johndiver999
Contributor
Nice today, current is picking up a little to maybe 1 kt. by end of day. Vis was around 50 ft. Still warm and blue.
Palm Beach Dive Thread
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CosbySweater
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I saw 3 of those jelly’s last Saturday in Jupiter. One was as large as a fully inflated beach ball. It was massive.
It would be rare but not impossible for Lions Mane to show up down here. After some cursory research they may be Pink Meanie’s. Will need an expert to confirm.
Drymonema larsoni - Wikipedia
johndiver999
Contributor
Went out on Pura Vida's Aurelia yesterday. Jason as captain, Amber, Giona, and Elena as divemasters. Weather was nice leaving the dock a 1000. On the beginning of the second dive at 1249 the weather was still nice, 10k wind, wave action less than ft, and mostly sunny. By the end of the second dive the front that came through yesterday moved in it was cloudy, cool, wind and waves had picked up significantly. By the time I got home it was bright and sunshiney with no clouds again.
Prior to the first dive my computer showed a 29 day surface interval, the longest period time out of the water for me in the past 29 months, enough said about the weather we have had lately. 15 divers on Aurelia yesterday, so just one group, Amber and Elena as guides/divemasters. It makes me laugh the range of thermal exposure worn by individual divers yesterday. From three people with nothing but rash gaurds on, to a guy in a drysuit. I was in a 5mil with a beanie hood, just right for 80f with no variance or thermocline.
First dive was Flower Gardens Reef. Visibility was about 35ft, mostly blue water, with alot of particulate, and a slight north current. The "slight" current was perfect, just enough to keep moving with little effort, and also easy for stopping to look closer at whatever may be of interest. Did a REEF fish survey of 67 species for the hour long dive. The standout species would be a Dog Snapper hanging out in a mixed school of Sailors Choice and Black Margates. Dog Snappers don't usually hang out that way, are generally difficult to approach before they hide. Not the case with the one from yesterday.
The second dive was on 4th window, REEF.org describes this site as Breakers Reef (Elevator,4th Window,King Neptune), so take your pick of what you call it. Giona was the divemaster/guide. It is a fishy reef. My survey count was 64 species for the one hour dive, 3 less than the last dive. By fishy I mean quantity of fish as opposed to quantity of species. Big school of Lane Snappers with 300 to 400 individuals. Large school of Gray Snappers with 100 individuals. Smaller schools of Sailors Choice, Tomtates, Black Margate, and Smallmouth Grunt sometimes homogenous schools, other times mixed. One small Goliather Grouper (battery was dead on my camera by the time we reached it), and two Large Black Groupers. Given the amount of spearfisherman in Florida I am always surprised to see keeper size Black Groupers.
The standout species of the dive were definitely the Pink Meanies (Drymonema larsoni). Two large ones with lots of smaller fish hanging out in the oral arms. The first one had tentacles in every direction, ten feet in radius. When I got under it the scuba bubbles seem to disturb it and the tentacles retracted much closer to the main body. Pink Meanies were described a short while ago in 2010. They eat Moon Jellyfish! Apparently they die rather quickly with no prey to eat, and cold water will also kill them. I went to inaturalist to compare observations of Pink Meanies to Lions Mane Jellyfish. For all intent and purpose the ranges do not overlap. From the maps it can be seen that Lions Mane do not survive warm water, and Pink Meanies do not survive cold water or even temperate water. Pink Meanies have only been observed 242 times while Lions Mane 2979 times. Images of the Pink Meanies from yesterday and range maps below.
Prior to the first dive my computer showed a 29 day surface interval, the longest period time out of the water for me in the past 29 months, enough said about the weather we have had lately. 15 divers on Aurelia yesterday, so just one group, Amber and Elena as guides/divemasters. It makes me laugh the range of thermal exposure worn by individual divers yesterday. From three people with nothing but rash gaurds on, to a guy in a drysuit. I was in a 5mil with a beanie hood, just right for 80f with no variance or thermocline.
First dive was Flower Gardens Reef. Visibility was about 35ft, mostly blue water, with alot of particulate, and a slight north current. The "slight" current was perfect, just enough to keep moving with little effort, and also easy for stopping to look closer at whatever may be of interest. Did a REEF fish survey of 67 species for the hour long dive. The standout species would be a Dog Snapper hanging out in a mixed school of Sailors Choice and Black Margates. Dog Snappers don't usually hang out that way, are generally difficult to approach before they hide. Not the case with the one from yesterday.
The second dive was on 4th window, REEF.org describes this site as Breakers Reef (Elevator,4th Window,King Neptune), so take your pick of what you call it. Giona was the divemaster/guide. It is a fishy reef. My survey count was 64 species for the one hour dive, 3 less than the last dive. By fishy I mean quantity of fish as opposed to quantity of species. Big school of Lane Snappers with 300 to 400 individuals. Large school of Gray Snappers with 100 individuals. Smaller schools of Sailors Choice, Tomtates, Black Margate, and Smallmouth Grunt sometimes homogenous schools, other times mixed. One small Goliather Grouper (battery was dead on my camera by the time we reached it), and two Large Black Groupers. Given the amount of spearfisherman in Florida I am always surprised to see keeper size Black Groupers.
The standout species of the dive were definitely the Pink Meanies (Drymonema larsoni). Two large ones with lots of smaller fish hanging out in the oral arms. The first one had tentacles in every direction, ten feet in radius. When I got under it the scuba bubbles seem to disturb it and the tentacles retracted much closer to the main body. Pink Meanies were described a short while ago in 2010. They eat Moon Jellyfish! Apparently they die rather quickly with no prey to eat, and cold water will also kill them. I went to inaturalist to compare observations of Pink Meanies to Lions Mane Jellyfish. For all intent and purpose the ranges do not overlap. From the maps it can be seen that Lions Mane do not survive warm water, and Pink Meanies do not survive cold water or even temperate water. Pink Meanies have only been observed 242 times while Lions Mane 2979 times. Images of the Pink Meanies from yesterday and range maps below.
Johnoly
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So there's an 'un-written courtesy' that most of us WPB spearo's follow (Not all do)
We don't spear on Flower Gardens nor Breakers reefs, but do catch lobster/lionfish there. Just those 2 spots and all the captains know about it. It's kinda like you don't blast music at 2am cause your neighbor's 'silent revenge' may not be pretty. It's a big ocean with plenty of other places to hunt.
Great picts and glad you got out on the reefs for a change of scenery from the bridge.
OP
Conditions this afternoon were super surgey due to a sizeable swell, 4-6' seas with a 10-12 sec period. Sunny to partly cloud, air temps in the upper 70s to low 80s, water was 80 degrees. It was manageable to challenging. Blue water and good viz in the water column, but 10-20' viz on the reef due to the swell. At points viz was a bit less than 10'. We did Flower Garden in reverse (north to south) and Elevator Shaft typical south to north direction. Besides the sizeable E-W (NE-SW at points) swell, there was virtually no current.
Thanks for filling me in. I had missed that memo & since I dive from my own boat, I don't have the backstop of a captain to fill me on on things like that.
Several year ago, I made a somewhat related gaff while fishing. I hooked into a really big sailfish & when I got him boatside, I realized that he was WELL over the 65" lower jaw size limit, so I grabbed a gaff & invited him aboard. The boat had the proper HMS permit, so I didn't see any reason not to. Somewhere, I have a picture of that monster hanging off both sides of the tailgate of an F250. A year or two later, I was fishing from one of the charter boats out of Sailfish Marina & asked for the gaff when I got a sailfish boat side. I got dirty looks, followed by an explanation. Billfish are unofficially catch & release in this area & it's been that way for years. The local fishing club has even retired the species from their biggest fish caught records. Apparently the local "spindle beak boys" have farmed a local population of of sailfish that no longer migrates out of the area & stays here year round. They are quite protective of their pets that live in the big fish bowl out in front of the inlet. So now it's just KDW, tuna & bottom fish on my grocery list.
I dove with Kyalami out of Jupiter this Saturday, so why am I posting it here? Because we took a trip down the intracoastal to the palm beach inlet and back.
We had at least 3 people on the boat puking. Surface conditions weren't that bad except for the occasional big roller. The sketchy part was getting back on the boat after each dive when one of the rollers would hit. There was a big surge top to bottom. I went to catch a lobster, and the surge threw me into the hole. I still caught it, but it was short.
In the morning, we had 30 ft of vis near the ledge and 50 ft away from the ledge. On dive 2 which we dropped about where the last dive ended, the bottom 15 ft of depth was 5 ft of vis. The surge had silted it all out. Above the 15 ft of silt, you could see the surface 70ft up.
Water temp was 81 degrees. We treated both dives as if we had a south current. I honestly don't know if it was going one way or the other as I was on my DPV. I tried to feel it out at the beginning of the dive and couldn't.
We had at least 3 people on the boat puking. Surface conditions weren't that bad except for the occasional big roller. The sketchy part was getting back on the boat after each dive when one of the rollers would hit. There was a big surge top to bottom. I went to catch a lobster, and the surge threw me into the hole. I still caught it, but it was short.
In the morning, we had 30 ft of vis near the ledge and 50 ft away from the ledge. On dive 2 which we dropped about where the last dive ended, the bottom 15 ft of depth was 5 ft of vis. The surge had silted it all out. Above the 15 ft of silt, you could see the surface 70ft up.
Water temp was 81 degrees. We treated both dives as if we had a south current. I honestly don't know if it was going one way or the other as I was on my DPV. I tried to feel it out at the beginning of the dive and couldn't.
Pavao
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I had the wildest thing today in WPB.
We went north for first dive, water looked blue and in fact was great viz on the top 50ft of water, but below 50ft it deteriorated rapidly, put it this way, at one point I went vertical as I descended, fin touched bottom at 82ft and I still didn’t see the bottom.
Everyone aborted their dive and we went 3 miles south of first spot, jumped in and had 80+ ft of viz on beautiful blue water, would’ve been a 100ft viz day if sun was out.
I have never seen such a drastic difference in conditions in such a short distance and short time.
And just like it has been this whole week, lobsters are everywhere.
We went north for first dive, water looked blue and in fact was great viz on the top 50ft of water, but below 50ft it deteriorated rapidly, put it this way, at one point I went vertical as I descended, fin touched bottom at 82ft and I still didn’t see the bottom.
Everyone aborted their dive and we went 3 miles south of first spot, jumped in and had 80+ ft of viz on beautiful blue water, would’ve been a 100ft viz day if sun was out.
I have never seen such a drastic difference in conditions in such a short distance and short time.
And just like it has been this whole week, lobsters are everywhere.
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