Yesterday was a fantastic day on the water - calm/flat seas, lots of sunshine, and fun company. Riding on Ty's boat made it all that more pleasant.
Dive 1: we dropped down to explore the Sheridan, which was nearly impossible to miss as Ty anchored us right on it. We were greeted by lots of moon jellies and barracuda. Visibility was decent, 30+ feet, warm 88 degrees at depth. Lots of growth on the old barge - small corals, sponges, anemones, urchins, gorgonians, a few crab species, some murex snails and several species of red and green algae. Of course most of the larger fish were hanging out inside the barge - snappers, grunts, hogfish, angelfish, butterflyfish, wrasses, blennies and damsels. All the usual species, except for goliaths...didn't see one. I was excited to see an octopus until I found out that it was dead, though the red grouper was very happy about it. Overall, a really nice dive.
Dive 2: we dropped down to see the remains of the Blackthorn. Once again, greeted by barracuda and jellies. The vis and temp were the same as on the Sheridan, as were the typical critters attached to the wreck. Saw more fish on this site, which was cool, but still no goliaths. There was another coral species (
Solenastrea hyades commonly known as knobby star coral) here that I didn't see on the Sheridan, which was nice to see, though some of the colonies were bleaching. This too, was a really nice dive.
I'm glad that I finally got back out there to see these two sites...way overdue...and I wasn't disappointed.
Great to dive with you Johnny Bravo - glad you could make it.