17 Fathom Megs

My friend Bill came up with a great idea. Since we were going to be all the way up in North Carolina for the Aurora Fossil Festival anyway, why not dive the famous Meg Ledge off Topsail Beach? The fact that it wasn't my idea made it an easier sell to the wife and my trip was booked. Of course I had to get Nitrox certified, come up with a dive computer, and learn how to use it, not to mention convince myself that diving over 100 feet deep is worth it if there are meg teeth down there, right? Of course it is. Well, the festival was fun and I was able to sell lots of t shirts (www.meghunter.net) as well as see some old friends and meet some new ones. My son made me proud as usual by plucking a nice Mako tooth out of one of the piles while sitting on my lap. I actually hated to leave the festival but we had a couple hours of driving to get to the coast so off we went. After a little sleep we met Captain Al of Little Feet Charters at the dock, loaded up, and headed for Bermuda...at least thats where it seemed we were going. Like a little kid I asked "are we there yet?" repeatedly until finally the boat came to a stop. I thought "man we are way the heck out here" and then the captain said "Pee break!", "we're about half way to the dive site". I guess its about 30 or so miles out and in three foot seas, one should multiply that by ten...so it was a three hundred mile boat ride, each way, based on my calculations, which may or may not be accurate. Fortunately, we had great company and wRick gave us good info on what to expect once we got down there. The seas calmed the closer we got to Europe and when we arrived at the famed Meg Ledge the water was warm clear and calm. I hear the conditions can be not so good here but we were blessed with excellent diving conditions on this day. I was first in and I quickly swam right past where all the teeth are. I headed straight out into the sand where, had I been so inspired, could have gathered a sand dollar collection that would have made me the envy of the sand dollar collecting world. As I shook off the nitrogen narcosis that got me way out in the sand and headed back where the teeth are I realized that 20 minutes of bottom time goes by pretty freakin' quick when you are shark tooth hunting. I made it back to the anchor with three minutes left and figured I would continue to look within site of the anchor. I peered between a couple good sized rocks and caught a glimps of the sweet straight edge of a big meg tooth..and then another not so big. A little "tooth fondling" and it was time to start the long assent back to the boat. "At least I was on the trail now" I thought as I did a safety stop for a while. The viz was awesome and I watched one of the other divers freedive down 40 or so feet and shoot a big Amberjack before getting back in the boat. Bill came up with a nice bunch of teeth including a solid 6.5 incher. I chuckled knowing I had a fool proof plan for my second dive. The only thing I can compare this type of diving to is the people you see in wind tunnels grabbing at dollar bills. On my second dive there were teeth everywhere. I stayed in the bigger rocks where I found my first two on the first dive. I brought up 8 whole teeth. One of which is 6.25 inches. My collecting bag was over flowing and I kinda wonder if I didn't have teeth falling out. I switched to my auxillary bag which is just for this type of situation that of course never really happens but stuck a couple in there before my computer started reminding me that this wasn't going to last forever...infact not even another minute, so up I went. Bill and Rick had nice hauls on this dive as well and there were plenty of teeth to look at during our next surface interval. We did three dives each all in the same spot and the last dive we all got a couple teeth but the area around the anchor was getting picked over pretty good but no one complained as we all did better than we could have hoped for. In summary, I think there are still loads of teeth out there despite some of the reports you see on the internet. Bottom time is so limited I think it will take quite some time to clean it out. It was a awesome trip with awesome people, great results, and I hope to go again next year.

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