Ft. Lauderdale - is the Commercial fising pier still in ruins, and can I dive it?

[Ryan]

A copy of what I posted on digitaldiver.net about this morning-

I'm finally getting settled into some sort of a routine down here, and loving South Florida more & more each day. For the last two days, I've taken advantage of unusual winter calm weather, and local expertise, and started my day diving Lauderdale by the Sea's Commercial Pier shore dive. This isn't the most spectacular dive in the world, but the conditions have been good lately, and I can't think of a better way to start my day.

Those that know me know that if I'm getting out of bed at 6am, I'm doing something worth missing sleep over!

Yesterday I did this dive set up to shoot 3:1, and saw nothing unusual to shoot at that reproduction. It might have been the day, but was more likely me not yet having local eyes... I focused on things that we see every dive, and ended up with 1 shot I didn't trash! Not a keeper ratio I'm horribly happy with, but such is life.

Today was another story! Still fishy, but lots and lots of tiny stuff. I sure wish I hadn't have taken off my teleconvertor and 4T Nikon diopter! W/ the 105 & a Nexus Wet Lens as my weapon, the quantity improved a bit.

I had to crop this guy a bit to get rid of some junk reef. I love the reflection in their catchlights!

I saw juvi highhats each day, but today had a lens that was capable of shooting a moving target. I got about 25 of your typical id shots, but finally caught one with some motion.

I sat by this guy until my dive buddy got hypothermia, waiting for him to display. He was sail-finning his blenny heart out until the @$$-hole w/ the 20w flashlight parked on top of him.

I'm always amazed by the beautiful patterns in burr fish eyeballs, and can't pass by one without taking at least one snap shot.

Andrew, my dive buddy, and a new digital diver packin' a Canon S70, asked me why I was taking a picture of a rock for so long.... This was shot at 1:1 w/ the woody, he was even smaller thant hese guys usually are. The whole time I was shooting him I wished I hadn't taken that teleconvertor off!

Andrew, thanks for being a great guide, and putting up with the slowest moving diver to ever stretch on a wetsuit.

 

[aabond]

Anytime. You're going to have to give me some more pointers for shooting. I didn't get too many good shots except for an anemone I think. I did get CS2 to work with canon raw files which is pretty sweet. I do think I will need to get a strobe soon rather than later.

I love those High Hats!

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Nice shots Ryan. Love the sailfin. Never saw one till last year, then saw so many at LBTS!

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Clarification on the pier.
The pier got banged up pretty bad a couple years ago. No big named storm or anything. A section of it was completely gone near the beginning of the pier. We dove it for about a year. In the beginning, it was great as all the fish were there, then slowly they started to leave for a better hangout. We used to see so many snook that you could not see past them. Huge tarpon would cruise by and barracudas and nurse sharks were an every dive occurance. Night dives, we always saw octopi and other neat critters.
Have not dived there in about a year, then I heard that since they opened part of the pier up you couldn't dive it anymore.
Monday we did see some flags very near it, as the end of it is still closed off.

 

[fishboots]

The Lake Worth Pier Debris has been pretty good for fish, nurse sharks etc as well.