I went on the 3 tank boat with Jupiter Dive Center yesterday. It's labeled as a grouper aggregation trip but in practice was more of a standard dive outing in jupiter.
visibility was moderate, a bit dark and 40-50 feet i'd say?
lowest temp i saw was 82, most of the time temp was 84. still down a bit from recent highs.
on the boat was a group that seemed to be a regional GUE meetup - so several people diving doubles and one drysuit even. they dove as 2 teams of 3. they were really nice and friendly people, and were having a good time. there was also a solo gentleman diving a rebreather, a woman diving OC, and me.
dive sites:
- wreck trek
- area 51
- scar face
current was strong, which made the diving a bit passive. as we visited the first 2 sites on the wreck trek, it was hard to do much other than hang on or maybe reposition to another handhold. i found myself wishing for a reef hook. given the small size of the current blocking parts of the first two wrecks and the large size of our group, it made for crowded conditions - mostly just a line of divers hanging on to the edge pretty much filling available space, with one or two people poking around at a time.
it was lucky that the people on the boat were such controlled divers, since we were passing each other with inches to spare - but worked out fine.
the esso bonaire was the best experience - more room to spread out, larger interior protected from current, and more groupers hanging around.
i think the DM had been called up at the last minute, he mentioned that normally he would have brought his HP120s. but as it was, he headed up at around 35 minutes, which i missed, since i was planning for 45 mins bottom time. i think i was a bit too absorbed in watching the groupers interact, because i eventually noticed everyone else was gone. it was only an extra couple minutes but it's a great feeling to have the dive site to oneself isn't it? DM later said that he was low on gas, as were some others - deep site and a lot of current will do that for sure.
anyway, once i realized i was alone i didn't want to be holding up everyone else so i drifted off the wreck, shot an SMB and headed up in a leisurely fashion, ran into a tiger shark just as i was shooting the SMB which was cool, was fun trying to get the SMB off and camera out as it cruised by. in the end i got enough video to serve as evidence but nothing interesting to watch. total dive time 44 mins. i would have liked to be given a bit more time.
Second and third dives were both lazy drifts along ledges. saw a good amount of fish life, a few small reef sharks and a turtle, mostly just relaxing though. total dive time for Area 51 was 44 mins, and then we switched DMs and had 53 mins for scar face.
I would have liked the first 2 dives to be a bit longer but overall it was good to get out and dive. i liked the JDC team, would dive again.