Blue Heron Bridge

[DennisW]

Donna and I had a wonderful dive today at Phil Foster park under the East end of the Blue Heron Bridge. We entered the water at about 3pm (High Tide was 3:30pm) and walked over to the East bridge. There were a lot of divers there today and we nearly didn't find a parking place. We shared a spot with two motorcycles. But, I digress. We dropped down in about 5 ft of water and swam over to the bridge, Donna was nice enough to take the flag because I was playing with my new strobe and a new (to me) tank. My strobe worked very nicely and I was very please with it along with the difuser. I have tried it before I bought the difuser and it washed out all of the pics. And I really need to get another LP Steel 112 tank. I was in heaven, no weight, just the tank and my bouyancy was perfect. Just slightly negative.

I'll post pictures after I get home (we are at Donna's Dad's place in Pompano) where I can reduce the size a bit, I don't have any editing software on this computer. In any case, we saw a Spotted Scorpionfish, lots of Bridled Gobys, an entire school of Snook, and a school of Atlantic Spadefish. We saw a little Sharptail Eel, a Spotted Moray, a Decorator Crab, quite a few Blue Crabs, Lobsters, Porkfish, schools of Silversides, Arrow Crabs, Banded Coral Shrimp, and my very first Pipefish.

If you ever get a chance to dive this site, do so, it is one of my favorite of all time dive sites.

 

[huntster70]

What was the Vis?
I crossed that bridge many times back in High School to Surf at the "pump house" North side of the Inlet.

 

[JBRES1]

One of these days I'm going to dive the bridge when I'm down there.
I get down there every year for a weeks vacation , but have yet to dive the bridge.

Next spring for sure.

Jim

 

[FireDiver443]

LOVE the Blue Heron Bridge. My wife, daughter & I dove it on our last day of diving last month before heading back to NY. The snook & spadefish schools were in attendance for us as well, and we were graced by a LARGE southern stingray that just happened to be passing through. Great corals on the bridge pilings as well to practice your close up stuff with the diffuser.

We've found octopi on a few dives there and I understand if you look in the right place, folks have found seahorses (*sigh* I haven't yet...but still looking & hoping).

I'm in complete agreement: If you're in WPB and have a couple hours to kill, Blue Heron Bridge is a must see. Bring your camera... even if it's one of those waterproof disposables.

 

[DennisW]

Viz ranged from 10 ft to about 30 ft. The water was pretty silted though because there were at least 2 classes being taught. And frankly, the viz is never more than about 30 ft. But if you like critters, this is a wonderful dive site.

 

[DennisW]

This is a test to see if my link to the slideshow at Photobucket will work.

Blue Heron Bridge photos from July 26, 2008

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Nice photos. The blue fish looks like some sort of grouper. Glad you had a good dive. I look forward to diving there again soon.

 

[DennisW]

Walter think's it is some type of a Soapfish. I am checking, but I think he is right.

 

[Walter]

Well, Soapfish are related to Grouper.

 

[DennisW]

Very true.