Friday turned out to be travel hell for me. Arrived Orlando about 11pm, went to Hertz to pick up the car, and there were 175 people in line. Finally wound up getting the car around 3am and by that time decided hotel was out of the question so drove straight to Jupiter. (stopped at 2 rest stops on the way for cat naps). I had signed up for 2 am and 2 pm dives, and I'd be damned if I was going to miss out!
Well, 6 Red Bulls later, I pulled into Jupiter and headed to ScubaWorks about 7am yesterday, was greeted by Coby and Capt. Paul. They're really nice people and immediately made me feel like an old friend. Filled out the paperwork and off we went in their "ScubaZine" to the docks. You park your car there and they take all your equipment and tanks to the dock in a large party bus.
Got on the "Temptation" where Captain Paul gave us the safety presentation, and off we went.
First two dives were great! Saw my first pair of Goliath Groupers (at first I thought it was a coral head, then the coral head started MOVING...dang those boys are big (i'm talking maybe 400-500 pounds). Saw several LARGE (5-6 foot) nurse sharks, lemon shark, a couple of large green morays, and lots of lobsters. Had a couple of guys on the boat bagging bugs and I have to admit, the temptation to go get a license and join in the fun is powerful! Temp was about 70, and viz was 60+ - our first two dives were 70-80 feet for about 45-50 min. Coby had scrounged up a couple of AL100's for me, and with a mix of 37% I was doing just fine after the morning dives.
Around 12 we headed back to the shop for refills and a quick lunch. I met the next group of folks and we headed out again to dive "Scarface" and "The Tunnels". I learned my lesson from the morning dives and decided to wear the hood this time around. I had brought a full 7mm but about 20 min into the second dive that morning I was getting a little chilled.
Anyway, we drop down onto (what I again thought) a coralhead and it turns out to be a loggerhead the size of a friggen volkswagen BUS! He was probably 5 feet by 4 feet and was just having a siesta on the bottom. Great way to start a dive! Saw a couple more large (5-6 foot) nurse sharks as well. First dive of the afternoon was great, and although "The Tunnels" had a short swim through with some large grouper hanging about, viz went all to crap (10-20feet) so I thumbed the dive early, shot the bag, and waited for pickup.
Coby runs a great operation - they had snacks, gingersnap cookies, water, colas and assorted munchies on the boat. They let me dive my profile without having to come up with the person that burned through his tank the fastest. We even had a couple of doubles divers with deco bottles on board.
When surfacing, the Capt did a full roll call and checked off everyone before heading back in, which as we all know is a great procedure to have on a drift dive boat.
SO, to sum up, a 4 tanker using nitrox and AL100's ran me $150 - not bad at all to tell you the truth and the diving was really nice. Of course the one trip where I *DON'T* bring my camera is the one where I see all the marine life.
Had a good time, and plan to use ScubaWorks and Jupiter Charters again.
D.
Padipro:
Well, how was it?
We went out with South Florida Diving Headquarters on Saturday and dived the Rodeo 25. Conditions were beautiful, water temp was 72, air temp around 75, vis was 60 foot + and there was hardly any current. It was a great day to dive.
