This weekend's dive

[Wendy]

Well on Sunday I went back to Jupiter and did some more diving. The waves were 4 - 6......inches. It was nearly flat out there. Vis was 80' again, but here is the bad news......it was like 73ºF down there. Brrrrrr. Well it wasn't that bad since I'm used to diving in the springs here, but usually I'm diving in more wetsuit than I was wearing.

On the first dive I saw a turtle off in the distance nad a pretty big nurse shark. Our group was small, just the DM, myself, and 4 others. For the second dive the boat decided not to split up into 2 groups and we all went at once. In theory it sounded good, but I enjoyed the smaller group more, so me and the 3 folks with me hung back from the pack. Since we let the gap widen we shot up a lift bag so the boat captain would know where we were (we were drifting diving). Before anyone jumps to conclusions here, we were right behind the rest of the group, I would occasionally see the DM's bright yellow fins. The rest of the group ended up seeing a 10' bull shark. Although I never say it, I'm sure it knew where I was. I did see a huge lobster walk right out from under a ledge, taunting me that it isn't lobster season yet.

Oh and the best part was when I was towing the lift bag, my buddy points behind me (I was facing him), I turn around to see a trigger fish right by my hand and the bright shiny stainless-steel bolt snap at the end of my spool. This fish would not go away! I didn't really like the way he was looking at me. He started swimming around me in circles, but I made it out of the encounter with all my fingers intact.

 

[JamesK]

Sounds like you had a good time.

I dove out of the Tampa area this weekend. IThe first day, I dove out of Treasure Island Fl. We dove a place that has been nicknamed "The Zoo". It was an upside down barge. Great dive. Vis was about 50ft, and the marine life was great. I saw three decent size Jewfish, and then followed them under the barge. Under the barge was a HUGE, like Honda Civic HatchBack size, turtle. Two other large turtles were swimming around the barge. Saw about 6 barracuda, including one baby 'cuda. There were tons of other fish schooling around you while you hovered. I even saw a shark, but by the time I noticed it, it took off, and I could not tell what type it was.

The sceond dive was almost as nice. We dove a shipwreck, and I saw about 4 or 5 Jewfish, a couple of cuda's, and a bunch of smaller fish. We got to do short penetrations, like 25 feet.

The water temp that day was 81 on the bottom, and the sea was nice and calm. The boat was nice, and their were only 4 other divers besides the DM. The boat captain let us do what we wanted too, as he knew we were cave divers, I was DIT, and my buddy was a DM.

The second day sucked! We dove out of Tarpon Springs, and their was a heavy rainstorm when we left. The seas had 4-6 foot swells. We knew it was going to be horrible. Once we got to the site, the seas were calm. However, vis sucked. It was around 10ft. Marine life was lifeless. We did get to play around on the insde of the barge though. Their was no current, but their were some nice surges. It was fun trying to drop in the holes in the barge with the surge.

The second dive was even worse. We dove a natural ledge, and the vis was less than 10ft. Absolutely nothing to see as far as fish. We did sit and examine the sponges though.

The boat this time was small, and with 6 divers, 2 DM's, and the captain, it was hard to move around. The captain was super nice though, and let my buddy and I do whatever we wanted.

 

[sharpenu]

We were in Pompano. While it was raining, we had a good dive and I added a few pics to my file. Viz was fair at 35 feet, seas 1-3 feet, water was 79deg.

We got in two dives to 50 feet. The first was 54 minutes, the second cut short at 40 minutes due to a passing thunderstorm.