Lauderdale By The Sea

[mntlblok]

Night dive

Has anyone ever done night dives there off the beach?

Went to Flickr to find the URL of the pics from my solo night dive last year during the Miami pro tennis tournament and realized that I had never uploaded any pics from it. Uploaded them and then realized that I'd never figgered out what kind of fish it was that showed up next to the octo. I'm now guessing that it's a jawfish. Had also forgotten that I'd found a colorful shrimp in the pics of one of the sleeping parrotfish. I've since learnt how to clean the smudges from my lenses.

Spent much of the dive on some snails that I found, but also remembered that my weighted dive flag rope handle wasn't weighted heavily enough for the current and almost lost it. Guessed which direction it must have gone and swam that way for what seemed like a *long* time, and finally saw/heard the flag fluttering in the wind. Never any sign (nor sounds) of any boats. I did hear the constant rumbling of the noise from the "Jaws" movie.

More pics at 2011 LBTS, March 25th, night solo - a set on Flickr Other sets from LBTS there, too, if one is inclined to dig through such a mess.

 

[Randy g]

I did a night solo dive there last new years day eve. Nice time but alittle scary when you know that a lot of sharks are in the area and I was hanging out in the same restaurant that they regularly eat at. Great time none the less and easy beach to get in and out of.

 

[bilsant]

I dive off LBTS regularly....maybe night diving 2 or 3 times a month. (I also like Dania and Hollywood at night) Because of the issue of boat traffic, I don't usually go all the way to the mooring balls but have plenty of fun is working up and down the reef about 50 to 100 yards past the pier. When the current is pushing hard, we sometimes park cars a mile or so apart and drift dive parallel to shore.

I'm guessing I've done 30 or 40 night or evening dives at LBTS and other than the nurse sharks we've run across one small shark that I couldn't ID because it turned and headed away as fast as it could travel....it was about 2 feet long. I enjoy night night dives there because we pretty regularly see turtles, sea hares, rays, guitarfish, gurnards, and octos in addition to the usual suspects on the reef (once a Goliath in about 15 feet of water - big excitement that night). One evening we caught the coral spawn just right and that was pretty interesting. Surfacing or swimming under a rising full moon is nice too.

To reiterate an earlier comment...tides have never been an issue. Current, surf, and viz can be problematic. Oh yes, and there's no parking at the Datura portal after 9pm on weekdays, which can cut a dive short...

 

[Orlando Eric]

No wonder the Vis is bad there with that chick standing on the bottom with her fins and that guy hand scullying all over the place. It will get better when they leave..

 

[acteg]

Lol. Chick standing on bottom was doing her 7th dive ever, and the scullying dude was on dive #13. He got certified in 2001 I want to say, but just never dives for whatever reason. She got certified a couple of months ago and her first dive ever ended in sea sickness. She actually got a little sea sick on this dive even though it was calm out. Can't wait to go back. I'll probably be back in a couple of weeks with my friends again so watch out for dropping visibility.

I'm the guy in the bp/w btw. Still a noob myself.

 

[Nemrod]

For whatever the reasons, it is always best to stay hands/feet off the bottom because if everybody stands on the bottom there will soon be no reason to dive there as it will be a barren, dead place.

N