Venice Results

[adurso]

Here are some of the larger teeth we found while there. We also found hundreds of "jewelry" quality teeth and had them wrapped before we left. Also made necklaces out of the smaller megs not shown. The picture on the left shows a couple of interesting bones, the larger a whalebone with predation marks and the other a whale vertebrae that fossilized an interesting color and texture. The third item in the second photo is a triangular rock that was encrusted when found. I swore up and down there had to be a tooth under there! After treating it was still a rock though!

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Nice finds!

 

[ReefGuy]

The curved ones are snaggletooths, and I think the lower right is a mako.

Nice teeth!

 

[CBulla]

Was this aquired on a charter? Just curious..

 

[adurso]

The curved ones are snaggletooths, and I think the lower right is a mako.

Nice teeth!

Yes,the curved ones are hemipristis, found by my wife who was overjoyed to find anything....

 

[adurso]

Was this aquired on a charter? Just curious..

The hemis were found off Caspersen and Venice public beach, a couple of the smaller megs were off the beach, the big megs were from the boneyard with Florida West. We found hundreds of teeth, both from the beach and boat. There are other megs my kids turned into jewelry. I looked all over for the rest of your mastodon but could not find it... My wife liked the area so much we are looking for property now...

 

[thedaddy]

I keep hearing everybody refer to "the boneyard". Does this refer to a specific location, a region offshore, or just the general area around Venice.

Forgive the ignorance. I am mad curious and am looking for a celebratory dive for my wife and daughter when they get their OW cert at the end of Aug.

Thanks guys.

 

[Walter]

That's a particular location. You might want to wait until they get a little more experience before exposing them to low viz diving. The Keys or Fort Lauderdale are better choices until they have a few dives under their belts. Viz at Venice averages 2 - 6 feet. We do see days considerably better and considerably worse, 15 feet of viz is exceptional and it's pretty common to measure the viz in inches. This will be a great dive for them, but they'll likely appreciate it more in a couple of months.

 

[adurso]

Walter is spot on with the viz. If you are not comfortable in low viz you might want to get more experience. The boneyard is usually accessed by boat, unless someone is a really good surface swimmer....The week we were there the viz ran from 2 inches to about 10 feet and the water was full of dead things from the red tide and what I was told was "whale snot", but were actually egg cases of some sort, I think....

If you and your family are comfortable with the low viz diving off the beach or boat there is a blast...

 

[thedaddy]

That's a particular location. You might want to wait until they get a little more experience before exposing them to low viz diving. The Keys or Fort Lauderdale are better choices until they have a few dives under their belts. Viz at Venice averages 2 - 6 feet. We do see days considerably better and considerably worse, 15 feet of viz is exceptional and it's pretty common to measure the viz in inches. This will be a great dive for them, but they'll likely appreciate it more in a couple of months.

Thanks Walter. You have a point there and I didn't know about the visibility. It seemed acceptable off the public beach that last weekend in July, but only in the morning come to think of it. Where is it (the boneyard) located w/ respect to Venice PB, Sharkey's, and Casperson? L/L coordinates are fine if you have them, but a general description is good too.

As to the ladies, I was looking for something introductory for them; I want to make it easy and minimize anxiety. Low vis in the ocean doesn't do it for them. We will be driving though. The keys is a bit too far to do in a weekend. I was thinking of maybe Salt Spgs - pretty and colorful with some wildlife and crystal clear water, or even Blue Spgs although that is a hike with gear.

I figured Venice as a nice follow up in a few months, after they are more confident. How soon does the ocean drop below 70 degrees in that area?