Tim - (kidspot) and I did an interesting dive saturday at the old airport beach. We went in search of the elusive third reef at old airport beach. We took the trusty dive yak out til we were sure that the depth was better 'n 80 fsw and jumped in.
I bottomed out at 104 feet in sand and turtle grass. No reef
.Tim motioned that we'd overshot the target (which is supposed to be at 95-100 feet) and gestured for me to swim towards shore. The current suggested that I do otherwise. Although the wind was pushing the yak towards the southwest, the current was running north-northwest. A hundred feet of line dragging in the water wins such battles so I became a submarine sea anchor. We figured the best thing to do was to make this a drift dive - like we had any choice. We both ascended to about 85 feet and sailed along looking for coral but finding none. We gave up after about 20 minutes of flying over the bottom; which had dropped out to probably 130' or so. It was pretty cool flying along but would have been a lot better if we'd had some scenery. Anyway, we did manage to save enough air for a brief visit to the second reef -- after a somewhat tiring paddle back to the beach area. I suppose that the first dive was not a wasted effort after all. In researching the area that we covered, I dug out a chart that I'd used this summer to demonstrate that there is no sea mount off the beach there. It turns out that our path saturday just happened to take us over the exact area of the mythical sea mount. I've included a Google Earth image to illustrate.
So if we get back there again, I think we're going to start just a hundred yards or so past the second reef. Maybe we'll find the third reef then. Personally, I'm ready to head more towards McGregor point next time anyway.
Hey Tim - did any of the pix turn out? How about the banded coral shrimp?
M
I bottomed out at 104 feet in sand and turtle grass. No reef
.Tim motioned that we'd overshot the target (which is supposed to be at 95-100 feet) and gestured for me to swim towards shore. The current suggested that I do otherwise. Although the wind was pushing the yak towards the southwest, the current was running north-northwest. A hundred feet of line dragging in the water wins such battles so I became a submarine sea anchor. We figured the best thing to do was to make this a drift dive - like we had any choice. We both ascended to about 85 feet and sailed along looking for coral but finding none. We gave up after about 20 minutes of flying over the bottom; which had dropped out to probably 130' or so. It was pretty cool flying along but would have been a lot better if we'd had some scenery. Anyway, we did manage to save enough air for a brief visit to the second reef -- after a somewhat tiring paddle back to the beach area. I suppose that the first dive was not a wasted effort after all. In researching the area that we covered, I dug out a chart that I'd used this summer to demonstrate that there is no sea mount off the beach there. It turns out that our path saturday just happened to take us over the exact area of the mythical sea mount. I've included a Google Earth image to illustrate.
So if we get back there again, I think we're going to start just a hundred yards or so past the second reef. Maybe we'll find the third reef then. Personally, I'm ready to head more towards McGregor point next time anyway.
Hey Tim - did any of the pix turn out? How about the banded coral shrimp?
M
