SLS081311A - day two

...don't forget to link to http://www.schoonerconchpearl.com/ for pictures of the crew's adventure!

Last night was a beautiful night for anchor watch…full moon. Unfortunately there was little to no breeze which made it stifling for sleeping, on deck or below. At least below deck the bunks all have fans. It was a leisurely wake-up to diverDave’s morning mix of music and to a breakfast of cereal and pop tarts. We eat a cold breakfast most mornings so that we can get going right away. We had been anchored at Key Lois (no monkeys sighted) and we headed off to Looe Key. Looe Key is a very well-known diving and snorkeling spot. On the way we went into deeper water so that we would have more time to fill the scuba tanks. The number of Jellyfish was unbelievable. We were trolling with two rods but hadn’t had any luck yet.

Looe Key was fairly crowded with snorkel boats, despite the number of jellyfish. We had no choice but to contend with them if we wanted to dive. Everyone had to wait for a window of opportunity to enter and exit the water. The boys called them ‘ninja jellys’ since they seemed to come from nowhere. After the dive we had our usual lunch of sandwiches, fruit and cookies. Always cookies.

We headed from Looe Key to Sombrero Key, again going offshore to have more time to fill tanks. This time both fishing rods lit up at the same time. We caught two very feisty bonita’s.
Sombrero had a good number of boats on it, along with a good number of jellyfish. Despite the jellys it was a good dive. Between dives we headed back offshore to fish while we filled more scuba tanks. This time Brian had a large dolphin on the line that launched itself into the air and broke the line. When we returned to Sombrero the jellys were everywhere. It was even worse at the end of the dive. It takes planning and agility to get back on the boat safely when there are large jellyfish everywhere. These guys should get the jellyfish avoidance specialty.

We headed into the anchorage under a beautiful evening sky. Once the anchor was down we brought out the Cuban Yo-Yos (handlines) to do a little fishing. The crew caught quite a number of small fish. One of the fish volunteered to go on the shark line for the overnight. We rig one rod with a fish and leave it out overnight in hopes of catching a shark. Last week we caught a 48” barracuda on the shark line. It was not a happy fish.