Trip Report on a week of Diving off West Palm Beach Florida

[ScubaBurt]

This was our first dive trip to the sunny state of Florida. We stayed on Singer Island and dove with Jim Abernathy's Scuba Adventures(JASA). This is a first rate operation. The boats are very nice and the crews are even better. The ocean itself was another story, waves were 5-6 on Saturday and 3-4 each other day. We were the rock and roll divers. This ocean action reduced the vis to about 30-50 feet and 77-78 degrees. My 3mm wetsuit felt very good. The dives themselves were great. Wrecks, reefs, sharks, turtles and a ton of other marine life. One of the wrecks, Princess Anne, must be barracuda central. There were about 50-75 of the silver toothed ones all around the wreck, some 5-6 feet in length and very unfraid of divers. One time I emerged from an overhang and about ten of them were actually facing me with that barracuda look only a dentist could love. It's a little spooky when they swim toward you instead of away. Come to think of it, it was about lunch time. The shark dive was a feed dive and the sharks were very cooperative. We could kneel on the sandy bottom or get neutral, just as long as we didn't get any closer than about 20 feet from the feed station. The sharks passed so close to me that I was able to gently stroke a Carribean Reef Shark and Nurse Shark as they passed by. They swam right between Flo and I. Awesome!!!
We left West Palm and stopped at Devil's Den and Ginny Springs. The Den's water table was down and the vis was 10-20 at best. Ginny on the other hand was great as always. After 2,151 miles of roadway we returned home to await our next trip in February back to Grand Turk.
Again, I cannot say enough good things about Jim Abernathy's operaton. They let you dive the way you want to dive. Give them a try your next trip to West Palm.
Burt

 

[Tavi]

Thanks Burt,
Sounds Awesome, especially the Barracudas.
I don't care either way.but didn't they ban shark feeding in Fla?

 

[ScubaBurt]

Hi Tavi,
They have set the date of Jan 1, 2002 to stop shark feeding in Florida. The capitan told us that only charter boats will be banned from feeding. This didn't make sense to me, but what do I know. I was just thankful that Flo and I had a chance to experience this before the deadline. They suspended a feed crate, like a plastic milk crate, about 20 feet from the bottom. Before we could get in the water there were sharks already partaking of the goodies, if you can call fish heads and other parts, goodies. It was a truly awesome to see how graceful the sharks really are. I have the utmost respect for these beautiful creatures. I have been in the water with sharks in the area, but never this close.
Burt

 

[Tavi]

I'm glad you could experience it too!
I've been pretty close, but not close enough to reach out and touch. I'm not sure if I'd want to do that or not I remember my first time one was coming straight at me and I had the camera aimed. just as he gets about 8ft away I had the thought "what's he going to do when the strobe fires?? Guess we're going to find out!!" It made a great pic!

Thanks for the info on the ban.