SLS081311A - day three

We had a good rain storm overnight. In fact it’s still raining as I write this at 05:00. The storms come and go here. Welcome to the Florida Keys in August. It can be raining hard on one side of the road and sunny on the other. It’s a good way to get the scuba gear washed. It’s also helping to keep the temperature down.

We’ve been dealing with an overpopulation of jellyfish here in the Keys. It’s mentioned quite predominantly in almost all of my posts. If you run into one directly it can give you quite a nasty sting. It’s hard to accurately convey the numbers we are seeing. On the third dive yesterday it took almost 15 minutes to get all of the divers back on board. We wait on the bottom for a ‘window of opportunity’ when a diver can get to the surface safely and up the ladder without getting stung; one diver at a time. If you wait on the surface it’s hard to avoid the jellies.

Tuesdays first dive was nice, Looe Key, with very few jellies. The visibility was better than other dives too. The crew are becoming better divers and before the week is out they may even be able to figure out where they are going and where they are, in relation to the boat.

Between dives we motor from site to site, filling the tanks along the way. The boys sometimes have trouble keeping occupied so as you might expect they make their own fun. This morning’s game was to see how many clothes pins they could stick on Megan without her knowing. After about 8 she let on that she knew all along what they were up to.

The second dive was at Pelican Shoals. It’s the site where we will be lobstering tomorrow. There were no jellies so a few of the boys decided to snorkel to check out the site while everyone else went diving. Navigation had improved greatly and no one ended up too far from the boat. When the divers returned to the boat so had the jellies…in mass. It was time to play dodge ‘em again to get back on the boat. The snorklers were ‘trapped’ up in the shallow water of the shoal and had to wait until the jellies thinned out before they could return to the boat.

After the dive we headed back into the dock where we had started, for our mid-week break. It was a day earlier than scheduled. We moved it around a bit depending on conditions. On the night of our mid-week break we are at the dock so the crew gets to take real showers, use real bathrooms, have Air Conditioning and there’s no anchor watch. They also usually take a walk up to the local store to get sodas and snacks. By the time they return it’s time to turn in for the night.

Don't forget to go to www.schoonerconchpearl.com for pictures.