April 23 Weekend BEACH Dives

[Wally1716]

I can make Sunday AM or Saturday afternoon. I keep on eye on the thread and the weather and see where I fit in.

..
Weather ? What weather ? You call that wimpy NW wind...weather ?
I'll keep it nice close to shore for you folks. I'll be there Sunday morn
with deco juices for the intrepid divers who dare the depths...12th Street,
right ?
..

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

CHANGE OF PLANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just found out that there is a seafood festival tomorrow at Pompano and all the streets are blocked off.
We are going to hit Hibiscus Street instead.
See ya'll at 9:00 at Hibiscus!!

 

[joeamit]

CHANGE OF PLANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just found out that there is a seafood festival tomorrow at Pompano and all the streets are blocked off.
We are going to hit Hibiscus Street instead.
See ya'll at 9:00 at Hibiscus!!

Okay, 9:00am at Hibiscus.

 

[ReneeC]

I will be looking forward to the trip report! Too many Jose's last night and a mandatory trip to the office are keeping me on shore. BUT.... I'm still game for Sunday Morning!

 

[SFLDiver]

Changing plans on people at 12:17am is HARDLY a plan,
nor a move in the right direction.

I was at 12th st in Pompano at 8:10am, waited until 8:45am,
then went for a solo dive at 9am.

I was thinking it was my breath er sumthin'!

Pompano Seafood festival was a minor traffic diversion at 8am,
and still wasn't a factor when I left at 11:45am.

Got free parking as the meter was blinking JAM out-of-order. 3 empty spots.
Got free entertainment in the form of a wino arguing with his sweetie (winette?)
after a night on the beach. Aint love grand?

Yep, took the kayak out, tis a bit of a haul on the wide beach,
but well worth it considering it is a short paddle to the buoys.
115 minutes bottom time at 15 ft avg, 75 degree water, lots of bugs.

Went home, cleaned up, and hopped in the hot tub,
25 minute soak time at 1.2 ft avg, 99.6 degree water, with a cold one.

Don't ever change plans so damn late in the game.
That is the 2nd time in a row that I've been to a beach dive
only to have NOBODY else show!

Photos for the curious ... took about 105,
Olympus C5050Z, Ikelite case and DS-125 strobe, TTL flash,
all on automatic, even for macro shots.

(photos moved to my ScubaBoard photo album ..... dig fer em.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

So sorry we changed plans on ya. It was late last night when I got word that the streets were blocked off and we could not have access. We made the decision based on that information. And it being so late, I could not verify it. Again. I am so sorry that you were alone. Please accept my apologies. I posted as soon as I got home with hopes that it would reach everybody before they made the trek to Pompano.
Can I buy ya a beer or some other adult beverage and hope to make up for this? :blush:

oh, yeah. nice shots. Love the balloon fish.

 

[Marvel]

Sorry, Matt! If I'd known you were coming, I would have called you. Guess that means I owe you too!

 

[DennisS]

Hey, I was there too, can I get you to buy me a beer.

Actually I was standing in the sand, heavily weighted, off of J Loyd, scraping barnacles off the bottom off my boat with a hoe. It was a beutiful day to be in the water.

 

[Marvel]

Jenny, JoeAmit & I were gearing up this morning when my neighbor starts pointing at the water & asking what that was out there. Well, turned out to be DOLPHINS!!!! There had to be 30 or more of them heading north so close to the shore that they were inside the swim buoy. Every time we thought they were all passed, another group would appear. It was just so amazing to watch that all we could do was gawk! Another neighbor took some pictures using her binocular camera- I've sent them to Jenny. Hopefully, she can clear up a lot of the graininess & post them.

We finally geared up & went in. Decided to do the 2nd reef so we kicked out & dropped square onto the first & just headed east. Got out to the reef, headed north like the dolphins. We saw a plethora of stuff. 2 sailfish blennies, a sharp tailed eel that had lost the end of his tail (wasn't so sharp tailed, now was he?), 2 yellow sting rays. I picked up a rock once & found 2 little skinny green starfish underneath (don't know the name). Saw the usual suspects- parrots, gray angels, the tiniest drum- not even a quarter of an inch big. Gobies, a juvenile French or gray angelfish. Lots of damsels & a school of fish that I've got to ask Jenny about. All in all a great dive, although I was under weighted & struggling a bit :11: . Water temperature was 77 degrees. Our dive time was an hour & 50 minutes with a max depth of 18 feet. Nice loooooong deco stop!

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Another Awesome Dive! As Marvel said the day started with Dolphins crusing by. There were a couple divers who were on their way out and the dolphins swam what looked like 5ft. from them. Lucky dogs. One of the pics show the dolphins with another group of divers.
We hustled ourselves out, hoping more would pass by, but no such luck. Still, it was a beautiful day with the waves being little more than ripples and vis that exceeded 40ft. We made it to the second reef and just hung out looking at all the little critters. Saw a couple flamingo tongues, the sailfin blenny who was quite the showoff, and the regulars. The troupe of fish that Marvel was referring to was a school of Doctorfish, Ocean Surgeons, and a couple midnight parrots. This is the first time that I noticed that those fish hung pretty tight, while there were some other ocean surgeons that did not include themselves in the group. Hmmm, wonder what that is all about.
Oh, I found a nice cleaning station with a half dozen neon gobies. I took my glove off and after about 30 tenetive seconds had at least 5 gobies cleaning my hand. You could barely feel it. Apparently it was pretty clean, or they didn't like the taste of neoprene cause they all quit after 20 seconds or so.
My computer showed a dive time of 111 minutes. Nice. It sure didn't seem like it was that long, as it was so enjoyable.
Joe and Marvel, thanks for such a nice dive. Oh, Joe, as a compliment, you dive like a woman!