27
1816 Mews Drive | Wilmington, NC
910.256.6111
www.landfallrealty.com
Selling from Landfall. For Landfall. Exclusively Landfall.
2014 Graywalsh Drive
$449,000
629 Dundee Drive
$1,298,500
2172 Deer Island Lane
$899,900
2409 Ocean Point Drive
$2,250,000
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
averaging about 24 dives a year.
“It’s just a wonderful experience,” she says,
“something I hope I can do for many years to
come.”
Grandchildren, five of them, have started
to intrude on her diving time a bit, though
she continues to regularly head out into local
waters with an underwater camera to take
advantage of all that “top marine life, top
health of marine environment, top big animals
and top wreck diving.”
More often than not, she will encounter all
four of those phenomena on a single dive, as
she did this past May, when she joined a group
of a dozen divers aboard a charter boat, run by
what’s generally known as the “granddaddy” of
area dive shops — Wrightsville Beach’s Aquatic
Safaris (6800 Wrightsville Avenue, 910-392-
4386), in business since 1988.
The 48-foot Aquatic Safari I, with Captain
Paul Gregory at the helm, left the Bridge
Tender Marina early in the morning, headed
for the wreck of the Hyde, a 215-foot, ocean-going
hopper dredge sunk by the North
Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries in 1988.
A few hundred yards away from the Hyde,
lying on its port side, was another ocean-going
hopper dredge called the Markham, a 340-foot
vessel that was also sunk by the North Carolina
Division of Marine Fisheries, six years after
they dropped the Hyde. Both were deliber-ately
sunk to create an artificial reef, a habitat
for marine life, about 18 miles outside of the
Masonboro Inlet.
Following an hour-plus trip to the site, the
dozen divers slipped into the water and worked
their way down towards the deck of the Hyde,
about 70-85 feet below the surface. As the
other divers began their exploration of the ship
and its resident wildlife, Mobley, holding on
to a Nikon D200 camera, housed in a Subal
ND20, waterproof case, with two Sea & Sea
YS110 flash attachments, began taking pictures.
Although she didn’t notice immediately, the
divers with her and a couple of support per-sonnel,
snorkeling with masks on the surface,
could see that she’d attracted the attention of
two 10-foot, sand tiger sharks.
These sand tiger sharks, which feed off the
marine life that floats in and around the Hyde
and Markham, are generally docile, though it
pays to remember that they need to be treated