Jupiter Dive Report 8/5-8/6

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rlskill1

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Spent 2 days diving with Jupiter Dive Center aboard Republic VII. First day was their Wreck Trek diving the Zion Train, Miss Jenny, and Esso Bonaire. Lots of Goliath Grouper (50) and about 8-10 Lemon Sharks. Vis was top to bottom, water temp mid 80's.

Second day was back on the ledges diving Scarface and Lighthouse Point. Saw the obligatory 1 turtle, 1 Moray, 1 Goliath, and 1 Shark. Did see a large school of small horse eye jacks, but still a rather lackluster dive despite being a nice day. (Always better than a day at work!!)
 
.....Second day....... but still a rather lackluster dive despite being a nice day.
8/6 was opening day of lobster season. I talked to your captain on the radio and he said the dive team was hauling in full lobster bags for a tasty dinner.

Current inside was a nice 1.5knts and top to bottom viz. Why the 'lackluster' dive ??
 
Any lionfish?
 
Sounds like good times! How close did the lemons get to you guys?

Dove Jupiter last year and a 7ft lemon joined us on the surface interval swimming between divers, i was mostly peering from behind my camera, but i am sure he would glide in close enough to touch at times
 
sounds like you had two great days of diving....thanks for sharing your report.
 
Dove Jupiter last year and a 7ft lemon joined us on the surface interval swimming between divers, i was mostly peering from behind my camera, but i am sure he would glide in close enough to touch at times

Was it a shark feeding dive? I've been on some, and had close up lemon shark encounters as a result, but I'm under the impression 'non-feeding' dives don't tend to see them as closely. It's my understanding Jupiter Dive Center doesn't use bait or feeding, so I wondered how close the sharks let them get. Some people are opposed to shark feeding/baiting; I'm just trying to clarify what happened so others reading this thread in the future can make their own decisions.

Richard.
 
Hi Richard @drrich2

You can have very close, prolonged encounters with Lemon Sharks using Jupiter Dive Center with no baiting or feeding.

On February 2 of this year I went out on Republic IV with Capt Mike and DM David. First dive was at Lemon Drop, east of Area 29. We had several Lemon Sharks with us on and off for the first half the dive. On the second half of the dive we had 8-10 Lemons with us continuously, many close passes. They ascended with us and we swam with them for another 10 minutes on the surface before moving on.

On March 15 of this year I went out on Republic IV with Capt Mike and DM Bob. At Lemon Drop, we had up to 16 Lemons with us (all I could reliably count) for nearly the entire dive. Nearly continuous close passes, nothing at all threatening. They didn't abandon us until we were most of the way up to our safety stop.

In the name of full disclosure, Emerald also dives Lemon Drop. I don't know that some of the Lemons behavior is dictated by those encounters. The same goes for dives at Deep Ledge. We often see numerous Bull Sharks on those dives. Deep Ledge is an Emerald favorite. There are often sharks at the Esso Bonaire on the Wreck Trek, especially off the bow. This is another Emerald dive.

Good diving, Craig
 
Was it a shark feeding dive?
Nope it was just a regular dive, i did 4 boat dives and we saw lemons on 2 maybe 3 of them.

If I recall the site was wreck track, we had a large lemon swim close to the group as soon as we dropped in, outlines of others could be seen in the distance throughout the dive if you looked close enough and then another large joined us during the SI.. some awesome diving!
 
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