augie
Guest
Here's my report on yesterday's (5/18) Boynton Beach Dive Trip;
It's an early day when we drive to Boynton Beach for their first trip of the day and this was no exception. But by 6:00AM I was in Russ' Explorer, along with Aaron, heading south on I-95 closely followed by John and Wade. When I woke up that morning I had a voice mail message on my cell phone from Kevin telling me that he and Ray weren't going, along with some lame excuses. That left Mark, who was supposed to drive them, all alone and we didn't have each other's numbers. Andy and Bobby hadn't checked in yet, but I kind of expected them to be running late.
The drive down was pretty uneventful. We saw a huge "wolfpack" of state troopers under an over pass just heading into West Palm Beach. There must have been eight of them in the median, with another four that had cars pulled over within a half mile of the overpass! As we neared US1 on Boynton Beach Blvd I got a call from Bobby. He and Andy had gotten a later start than planned (no surprise!) and wondered how much further they had to go. They were near Jupiter, so I told them to beware of the troopers. I got another call from him a few minutes later saying they had "found" the troopers - Andy's trip had just got a lot more expensive - they clocked him at 85 in a 55 - ouch!
We arrived at Two George's Marina, parked, checked in with Leo at DCI's office upstairs in the building that used to house Dive Shop II, and were told we'd be on Little Deeper II with captain Doug and divemaster/mate Andrew.
While standing around waiting to board I met fellow scubaboarders KBeck, seadog (and his wife), Bob, and Pdoege.
In addition to the thirteen from "our" group, there were two other divers on board Little Deeper II and what looked like roughly an equal number next door on the Deeper.
Leaving the inlet we could see that the seas were about a foot or so with a light chop - not bad at all!
I was buddied in a group with Russ, Wade, and John - we were group #2, or the second group to be dropped on the reef. The first site we went to was Twin Ledges. The vis wasn't great, but certainly acceptable, maybe 20 feet or so near the surface, and anywhere from 30-50 feet at depth. I wore a shorty 3mm wetsuit, but was pleasantly surprised that the water temp was 82F on the bottom (60 ft).
There was a north current, which wasn't exactly ripping, but was fairly strong at times - I took the flag on that dive and it was difficult to turn around and swim against the current with it.
Over the course of the dive we drifted onto and area called Andrew's Patch, then ended up at Lynch Reef. There were tons of barrel sponges, a couple of lobsters, and some of the other groups saw a very large turtle right before surfacing.
Our group was the first one back on the boat. Soon the other groups were picked up, one by one, and we headed south for our next dive. The concensus seemed to be that while it was nice to be in the water, that first dive wasn't too spectacular. Nothing wrong with that, and maybe we're somewhat spoiled, but the so-so reef, and so-so vis, made it just an average dive.
Little Deeper II's engine wasn't running very well, so Doug was only planning to take us as far as Gulfstream for our second dive. I asked him if he would consider going just a bit farther, to Delray ledges, and he said if he thought we could make it that far he would. A few minutes later he told me that he'd get us there, that captain Leo was just picking up the last of his divers from the Deeper there.
As soon as the one hour surface interval was up they started dropping divers in the water. Just as Doug had reported, the current had dropped off considerably, and was now only a slight northerly current. I deceided to leave the shorty on the boat this time and dove in only a skin shirt and bathing suit. It was even warmer at 82F, so that was no problem. We got in, descended, and almost immediately found the ledge and began drifting along exploring the nooks and crannies.
Delray Ledges is my favorite reef in the Boynton area, and I always ask to go there if given the chance. Most of the others in the group from Melbourne I knew had never been there, so I was eager for them to see it. It didn't disappoint.
Despite not having "chamber of commerce" visibility, the reef was very colorful, looked to be extremely healthy, and we got to see a bit of intersting sea life. We spotted a small spotted moray, just sticking his head out of a hole near the top of the reef, then a minute or so later, and small to medium sized green moray peeking out of a hole, then, when Russ swam under a ledge he came face to face with a largish (6 feet or so) green moray that was just hanging out under there, his body completely out of the reef, for all of us to see.
We also saw a pair of lobster that were (as best we could tell) mating!
We ended up doing about 40 minutes or so (I'll have to check the new computer to be sure) on that dive, with a max depth of 69 feet.
As the divers got back on the boat it seemed like everyone enjoyed the second dive more than they did the first. Little Depper II labored, but got us all back to the marina safe and sound, where the second adventure began.
While there were many options available to us, I was pretty insistent on having lunch at a place I'd found last year. All I was sure of was that it was a block or so east of US1 and some ways north of Boynton Beach, and had an Irish sounding name.. With those sketchy details, our caravan of six vehicles, all of them trying to follow one that wasn't exactly sure where we were going, headed north (everyone in our group but seadog and his wife decided to join in).
Despite traffic lights catching various participants, despite the city bus that made a number of stops, we finally found Flanigan's on Southern Blvd. in West Palm Beach. OK, so it may not have been "just up the road" by some people's interpretation, but we all made it there, we were able to get a table together without any kind of wait, and I thought the food was good, reasonably priced, and the room we were in had a lot of diving and fishing pictures on the walls.
The waitress got everyone's orders right, was able to split up the orders into individual checks with no hassle, and was pleasant. I really enjoyed listening to some of the stories and jokes (OK - maybe not Bobby's jokes
) and generally had a great time.
It was great to put faces to the names of the other scubaboard members that were there, thank you all for coming, I hope to dive with all of you again in the near future!
By the way, I do have reservations with DCI for the morning dive this coming Sunday.....
It's an early day when we drive to Boynton Beach for their first trip of the day and this was no exception. But by 6:00AM I was in Russ' Explorer, along with Aaron, heading south on I-95 closely followed by John and Wade. When I woke up that morning I had a voice mail message on my cell phone from Kevin telling me that he and Ray weren't going, along with some lame excuses. That left Mark, who was supposed to drive them, all alone and we didn't have each other's numbers. Andy and Bobby hadn't checked in yet, but I kind of expected them to be running late.
The drive down was pretty uneventful. We saw a huge "wolfpack" of state troopers under an over pass just heading into West Palm Beach. There must have been eight of them in the median, with another four that had cars pulled over within a half mile of the overpass! As we neared US1 on Boynton Beach Blvd I got a call from Bobby. He and Andy had gotten a later start than planned (no surprise!) and wondered how much further they had to go. They were near Jupiter, so I told them to beware of the troopers. I got another call from him a few minutes later saying they had "found" the troopers - Andy's trip had just got a lot more expensive - they clocked him at 85 in a 55 - ouch!
We arrived at Two George's Marina, parked, checked in with Leo at DCI's office upstairs in the building that used to house Dive Shop II, and were told we'd be on Little Deeper II with captain Doug and divemaster/mate Andrew.
While standing around waiting to board I met fellow scubaboarders KBeck, seadog (and his wife), Bob, and Pdoege.
In addition to the thirteen from "our" group, there were two other divers on board Little Deeper II and what looked like roughly an equal number next door on the Deeper.
Leaving the inlet we could see that the seas were about a foot or so with a light chop - not bad at all!
I was buddied in a group with Russ, Wade, and John - we were group #2, or the second group to be dropped on the reef. The first site we went to was Twin Ledges. The vis wasn't great, but certainly acceptable, maybe 20 feet or so near the surface, and anywhere from 30-50 feet at depth. I wore a shorty 3mm wetsuit, but was pleasantly surprised that the water temp was 82F on the bottom (60 ft).
There was a north current, which wasn't exactly ripping, but was fairly strong at times - I took the flag on that dive and it was difficult to turn around and swim against the current with it.
Over the course of the dive we drifted onto and area called Andrew's Patch, then ended up at Lynch Reef. There were tons of barrel sponges, a couple of lobsters, and some of the other groups saw a very large turtle right before surfacing.
Our group was the first one back on the boat. Soon the other groups were picked up, one by one, and we headed south for our next dive. The concensus seemed to be that while it was nice to be in the water, that first dive wasn't too spectacular. Nothing wrong with that, and maybe we're somewhat spoiled, but the so-so reef, and so-so vis, made it just an average dive.
Little Deeper II's engine wasn't running very well, so Doug was only planning to take us as far as Gulfstream for our second dive. I asked him if he would consider going just a bit farther, to Delray ledges, and he said if he thought we could make it that far he would. A few minutes later he told me that he'd get us there, that captain Leo was just picking up the last of his divers from the Deeper there.
As soon as the one hour surface interval was up they started dropping divers in the water. Just as Doug had reported, the current had dropped off considerably, and was now only a slight northerly current. I deceided to leave the shorty on the boat this time and dove in only a skin shirt and bathing suit. It was even warmer at 82F, so that was no problem. We got in, descended, and almost immediately found the ledge and began drifting along exploring the nooks and crannies.
Delray Ledges is my favorite reef in the Boynton area, and I always ask to go there if given the chance. Most of the others in the group from Melbourne I knew had never been there, so I was eager for them to see it. It didn't disappoint.
Despite not having "chamber of commerce" visibility, the reef was very colorful, looked to be extremely healthy, and we got to see a bit of intersting sea life. We spotted a small spotted moray, just sticking his head out of a hole near the top of the reef, then a minute or so later, and small to medium sized green moray peeking out of a hole, then, when Russ swam under a ledge he came face to face with a largish (6 feet or so) green moray that was just hanging out under there, his body completely out of the reef, for all of us to see.
We also saw a pair of lobster that were (as best we could tell) mating!
We ended up doing about 40 minutes or so (I'll have to check the new computer to be sure) on that dive, with a max depth of 69 feet.
As the divers got back on the boat it seemed like everyone enjoyed the second dive more than they did the first. Little Depper II labored, but got us all back to the marina safe and sound, where the second adventure began.
While there were many options available to us, I was pretty insistent on having lunch at a place I'd found last year. All I was sure of was that it was a block or so east of US1 and some ways north of Boynton Beach, and had an Irish sounding name.. With those sketchy details, our caravan of six vehicles, all of them trying to follow one that wasn't exactly sure where we were going, headed north (everyone in our group but seadog and his wife decided to join in).
Despite traffic lights catching various participants, despite the city bus that made a number of stops, we finally found Flanigan's on Southern Blvd. in West Palm Beach. OK, so it may not have been "just up the road" by some people's interpretation, but we all made it there, we were able to get a table together without any kind of wait, and I thought the food was good, reasonably priced, and the room we were in had a lot of diving and fishing pictures on the walls.
The waitress got everyone's orders right, was able to split up the orders into individual checks with no hassle, and was pleasant. I really enjoyed listening to some of the stories and jokes (OK - maybe not Bobby's jokes
) and generally had a great time.It was great to put faces to the names of the other scubaboard members that were there, thank you all for coming, I hope to dive with all of you again in the near future!
By the way, I do have reservations with DCI for the morning dive this coming Sunday.....
