Awww man, swimming turtle the day AFTER I go
Palm Beach Dive Thread
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alwayssummer
Fish out of Water
Hi y'all. I'm not sure if the correct place to post this, but I'll be in WPB from Aug 8-15 visiting friends. Wondering what there is to do in the area this time of year. What do you recommend?
Besides diving?
OP
Great diving and snorkeling of course with many options already listed on this and other Florida threads. Just read up for many charter/location suggestions.
Beyond diving, there are MANY state and local parks where you can hike, bike, bird watch, kayak, paddleboard, and swim. Almost too many to list across all of Palm Beach County from Boca Raton in the south all the way north to Jupiter and beyond into the counties to the north.
Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach is not to be missed.
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton is also special.
If you like birds and reptiles, you have Wakodahatchee Wetlands and Green Cay Nature Preserve in inland Boynton/Delray.
Morikami Gardens in Delray Beach is a beautiful Japanese Garden that we always enjoy visiting.
I'm sure others will offer up other suggestions as well.
Check out Busch Wildlife in Jupiter. Busch Wildlife Sanctuary
tekkydiver
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At a recent visit to Gumbo Limbo, at the fish feeding they gave a scathing lecture on fisherman and boaters. Go, but don't put money in the box. It's voluntary... by the way, I would bet at least some of their funding comes from revenues the Wallop-Breaux and Dingle-Johnson and Florida Fishing License sales.
alwayssummer
Fish out of Water
Thanks for all the replies! I should have been more specific about what I'm looking for and I also jumped the gun asking what to do before finding relevant threads.
I suppose the main question is: what's good for diving in August? Any diving club activities I might want to look into? It's always nice to catch local divers.
I suppose the main question is: what's good for diving in August? Any diving club activities I might want to look into? It's always nice to catch local divers.
I'd recommend diving with a few different charters in Jupiter and Riviera Beach (Kyalami, JDC, Pura Vida, Narcosis to name a few). Do a few dives at BHB and make a trip to dive LBTS or Hollywood. Definitely connect with @Scuba_Jenny if you want a guide for the shore dives, she knows the sites like the back of her hands and will show you things that you definitely would not have seen. Purchase an out of state fishing license and do some lobstering while on the charters. Maybe do an LBTS night dive for lobsters. If it's late August, the Goliath Groupers might be around on the wrecks, they aggregate to the area in September for breeding. If you're into spearfishing, there are some charters which are very friendly to hunting.
I guess the better question is, what do you like to do? We have wrecks, ledges, hunting, sharks, turtles, shallow dives (under 60ft), deep dives (over 60ft), technical dives, shore dives, tropical fish sites, and larger creature sites.
I guess the better question is, what do you like to do? We have wrecks, ledges, hunting, sharks, turtles, shallow dives (under 60ft), deep dives (over 60ft), technical dives, shore dives, tropical fish sites, and larger creature sites.
I got back from Costa Rica on Thursday, just in time to miss the worldwide computer meltdown on Friday. I am still writing up that trip report, but in the meantime, here is a report from todays diving. Not wanting to drive down to LBTS, and not wanting to deal with half the divers in Florida at BHB, I bypassed Phil Foster Park, and instead did the Singer Island Mitigation Reef.
For those unfamiliar, the Mitigation Reef is located in front of the condos just north of the public beach, the one directly east of Pura Vida dive shop. Basically piles of rock west of hard bottom then some hard bottom with algae and bryozoans growing on it. The hard bottom forms small little ledges from 1-3 ft in height, and then slopes down to the sand in 17-20ft range on the east side of the hard bottom.
I mostly snorkel this site, and I always have a flag there. There are mooring balls for boats. Boats come and go frequently, so important to be watchful at this site. For diving it today I used 50cuft tanks, as it is a bit of trek across the sand to get there. When I entered at 0810, there was a strong north long shore current, I guess because of the wave action. Visibility was good at about 40ft, but with lots of large particulate, sea temp was 82f.
Today there were so many fish in the water column around the rocks it felt like swimming in an aquarium. There were at least twenty tarpon on site, green sea turtle, most members of the grunt family, a Hammerhead off in the distance, a bunch of Thrush Cowries, Sea Spiders, an Atlantic Guitarfish, Green Moray, Reef Croakers, Goldentail Moray and two large Spotted Eagle Rays, to name a few.
Had so much fun on the first tank, went back to my truck got another 50cuft tank and did the site a second time. Did REEF surveys of 54 species on the first dive, and 63 species on the second dive. Respectively, Atlantic Guitarfish, Goldentail Moray, Green Moray, and Tarpon.
For those unfamiliar, the Mitigation Reef is located in front of the condos just north of the public beach, the one directly east of Pura Vida dive shop. Basically piles of rock west of hard bottom then some hard bottom with algae and bryozoans growing on it. The hard bottom forms small little ledges from 1-3 ft in height, and then slopes down to the sand in 17-20ft range on the east side of the hard bottom.
I mostly snorkel this site, and I always have a flag there. There are mooring balls for boats. Boats come and go frequently, so important to be watchful at this site. For diving it today I used 50cuft tanks, as it is a bit of trek across the sand to get there. When I entered at 0810, there was a strong north long shore current, I guess because of the wave action. Visibility was good at about 40ft, but with lots of large particulate, sea temp was 82f.
Today there were so many fish in the water column around the rocks it felt like swimming in an aquarium. There were at least twenty tarpon on site, green sea turtle, most members of the grunt family, a Hammerhead off in the distance, a bunch of Thrush Cowries, Sea Spiders, an Atlantic Guitarfish, Green Moray, Reef Croakers, Goldentail Moray and two large Spotted Eagle Rays, to name a few.
Had so much fun on the first tank, went back to my truck got another 50cuft tank and did the site a second time. Did REEF surveys of 54 species on the first dive, and 63 species on the second dive. Respectively, Atlantic Guitarfish, Goldentail Moray, Green Moray, and Tarpon.
On Sunday, I went on the Pura Vida shallow boat for both AM and PM.
The AM trip was a cleanup dive. We were handed bags and shears.
Dive 1 was Teardrop. It was nice not to find a lot of trash. I brought my zookeeper to store trash, rather than the bag. I tend to not stick with the group and go either faster or slower, depending on what I'm doing. In this case, the group was ahead of me because I stopped to pick up some fishing line. I drifted back into the group and there were several people taking photos under a ledge. After they moved on, I swooped in with my flashlight to see what they were looking at and saw a lionfish. I hit the lionfish, but it wasn't a good hold. It got off and swam behind a big rock. The rock was too perfectly shaped, so I backed up a little and realize it was a sleeping turtle. With no plans to try and get the lionfish, I backed off. Just as I was about to leave, the lionfish pops out the other side of the turtle, exposing itself outside the ledge, so I nailed it. There was a break in the ledge with a 7-8ft wide sandy bottom. I decided to follow each ledge to look for trash and lionfish. At one point I look up and a nice size lemon shark is swimming by. I ended up collecting a bunch of fishing line throughout the dive. I saw a couple of eels and shot another small lionfish. Visibility was maybe 40ft.
Dive 2 was Flower Garden. There were moray eels all over the place. I'm not a big fan of being near moray eels, so I kept my distance. I found 5 or 6ft of rope, a plastic zip tie, more fishing line, and a small piece of board. I shot a small lionfish. Visibility dropped to 30ft. Mid dive, there was a drop in water temperature, and you could see the shimmering. There was a thermocline at 30ft. At the surface were two other divers from Sandy's Sunday. We talked about our dives and mentioned I was doing clean up. They had a glass bottle which they were happy to hand over because they didn't have something to hold it in. Kyalami 2 was also in the area picking up divers. We were all intermingled and the captains communicated with each other to untangle the mess of divers. As I handed my DSMB and reel up, the deckhand triggered the release of my line and dropped my reel. It was floating right in front of me but was inches out of my reach. It was hardly negative and pulling on the line would bring it closer to me. I was able to grab it. The deckhand wasn't happy that I did this, but I wasn't on the ladder, and it was right there. I can see where things could go wrong through, say a wave comes and slams the boat on my head, so I get it.
The PM trip was just standard diving.
Dive 1 was Bath and Tennis. The dive started off chilly and warmed up at some point. Visibility was still low, and the current was getting stronger than the AM dives. There was a turtle swimming by and saw several moray eels. I was trying to get under the holes with my flashlight to find lionfish. I saw 3 small lionfish and was only able to land 1. The other two didn't give me opportunity at a clean shot. Visibility was still around 30-35ft. Seas were 2ft and starting to pick up a little.
Dive 2 was Fishbowl. I shot another small lionfish. Saw some more eels. I drifted for a while and eventually hit the trenches. I saw a couple lobsters, not enough to make it worth a trip. The current was all over the place. Sometimes ripping, then slacking, and then ripping again. Visibility was 30ft. On the surface, I was experiencing 3ft seas as I was trying to get on the ladder. I was exhausted and it made it that much more challenging to get up the ladder.
The AM trip was a cleanup dive. We were handed bags and shears.
Dive 1 was Teardrop. It was nice not to find a lot of trash. I brought my zookeeper to store trash, rather than the bag. I tend to not stick with the group and go either faster or slower, depending on what I'm doing. In this case, the group was ahead of me because I stopped to pick up some fishing line. I drifted back into the group and there were several people taking photos under a ledge. After they moved on, I swooped in with my flashlight to see what they were looking at and saw a lionfish. I hit the lionfish, but it wasn't a good hold. It got off and swam behind a big rock. The rock was too perfectly shaped, so I backed up a little and realize it was a sleeping turtle. With no plans to try and get the lionfish, I backed off. Just as I was about to leave, the lionfish pops out the other side of the turtle, exposing itself outside the ledge, so I nailed it. There was a break in the ledge with a 7-8ft wide sandy bottom. I decided to follow each ledge to look for trash and lionfish. At one point I look up and a nice size lemon shark is swimming by. I ended up collecting a bunch of fishing line throughout the dive. I saw a couple of eels and shot another small lionfish. Visibility was maybe 40ft.
Dive 2 was Flower Garden. There were moray eels all over the place. I'm not a big fan of being near moray eels, so I kept my distance. I found 5 or 6ft of rope, a plastic zip tie, more fishing line, and a small piece of board. I shot a small lionfish. Visibility dropped to 30ft. Mid dive, there was a drop in water temperature, and you could see the shimmering. There was a thermocline at 30ft. At the surface were two other divers from Sandy's Sunday. We talked about our dives and mentioned I was doing clean up. They had a glass bottle which they were happy to hand over because they didn't have something to hold it in. Kyalami 2 was also in the area picking up divers. We were all intermingled and the captains communicated with each other to untangle the mess of divers. As I handed my DSMB and reel up, the deckhand triggered the release of my line and dropped my reel. It was floating right in front of me but was inches out of my reach. It was hardly negative and pulling on the line would bring it closer to me. I was able to grab it. The deckhand wasn't happy that I did this, but I wasn't on the ladder, and it was right there. I can see where things could go wrong through, say a wave comes and slams the boat on my head, so I get it.
The PM trip was just standard diving.
Dive 1 was Bath and Tennis. The dive started off chilly and warmed up at some point. Visibility was still low, and the current was getting stronger than the AM dives. There was a turtle swimming by and saw several moray eels. I was trying to get under the holes with my flashlight to find lionfish. I saw 3 small lionfish and was only able to land 1. The other two didn't give me opportunity at a clean shot. Visibility was still around 30-35ft. Seas were 2ft and starting to pick up a little.
Dive 2 was Fishbowl. I shot another small lionfish. Saw some more eels. I drifted for a while and eventually hit the trenches. I saw a couple lobsters, not enough to make it worth a trip. The current was all over the place. Sometimes ripping, then slacking, and then ripping again. Visibility was 30ft. On the surface, I was experiencing 3ft seas as I was trying to get on the ladder. I was exhausted and it made it that much more challenging to get up the ladder.
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