We got into Bradenton on Sunday afternoon, talked to Loraine At Sea Trek to confirm everything and Monday morning I was scrambling to get to the Sea Trek shop on Bradenton Beach to get two tanks for my first charter trip of my vacation. I got to the shop, paid for the trip and headed across the bridge to the boat. Nice little 6-pack boat, twin engine, twin hull, very stable and nice to dive from. We got stuff setup and loaded and we were off and running. Made conversation with the captain (Edgar) and the other passengers on the 15 mile trip off shore. My buddy on the dive was a guy from Ireland. He seemed to be happy to not be in a dry suit! Our first dive was good, it was 66ft of water on the South Jack Wreck. A fairly good size debis field, the big boiler was the largest piece of the wreck. Still a good number of fish on the site. Two nassau grouper were there, about 2-1/2 or 3ft long. Found a nice spear, but lost it at the deco stop. 35ft vis, very nice first dive, what a way to start a vacation!. Our second dive the vis dropped to 10ft at Doc's Barge. Pete at Sea Trek was suprised, he said it was very clear there the day before, as reported to him. But that's diving, weather, currents and other factors. The dive was short due to my buddy having an ear problem, but no worries, we ascended and stretched the dive on the anchor line ascending to where he was comfortable and making a long slow ascent to the safety stop.
Sea Trek didn't have anything running on into the week so I scheduled a trip with Scuba Quest. This was a bigger boat, 14 scheduled two cancelled. The weather was sketchy but cleared for us as we left for the dock. The divemaster was very good, her name is Patti I believe, I'll have to check my log book. The Captain was a nice guy as well. Our first dive site was 7 miles out I believe they said. The spot was M1 Barge. Not a big wreck, mostly a box sitting in the sand. 12 people kicking around it was a little crowded, but there was still plenty of life to see there. My dive buddy on this trip was from Scottland, we also had an employee of the shop along with us on our first dive. Quite a bit of smaller life to see around the barge, some bigger fish around here and there. The vis was only about 5-10ft. The second dive the vis was slightly better at 10ft. The site was the M3 piles. We cruised around and I found a couple of red shrimp. As I was checking out a small fish darting around on a piece of concrete I noticed an 18" flounder. I stirred him up so my dive buddy could see him. Just after that we came across the goliath grouper on the site. It was a 5ft long fish and very impressive. Both of these dives were in 40-45ft of water. It would have been nice to go a little further out, more clear and deeper water. A storm had moved through earlier in the morning and I think they decided to stay closer in just some nasty weather came over us. The sky was pretty heavy, but nothing came in until later in the day.
The next day I went to Venice, Caspersen Beach for a shore dive with fellow SBer Kev7. It was a good time. I expected it to be worse looking at the water. We first got in the water and the vis was 0 and looked bleak. I wanted to try and get out past the sand bar where the waves were not breaking yet. When we did the vis opened up from 2-3ft on the bottom to about 10ft on the bottom. I was scanning the bottom, but did not spot any teeth on the dive. Had I known more of what I was doing, I think I could have collected a couple of teeth. It was a good dive, it improved throughout the dive. It was good meeting Kevin, I wish I could have gone out in Bradenton or back to Venice with him, but the last week of my trip went quick and the waters were a bit rough through the rest of the holiday weekend.
Saturday I tried to get out with someone that knew what they were doing (not a slam on Kev7 just a comment on my lack of knowledge). Lil38, Wildbill and I went out at Alhambra beach. Well, it was good to meet some other SBers, but that was pretty much the only thing good about the dive. The vis was down to about 6" most of the time. Other divers said over the sand bar the vis got to 2 or 3ft and they found a couple small teeth. Thanks for the effort to get out and get some teeth! Madeline and Smoakair I believe it was, met at the beach but decided not to get in the water. They did not miss anything.
Sunday my dive with Sea Trek got cancelled.
I was thinking my dives had gone from great down to terrible. They had to start going the other way, I could not end my trip like that! I also wanted to bring home some teeth! I signed up for the Tuesday charter with Florida West Scuba. Nice people, and they know what they are talking about when it comes to fossils. Steve Thacker the Captain can tell you about everything you bring up. I was able to find some very nice teeth at each of the two sites and brought back a couple manatee ribs, sting ray barbs and some other pertified objects. One the second site I brought back a foot long whale bone that has a couple of "predation marks" on it. I enjoyed the dives and have some cool fossils to show for it. No good meg teeth, but maybe next time! There were 12 divers on the boat, but your not confined to a wreck or debris field, the area we were diving was pretty broad. We all had enough room to search without running into each other.
So the diving improved, but I was not totally satisfied yet. Having talked to Sea Trek, it did not look promising to be going back out with them. When I was a kid we stopped in Tarpon Springs on the way to my grandmothers. My aunt lives up near there now. So I planned a double duty visit to Clearwater and Tarpon Springs. I went out with Narcosis Dive. Once again, nice people, a six pack boat. The Capt, Steve and Dave the DM were both good guys. And I love only have 6 divers on the boat. Two very good dives. First dive was on Dolphin Ledge. The first diver in the water was a guy spear fishing. He came back with a hogfish. The Divemaster was my buddy on the first dive. We were out 25 miles in 70ft of water. Saw a very big star fish (14-16" Cushion Starfish), quite a few big fish - Huge Trigger and Queen Angel. I love trigger fish, I used to have some in my Aquariums when I had them. The guy swam right up to me and looked me over and swam away. Boy do they have some teeth! I was definately cautious around him. A spiney that was good size. The DM almost took him, but it was out of season and he left it. I was hoping to see a turtle and sea horse, oh well, there was enough to see on the rocks. We headed back to the boat and then over to the RJ Thompson. The RJ sits in 69ft of water. The anchor was about 35ft off the wreck. When I picked a landmark to que off of to get back to the anchor since it was outside the vis range. There were a bunch of fish moving around inside the wreck. I went up to the main deck and saw the spearfisher to my left. I went to the right to give him room. The cuda were following him around the wreck too. I swam the perimeter of the wreck along the bottom. Next to the wreck was a box about 3 ft to the south. At the bottom of the box was a little puffer fish that was pretty friendly. After making my way around I moved up to the main deck again. You can see down into the wreck through the many holes in the deck. There was a lot to see in there. As I got back toward the cabin I could see the silhouette of a goliath. I moved up toward him and tried to slowly move in sideways and above him. He moved down to the main deck and into the cabin. I wasn't going to follow him in. A minute later he came back out, so I followed above him as he dropped below the deck. I stayed outside and aligned above him to judge his length. He was longer than me and I'm 6'4". I'de say he was 6'6" or a little bigger. He tried to tuck himself under a section of decking. I dropped to about a foot above the deck and he peeked out at me. That big eye scanned me with a couple of rapid movements and he opened his big mouth. I did not know their mouths were so colorful. As he started to swim away another small goliath swam past him down in the boat, it was only about 5' long. Toward the end of the dive the cuda had moved down to the main deck and I was looking down. I happen to look up to see a four footer about 6' from me. That was a little uncomfortable for me. I was headed back to my starting point but missed it. I was cutting my no deco time close anyway and that caused me to go over. I was not overly concerned it was less than 30 seconds and my last dive of the trip. I guess that's why I stretched it, I didn't want it to end. I made a slow ascent and made a 10 min safety stop and all was good. Very memorable day of diving
I gained a lot of good experience on this trip and got some good information from Dave at Narcosis on the ride back in. I don't reget any of the dives, you can learn from any dive. And I would recomend any of the dive ops I used. Thanks to Kev7, Lil38, Wildbill, Sea Trek, Scuba Quest, Florida West Scuba and Narcosis Dive for making my vacation a great one.
Sea Trek didn't have anything running on into the week so I scheduled a trip with Scuba Quest. This was a bigger boat, 14 scheduled two cancelled. The weather was sketchy but cleared for us as we left for the dock. The divemaster was very good, her name is Patti I believe, I'll have to check my log book. The Captain was a nice guy as well. Our first dive site was 7 miles out I believe they said. The spot was M1 Barge. Not a big wreck, mostly a box sitting in the sand. 12 people kicking around it was a little crowded, but there was still plenty of life to see there. My dive buddy on this trip was from Scottland, we also had an employee of the shop along with us on our first dive. Quite a bit of smaller life to see around the barge, some bigger fish around here and there. The vis was only about 5-10ft. The second dive the vis was slightly better at 10ft. The site was the M3 piles. We cruised around and I found a couple of red shrimp. As I was checking out a small fish darting around on a piece of concrete I noticed an 18" flounder. I stirred him up so my dive buddy could see him. Just after that we came across the goliath grouper on the site. It was a 5ft long fish and very impressive. Both of these dives were in 40-45ft of water. It would have been nice to go a little further out, more clear and deeper water. A storm had moved through earlier in the morning and I think they decided to stay closer in just some nasty weather came over us. The sky was pretty heavy, but nothing came in until later in the day.
The next day I went to Venice, Caspersen Beach for a shore dive with fellow SBer Kev7. It was a good time. I expected it to be worse looking at the water. We first got in the water and the vis was 0 and looked bleak. I wanted to try and get out past the sand bar where the waves were not breaking yet. When we did the vis opened up from 2-3ft on the bottom to about 10ft on the bottom. I was scanning the bottom, but did not spot any teeth on the dive. Had I known more of what I was doing, I think I could have collected a couple of teeth. It was a good dive, it improved throughout the dive. It was good meeting Kevin, I wish I could have gone out in Bradenton or back to Venice with him, but the last week of my trip went quick and the waters were a bit rough through the rest of the holiday weekend.
Saturday I tried to get out with someone that knew what they were doing (not a slam on Kev7 just a comment on my lack of knowledge). Lil38, Wildbill and I went out at Alhambra beach. Well, it was good to meet some other SBers, but that was pretty much the only thing good about the dive. The vis was down to about 6" most of the time. Other divers said over the sand bar the vis got to 2 or 3ft and they found a couple small teeth. Thanks for the effort to get out and get some teeth! Madeline and Smoakair I believe it was, met at the beach but decided not to get in the water. They did not miss anything.
Sunday my dive with Sea Trek got cancelled.
I was thinking my dives had gone from great down to terrible. They had to start going the other way, I could not end my trip like that! I also wanted to bring home some teeth! I signed up for the Tuesday charter with Florida West Scuba. Nice people, and they know what they are talking about when it comes to fossils. Steve Thacker the Captain can tell you about everything you bring up. I was able to find some very nice teeth at each of the two sites and brought back a couple manatee ribs, sting ray barbs and some other pertified objects. One the second site I brought back a foot long whale bone that has a couple of "predation marks" on it. I enjoyed the dives and have some cool fossils to show for it. No good meg teeth, but maybe next time! There were 12 divers on the boat, but your not confined to a wreck or debris field, the area we were diving was pretty broad. We all had enough room to search without running into each other.
So the diving improved, but I was not totally satisfied yet. Having talked to Sea Trek, it did not look promising to be going back out with them. When I was a kid we stopped in Tarpon Springs on the way to my grandmothers. My aunt lives up near there now. So I planned a double duty visit to Clearwater and Tarpon Springs. I went out with Narcosis Dive. Once again, nice people, a six pack boat. The Capt, Steve and Dave the DM were both good guys. And I love only have 6 divers on the boat. Two very good dives. First dive was on Dolphin Ledge. The first diver in the water was a guy spear fishing. He came back with a hogfish. The Divemaster was my buddy on the first dive. We were out 25 miles in 70ft of water. Saw a very big star fish (14-16" Cushion Starfish), quite a few big fish - Huge Trigger and Queen Angel. I love trigger fish, I used to have some in my Aquariums when I had them. The guy swam right up to me and looked me over and swam away. Boy do they have some teeth! I was definately cautious around him. A spiney that was good size. The DM almost took him, but it was out of season and he left it. I was hoping to see a turtle and sea horse, oh well, there was enough to see on the rocks. We headed back to the boat and then over to the RJ Thompson. The RJ sits in 69ft of water. The anchor was about 35ft off the wreck. When I picked a landmark to que off of to get back to the anchor since it was outside the vis range. There were a bunch of fish moving around inside the wreck. I went up to the main deck and saw the spearfisher to my left. I went to the right to give him room. The cuda were following him around the wreck too. I swam the perimeter of the wreck along the bottom. Next to the wreck was a box about 3 ft to the south. At the bottom of the box was a little puffer fish that was pretty friendly. After making my way around I moved up to the main deck again. You can see down into the wreck through the many holes in the deck. There was a lot to see in there. As I got back toward the cabin I could see the silhouette of a goliath. I moved up toward him and tried to slowly move in sideways and above him. He moved down to the main deck and into the cabin. I wasn't going to follow him in. A minute later he came back out, so I followed above him as he dropped below the deck. I stayed outside and aligned above him to judge his length. He was longer than me and I'm 6'4". I'de say he was 6'6" or a little bigger. He tried to tuck himself under a section of decking. I dropped to about a foot above the deck and he peeked out at me. That big eye scanned me with a couple of rapid movements and he opened his big mouth. I did not know their mouths were so colorful. As he started to swim away another small goliath swam past him down in the boat, it was only about 5' long. Toward the end of the dive the cuda had moved down to the main deck and I was looking down. I happen to look up to see a four footer about 6' from me. That was a little uncomfortable for me. I was headed back to my starting point but missed it. I was cutting my no deco time close anyway and that caused me to go over. I was not overly concerned it was less than 30 seconds and my last dive of the trip. I guess that's why I stretched it, I didn't want it to end. I made a slow ascent and made a 10 min safety stop and all was good. Very memorable day of diving
I gained a lot of good experience on this trip and got some good information from Dave at Narcosis on the ride back in. I don't reget any of the dives, you can learn from any dive. And I would recomend any of the dive ops I used. Thanks to Kev7, Lil38, Wildbill, Sea Trek, Scuba Quest, Florida West Scuba and Narcosis Dive for making my vacation a great one.
