Dive reports with beach/weather conditions

[J_Green]

I went out today. Got in the water about 1 PM at Alhambra. Yak diving out about .5 mile out and swam out a little farther. I don't have a temp gage but the guys I spoke to getting done as I was going down said it was 73. Viz was actually pretty surprising. I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-15 feet. At times I could clearly see the surface from 28, Didn't have that kind of side to side viz though. Was nice and calm on the way out, but by the time I was coming in waves had kicked up some good size waves as the winds picked up out of the west. Only found one meg. a 2.75" guy. He would have been a 3" if the tip was all there. Finally found a nice queen conch shell with no one home so my wife was excited to see a foot long shell come home. Interesting sights: A 4 foot wide sting ray and a Man-o-war that I almost swam face first into.

 

[2TH DIVR]

11/24/2013
Service Club
Time 8:15 am
Winds NE @ 5+
Seas 1'+
Water Temp 73
Vis 10'-15'
Max depth 22'
Finds usual small stuff

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Viz is up to what ever you are comfortable with as are the waves. it can be as little as 1'. There is A LOT of drift algae right now. Some of the spots I was on had as much as 2' of it. That's at S. Broward beach. I would imagine conditions are close to the same up and down the Venice coastline but that's a guess.

Matt

Thanks. I've done some fairly crap viz dives before, but it's not something I tend to seek out ... 10-15 feet I have no issue with; 1-3 I may just decide the hell with it. Same story for waves and surge - I'd be inclined to play it fairly conservative, since I don't know the site, won't have a buddy unless I meet up with someone at the beach, and it's been a good two years since my Pacific coast beach diving.

If I go, it'll probably be Saturday. Still watching the conditions and waiting to make a call. The other factor is how things are looking over here on the Atlantic side - if it's looking questionable in Venice but good over in Palm Beach, I may just meet my friend halfway in Naples on Friday and dive West Palm or Jupiter Saturday.

 

[2TH DIVR]

11/25/2013
Service Club
Time 9:00 am
Wind E @ 15
Seas Flat
Water Temp 71
Max depth 22'Dive
Time 116 min.
Vis there were some cloudy areas that were <2' mostly 10'+
Finds usual small stuff

 

[J_Green]

Went out again today with a buddy of mine. We hit the water around 12:50. Temp was colder than Sat to me, but again nothing to check it with so... We did a shore dive off of Alhambra and swam near .5 mile out. Winds were pretty heavy but it wasn't kicking up too much of a fuss with the wave action since it was mostly east. We saw the winds change on us several times just on the swim out as out dive flags streamed off in different directions. Went down around 25' of water. Got down as deep as 28-29'. Viz was pretty consistently 12-15 throughout the dive. I was working my way out farther and started to hit some haze the farther off shore I went so I decided to turn it around. By that time I was already cold. Didn't see much in the way of interesting sea life. Baby sea cucumber was the most exciting thing I saw. My buddy found a 4.5" tooth broke down the middle. I found a 3", 2.75" and a decent mako on the way out and a broken 3" and two smaller megs on the way in. Overall was a pretty nice day of diving. I was wearing 3.5 with boots/gloves/and 3/5 hood. Lot of crab traps out there to hung up on, gotta be careful. Here's the finds, I grabbed the thing on the right thinking it might be a whale tooth but I think it is probably just the end of a rib bone.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Headed to Venice tomorrow; will spend the day catching up with a friend and then staying overnight. If the conditions are doable and I feel up to it, I may just get in a beach dive Saturday.

 

[mermaid0sea]

I might try too. I missed out meeting up on Friday with dive buddy because i an staying out in Myakka and no signal.

Sent from my LG-MS770 using Tapatalk

 

[HalcyonDaze]

At Sharkey's for lunch; water looks like emerald murk out to the horizon. Doable or not?

---------- Post added November 30th, 2013 at 08:19 PM ----------

Well, decided not to go diving today ... found out the viz was about 2-4 feet max and the water temp was 67. Didn't seem worth it; better luck next time. Instead I ended up nosing around on the Venice public beach and down south of Sharkey's. Actually picked up a handful of small teeth, although the funny thing was my best finds seemed to come out of shell piles that I assume were from folks dumping their baskets. Guess they were fixated on finding Jaws-scale teeth and missed the little stuff, although one pile yielded a nice nickel-sized tooth, probably from a requiem shark. Found two eroded fragments that might have been from small white or meg teeth.

 

[2TH DIVR]

12/1/2013
Service Club
Time 9:00 am
Winds NE @ 5
Seas 1'
Water Temp 66
Max depth 20'
Vis 2'
finds usual small stuff and a beat 1 3/4" meg

 

[CalicoJack57]

Kayaked off Alahambra around 10:30
ESE wind 5-7 mph

depth 25 feet
temp 68 degrees
small chop almost flat
Vis 8-12 feet

finds small stuff lots of frags and a
5 1/4 inch meg! What a great day out
there for December.