I couldn't find a "trip reports" section so I thought I'd post this here. Mods, if this is the wrong place, please relocate as appropriate.
Florida Diving, May 2012A Trip Report
My brother and I had planned a week-long diving trip to Florida as birthday presents to ourselves. We intended to do 3 days in Key Largo followed by 2 ½ days in West Palm Beach because I wanted to do the Blue Heron Bridge again. I made all the arrangements and the trip was set.
After 18 hours of driving we arrived in Key Largo Sunday night just in time to catch the start of the rain. We sorted all our gear in the hotel and planned to be at Quiescence at 0800 Monday morning. Unfortunately, no boats went out on Monday due to rough seas. 6-8 footers makes for not fun boat rides for us tourists (and the locals too, Im sure) not to mention the logistics of getting divers back on a heaving boat.
We decided to run down to the diving history museum in Islamorada. The Florida Keys History of Diving Museum
Interesting little facility that we both enjoyed as a bit of a respite from the rain and still something diving related. We also stopped into several different dive stores to see about getting an inflator hose for my new dry suit and I picked up the Reef Fish ID book ( Reef Fish Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas: Paul;Deloach, Ned Humann: 9781878348302: Amazon.com: Books) followed by dinner at The Fish House ( The Fish House Restaurant and Fish House Encore in Key Largo, Florida Keys), which was pretty tasty.
Tuesday we stopped in to Quiescence again and talked with the good folks there. They told us they werent planning to send out a boat until at least Friday so we, unfortunately, cancelled our bookings and decided to head up to West Palm Beach early in the hopes that weather would be better for us.
4 hours later we were checked in at our hotel and getting ready for an afternoon BHB dive after a short stop in at Undersea Sports in Ft. Lauderdale to check on LBTS conditions and pick up a dive float. A quick phone call to Jupiter Dive Center (www.jupiterdivecenter.com) had us booked on a boat for Wednesday morning.
At 4:45 we were in the water at BHB diving the west side span, which I had done the previous spring. We had a leisurely 50 minute dive but no truly notable sightings. Biggest problem with the dive was not having a memory card in my camera so no pics whatsoever. Thats the second time I dove BHB and the second time no camera! I briefly chatted with some other divers after we rinsed and packed our gear but unfortunately they werent any of the SB regulars I hoped I might get to meet so we headed over to ForceE to get some more air and
Wednesday we arrived at JDC with a fine looking morning and got sorted for our 2 tank excursion. We both took Dramamine, just in case, and settled in for the ride out to the reefs. 4 footers with short intervals worked me over and I started getting sick shortly before the first drop. By the time we geared up I almost wished I hadnt gone out. Add to that my brothers octo kept spewing air and a last minute swap with a spare I brought and we delayed everyones drop by a couple minutes. To anyone on the boat at the time, I apologize, again.
Once all sorted out, we dropped on Scarface and had a great drift from there to Bonnie's and Captain Kurl's. I finally got to see some sharks and goliath grouper! Very cool dive, with lots of life on the underwater desert landscape. There is not a lot of color on the reef but occasional spots that are remarkable and the fauna makes the dive worth it. Our ascent came too soon and was too quick but we had a good safety stop accompanied by my first attempt at sending up an SMB. I don't know if it was me or my brother ascending too quickly, but I haven't had an issue with it in previous dives. The SMB deployment needed practicing too. Back on the boat after a mere 22 minutes of bottom time and more sea sickness quickly followed.
Our second dive was Tunnels and I felt better the instant I got in the water. Another 28 minutes of bottom time, and then back up (again too quickly). Safety stop with a second attempt and mediocre success at deploying the SMB. I have a Zeagle 5' x 7" (I think) SMB and it really wanted more air to deploy than I wanted to give it for fear of being carried up too.
Unfortunately, the moment I broke the surface I started getting sick again. Climbing up a ladder while puking isnt exactly something I would recommend, but I can now confirm (against my will) that puking through your reg works just fine. (I will say do a thorough rinse afterward though because tasting it the next day isnt a great way to start your diving either )
Overall the day was fantastic with the things we saw and the whole experience. Captain Mike, Sandy and Clay treated us well and big props to Clay for taking good care of me during the SI. On the two dives we saw 3 goliath grouper that were probably 4 feet long, at least 6 black tip reef sharks, a few turtles, some barracuda, and lots of other reef fish.
After the dive, we took naps and went to Roccos Tacos for dinner. Tasty food and a fun atmosphere with a fairly diverse crowd.
Thursday was another trip with JDC and our crew was again Sandy, Clay, and Captain Mike. First tank was Captain Mike's with a second dip on Tunnels and the seas were much calmer so no seasickness at all. Again, we saw a ton of sharks a couple goliath grouper and some other cool stuff. More quick ascents and I determined I needed to make sure we started ascending earlier and going slower for future dives. Each attempt at inflating the SMB I got a little better, though, so there was progress and I enjoyed everything immensely. Total bottom time for the day was about 55 minutes and well worth it.
We took a break from boats on Friday and drove down to Lauderdale to do a shore dive in the early afternoon followed by the monthly BHB night dive with Force E (Florida Scuba Diving, Dive Florida's Best Sites) and Pura Vida Divers (Discover Florida Scuba Diving :: Pura Vida Divers). The shore dive was to be the "yellow brick road", a shallow dive that follows a reef growing on a buried concrete pipe. We met up with some of the "Gold Coast Scuba" meetup (Gold Coast Scuba Divers (954) 616-5909 (Fort Lauderdale, FL) - Meetup) folks and discussed the dive site then geared up. While Sean and I were gearing up, a couple of other divers showed up and we all walked to the entry. During entry one of our divers had problems and panicked so Sean and I helped her and got her and ourselves back to shore. I wrote a brief summary of the situation here: (http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...g/419747-memorable-shore-dive-experience.html) We called our dive and went over to Islamorada restaurant (Home - Islamorada, FL - Islamorada Fish Company | Bass Pro Shops) followed by the Fishing Hall of Fame museum (Home - Islamorada, FL - Islamorada Fish Company | Bass Pro Shops). An afternoon well spent if you like fishing. Quite an interactive museum and life size mounts of some of the hall of fame fish.
We got back to PuraVida just in time to get our parking pass for the BHB night dive and sort gear for the following day's boat trip. We talked with DanVolker, who offered to let us tag along with the group he was showing around during the dive but he looked like he had a big enough group and didn't need newbs like us to also worry about so we opted to do our own dive. Thanks Dan, for the offer.
Over to Phil Foster park and we geared up for the dive alongside about a million other folks. We popped into the water around 6:40 pm and opted for the east side span. We immediately saw a small (~2 ft?) Southern Stingray and things went on from there. Unfortunately there were a lot of photographers and wannabe photographers sitting on the bottom and silting everything up so we tried to avoid them and not make the same mistakes. We found a bunch of small flounders, some small skates, a few hermit crabs, some lobster, a puffer, a burrfish, a short nose batfish, a ton of other reef fish I haven't ID'd, and my favorite, a leopard searobin. BHB is definitely a very cool dive and worth adding to the bucket list. I've now dived it 3 different times and had 3 drastically different (but all good) experiences. I even got a lot of pictures of the night dive too so I have proof I was there. A 50 minute dive and out of the water to drop the tanks back at the shop for fills before the next day.
Saturday morning, we arrived at the marina with plenty of time to settle onto the boat and sort gear before heading out for what promised to be a fine day. The dive boat was a bit smaller than JDC's but it was packed to the gills with talkative friendly divers who obviously had a good variance of interests and skill levels. A short ride later and we were ready for our first dip. Down we dropped to Shark Cove. My brother said he saw an ~ 12 foot nurse, though I missed it because I was taking video of a huge goliath grouper that was 7-8 feet long. It looked like a small bus with a big mouth. Unfortunately I silted things a bit trying to get out of the way of other folks trying to take pictures and apologized when they returned to the boat.
While motoring between dive sites we saw a bunch of flying fish, which was new for me, and chatted while I tried to keep from getting nauseous. I'm clearly in need of a scopalamine prescription for my next trip that will have boat rides. After an hour plus surface interval we made our second drop onto the "Mizpah", a wreck in about 80 feet of water off West Palm Beach. Along with the Mizpah, there are actually 3 other wrecks so it's a nice long drift with lots to see. As our first ever wreck dive, this was a nice intro. The wrecks are all well established reef systems now with lots of fish and coral growth. After a brief 30 minutes of bottom time we ascended and finally had a good ascent speed and reasonable SMB deployment.
The ride back to the marina was short and punctuated by gawking at locals parking their boats and picnicking during low tide. Unfortunately I can't remember the names of the DMs or Captain of the PuraVida boat. They were a good crew, though, and made for a great last day in FL.
Thanks for sharing, though.
