flower garden

[padrediver]

Any flower garden reef divers here?

 

[jclifton]

Yes. I was there last July and am again going in two weeks.

 

[Debraw]

Any flower garden reef divers here?

Hopefully for the first time on the Aug 21-22 trip if Earl doesn't cause a problem in the Gulf...

 

[Cudabait]

Any flower garden reef divers here?

Yes,

There are a lot of us on this board, including some of the Liveaboard boat captains.

regards,

 

[outlawaggie]

Any flower garden reef divers here?

Going October 23rd and 24th. It will be my first trip to the Gardens. Anyone else on this trip?

 

[zendiver1]

as well as us DM's

 

[padrediver]

I got my first C-card in 1965...NAUI in 1966.
Dove Pennecamp, Big Pine Key, Key Largo, Looe Key, Alligator reef, French reef,
Mollases Reef while in Aqua Addicts dive club and spending several summers at SEACAMP.
Was amazed, upon moving to Texas, that there was any coral here at all!
Haven't been to FG, but local divers have been telling me their "WOW" stories.
I was in Texas 15 YEARS before even hearing of the flower garden!
Evidently, it's like PortA/Mustang Island (made seven trips there)(mostly bodyboard
surfed as there's nothing to see underwater except the occasional renegade
generic beach fish)(whatever they are). Thanks for replies, all!
Full tanks and good diving.

OCEANGURU

 

[redacted]

Evidently, it's like PortA/Mustang Island (made seven trips there)(mostly bodyboard
surfed as there's nothing to see underwater except the occasional renegade
generic beach fish)(whatever they are). Thanks for replies, all!

Actually, those rigs that you see just a couple miles off the shore are great diving when the "blue water" is in August thru October. And it doesn't take much boat at all to get to them.

 

[padrediver]

Yes,

There are a lot of us on this board, including some of the Liveaboard boat captains.

regards,

Thanks for your reply. As soon as I get up my nerve to go
back to the Houston area (from Austin) I'll come visit!
(I got CARJACKED in Galveston in 2002). Fellow Austinites
had been telling me to watch out for this in Houston area,
BUT GALVESTON....YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING! It really was
the last thing I was concerned with, and that's WHY they got me! Oh well, live and learn. The poor SOB's who did it have
probably never scuba dived and probably never will.

I'll never forget the time, in 1965, I was diving John Pennecamp UW Park and saw my first "cuda". It was a fourteen foot long King Barracuda. My dive partner (I was thirteen) was a thirty six year old high school English teacher
who was a senior member of my Aqua Addicts dive club.
He tapped me on the shoulder, about thirty five feet down, and pointed in back of us. I almost crapped my bahia jacket!
That cuda was just sitting there, motionless, ten feet away,
just EYEING us! And then, instantaneously, was gone.
The lightning fast movement was what really scared me.
As you probably WELL know, those suckers aren't like
sharks...they can be on you in a New York second.
I think their strategy is too just SCARE divers to death and then munch out. If you don't have a myocardial infarction
at the sight of them, they just leave!
CIAO

 

[padrediver]

Actually, those rigs that you see just a couple miles off the shore are great diving when the "blue water" is in August thru October. And it doesn't take much boat at all to get to them.

Oh wow! You mean those rigs I've been scoping in my
binocs from Port A beach are diveable? I had no idea.
Thanks so much....this board is soooo cool!
There are so many dive spots on this planet!
I'd heard that Homeland Security
was prohibiting rig diving.(from people dining next to us at The Wharf.) Heard anything about that?
Also heard they were VERY paranoid about enemy submarines
torpedoing the oil rigs. How they'd get in the gulf unannounced is way beyond me, but I guess anything's possible.(Plus, the Wharf does serve alcohol)

Was looking at some eighties JM Cousteau/Ocean Futures
videos the other day and on one, Jacques Yves (still alive and diving)(and smoking!)was complaining that after fourty-five
years of traveling the world diving, mostly on Calypso I(ONE),
he still hadn't dived New Zealand or been to the North Pole!
(Pioneer of the Sea video) I've been in a bunch of the surf shops in Port A but none of the dive shops. I've looked in and they seem busier than all git out....AND NOW I KNOW WHY.
Thanks a mil bud....you've just given me a whole new perspective on Texas diving.
Thanks again
So many dive spots, so little time!