Anyone diving Manatee or Blue this weekend?

[H2Andy]

If you are, let me know.... jonesing to dive.

Saturday, Feb. 7th would be ideal. Sunday is sortta complicated.

 

[DEEPSEAWOLF]

Gibbon and I will be at Manatee all day Saturday. We're just OW, but you're welcome to join us. We mostly do a little fossil hunting, fish ID, and working on buoyancy skills.

 

[H2Andy]

excellent!!

i won't carry lights and we'll be fine.

what time do you guys plan to get there? earlier is better, in my experience, as sometimes the darn place fills up with a couple of classes and they won't let you
in any more.

shall we say meet there at 9:00 a.m.? if not, let me know time.

looking forward to it

 

[DEEPSEAWOLF]

Sounds great to me. Gibbon and I hope to start early and kill the better part of the day there. We got too cold last weekend during SI. We have preparations to change that this weekend. Learn something new every dive! We saw some fish we want to identify this time! One type was a giant blue submarine about three feet long. I thought it was a baby manatee at first. The ripples were too bad in the run too get a clear view, and we only saw them from the surface. Not sure WHAT they were, but we counted at least five swimming by themselves. Think redfish but electric blue in color. EASILY three feet in length.

 

[DEEPSEAWOLF]

BTW went to your site and read the essays. I LOVED the "Anatomy of a dive!"

 

[Wendy]

Gibbon and I will be at Manatee all day Saturday. We're just OW, but you're welcome to join us. We mostly do a little fossil hunting, fish ID, and working on buoyancy skills.

Are you just looking at fossils or collecting them? Cuz collecting them in a state park would be illegal.

 

[H2Andy]

One type was a giant blue submarine about three feet long. I thought it was a baby manatee at first.

i think you might have seen the dreaded bowfin (or mudfish). be careful,
this fish likes to sneak up on divers and goose them.

(not really)

here's a link for the fish... see if it looks like the one you saw:

http://www.floridaconservation.org/fishing/Fishes/other.html#bowfin

thanks for the kind words on my essay! i think you're like the third person
to read it, lol...

see ya 9:00 at Manatee

 

[DEEPSEAWOLF]

From what we saw it almost looked like a bowfin but had a carp fin pattern. It was an electric blue, not brown. There WERE tons of bowfin all over the place but that's not what this was. As for the fossil question... nothing substantial found, still looking for an intact skeleton of the loch ness monster in my bathtub. Although I did find it curious when a sinkhole collapsed in N.Cent Florida a few years ago and they found a mastodon skull. It was on display at UF for a few weeks. Full tusks and some hair, which they say is unusual. (wish I could dry cave with Wendy) Seen anything really cool in your travels?

 

[DEEPSEAWOLF]

Mostly, I am a scenery person. As soon as I can afford a digital camera, I will be burning up some pix! I love natural scenery, especially below the waterline. A new world we barely ever see. I'm the kind of person quite content to just find a place to sit and watch the fishies swim around. Like being in a giant aquarium, but everything is natural. I almost cried when, years ago, I went to the river basin outside Ginnie and saw all the bottles and cans littering the basin. It rivals the "hidden forest dumps" of the surface. It is almost unfathomable that people will just toss their garbage into the water, as if it had no impact on the area. THAT'S something I want to photograph. "Tinfish and Glassfish populations in Florida" ON THE RISE!!!

 

[H2Andy]

should be in the high 50's on saturday... nice day for diving. can't wait to get there
and help identify the "mystery fish."

and, yes... you can't remove fossils (or anything else) from the state parks. makes
sense to me ("leave nothing but bubbles, take nothing but pictures").