SLA032611A Wreck dive on the barge

It was a beautiful day after a storm blowing through the night before, although it was a bit sporty. We had a relaxed start with a cooked breakfast and filled tanks on the way out to Sombero. The conditions were petty good. There was nothing out of the ordinary except for several lionfish under a few overhangs. We're seeing more and more of these; wish I had my pole spear. Next we moved on to an old haunt...Flagler's Barge. This is a big triangle of a barge. The top plates and ends are intact with a little framing holding it all together. Regardless, it counts as a wreck dive. There were alot of fish with the report of a large eel and two turtles. I saw one of the turtles, an old green turtle with a few barnacles on it's beat up shell. It stayed around, swimming around with the divers, giving them a good look at a turtle up close. We ended the day by coming back to anchor at Boot Key. The crew fished for baitfish, catching catfish and puffers too. Then they moved on to the big rods for a little shark fishing. It was a good day; no one lost a weight belt (almost one) and everyone had a great time.

SLA032611A Finally in the water

After Sunday's fiasco I didn't know how yesterday would go. We put them in the water to try the lead dive again at Looe Key. This time I had them all follow the mooring line down to meet me in the sand at the bottom. So far so good. One diver had to return to the boat because of ear problems. I lead the group up a sand channel to the shallows, stopping to do a head count. When we got to the shallows there was a Southern Ray that stuck around so everyone could get a good look. The group looked good, no bouncing off of the bottom, no breaking the surface so I turned them loose to have a dive. They all made it back to the boat on time. We moved on to Sombrero for the first 'buddy dive'. It too went well so we had dinner then did their first night dive. Two divers sat this one out. The conditions were great. I lead one pair of divers on a tour while all of the others were turned loose. We saw nothing of note except a lobster and a large coral crab in a barrel sponge. At the end of the dive I sat on the bottom with my light off to enjoy the bioluminescense .

SLS032611A New Crew...bad start

Yesterday we arrived at the boat and loaded up. Things went very well. This is a tight , motivated crew. Off we went for our lead dive at Western Sambo. On the way we heard several other dive boats chatting on the radio about how bad conditions (visibility, etc.) were at other dive sites. When we arrived at Western Sambo we grabbed a ball and found that the visibility was crap; we could hardly see down the mooring line. The Captain and I talked it over and decided to go to Toppino's Buoy and have a look. At Toppino's it looked a little better so I got in and did conditions. Visibility was a little better so we decided to try the lead dive. What a goat rope. The tag lines were all screwed up so I couldn't get them together on the lines. We finnaly went down and the group broke into two groups, immediately getting separated. I surfaced with my group, went to find the other group which had drifted further from the boat and surfaced them. One of the divers was having a problem, saying he had been stung by jellyfish. We all went back to the boat, got on board and ended the day agreeing to try again tomorrow at Looe Key. Oh yeah, I also had to recover a weight belt in the beginning...an omen.