you can make friends with the shore fishers who hate you for blowing bubbles around their favorite cast sites if you return the bounty of hooks, weights, spinners and other lures that they lost underwater. At the base of the piling where this fish lost its life to a lure we found a horseshoe crab barely alive and hopelessly snarled in a tangle of fishing line. It didn't stick around for a portrait after being freed.
Otherwise little has changed at the humble beach where thousands of divers have earned their c-cards. Divers still queue up a half-hour before high and low slack tide for optimum visibility. Many still avoid the crowd by diving as the current runs by ducking behind pilings. It's great training for low-vis conditions at a place where you can't get lost so long as you can follow a compass needle north to the shore. At mid-channel, high-tide, it is about 40 feet to the surface, but you don't want to go there because of heavy boat traffic. Lobsters, crabs, flounders, bergals, sponges, mussels and plants galore that drew divers to this humble site decades ago are still there for those willing to venture through the hole in the fence to see what's beneath the waves of Reynolds Channel.
See more photos and stories of diving this and other sites at Sterner Editorial (http://www.sternereditorial.com).
Found in the Rockaways, near JFK Airport in New York City
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Angel
May 9, 2016, 12:00 AM
scuba
It pains me to write this review about a location that has always held a special place for me. My original open water certification was done here at Beach 8th/9th when Almost Paradise was still open and since those first dives I have gone back there too many times to count both for fun and to work classes as a DM. My first experience there was not what I would call the best. I was a little disconcerted by the current and the low visibility. I wondered, like many students after me, WTF?! I was, and is, such a convenient site for me though that I could not help but go back and I was so glad I did. The variety of life, both plant and fish, is astounding and the night dives there are amazing. I saw my first sea horse there, shown to me by my buddy Cosmo, and was so surprised I almost spit the regulator out of my mouth. I have liberated black fish that were caught on lines that were snagged on rocks or even the cages. I have seen horseshoe crabs getting busy (and left them to their business). My first experience with bio-luminescence was there and that was a very special night dive as it was when I first met my wife Christine. I have been on night dives there and seen so many spider crabs that they looked like a blanket covering the bottom. I would always tell students that they needed to keep an open mind. That it was not always dark and ominous. My buddy Cosmo and I did one dive there on a Memorial Day where the visibility was more than 40 feet (I kid you not). It was a gorgeous day and the beach was packed with bathers and divers and yet when we stood on the shore we could actually see the cages!!! Not your typical conditions for this location but there you have it. Divers will complain about the cold but I have dove there in August with only a 3mm and been more than comfortable. So... you may be asking yourselves at this point why my review begins as it does. Unfortunately Beach 8th has undergone quite a change. Ever since Sandy paid us her visit the site is no longer as it was. I cannot say if it was simply a result of Sandy or it has to do with the dumping that goes on nearby or what the reason might be but the result has been drastic. The bottom composition is now a fine silt that becomes a dark and eerie cloud if one gets too close. The visibility, which could be anywhere from 4 to 40 feet depending on the day you were there, has now become a sad memory. My last dive there was 1/1/16. Our Club's New Year's Day dive. My buddy Don Preus and I went in to welcome in the New Year as we have often done in the past and were saddened by the visibility which was somewhere in the neighborhood of a whopping 3 inches. Ouch! And this, unfortunately, has become the norm rather than the exception. I don't know if this will eventually change. I certainly hope so but in the meantime I will always have fond memories of the Beach 8th/9th that was and that showed me so much of her wonderful beauty.
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