Sunday, August 24th afternoon dives in West Palm Beach

[Chip]

We're only diving Sunday afternoon this weekend, because of the ORCA meeting Saturday night. The plan is to drift dive some wrecks and then a reef. The wrecks are in 90'. The reef is around 60'.

[Chip]

We're diving with Little Deeper on Sunday afternoon.

http://littledeepercharters.com/

[Chip]

The conditions look good:


SUNDAY
SOUTH SOUTHWEST WINDS AROUND 5 KNOTS BECOMINGSOUTHEAST. SEAS LESS THAN 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS SMOOTH. ASLIGHT CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS.

http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/fmtb.../am/amz650.txt

[Chip]

Little Deeper is having a Sunday Super Sale $55 dives. It shows 10 spots still open for the afternoon. The calendar indicates a 4 hour trip to wrecks.

http://littledeepercharters.com/calender/

[Flcorals]

Should be a great day out, looking forward to it

[Chip]

My friend Greg, who lives in West Palm Beach, wants to join him for dinner (at a great Mexican place) after the dives.

[Chip]

We had a great time. The seas were less than 1' for most of the trip. Seas were building towards the late afternoon (at the end of the second dive). The first dive was Juno Ledge. It's North West Palm beach. The current was ripping (approximately 3 knots). We did a positive entry, which created a problem. The swim back to the reef took the first 6 minutes of the dive. Juno Ledge for the most part has the bottom in 90' and the top in approximately 70'. Below 80' the water was in the mid 70's. We saw several large green eels, a large loggerhead turtle, lots of conch, red snapper and other fish. I saw a 7' black tip shark at the end of the dive (after all the other divers left). It had a hook in it's mouth with about 15' of fishing line following the shark. I deployed a 30 lb. lift bag at the end of the dive and all 130' of my cavern reel line came out of my reel horizontally in about 5 seconds. visibility was approximately 30'.

[Chip]

The second dive was the Corridor. It's in approximately 90' of water and is comprised of 4 wrecks and several large rock piles. The wrecks are the Mizpah, PC1174, the Amaryllis and the China Barge. This wreck drift dive had lots of giant Goliath Grouper. We did a negative entry up current from the Mizpah. The dive master went through a swim through. A couple of divers followed him. They silted out the swim through. If you want to do any type of penetrations, you should learn anti silting and line work techniques to do this safely. Jim and myself lost the rest of the group on the first wreck while we were collecting some corals. I later found out the original plan was bailed on, because the dive master wanted most of the group to get to all 4 wrecks. Jim and myself did all the wrecks at a slower pace. This dive was very nice. We saw fish bigger than us.

[ccampo]

cool

I missed this one, instead I had to play 3 soccer games in just one day at 93F degrees, I'm still tired

[Flcorals]

I will try and post a video of the trip in he next few days

[Chip]

I prefer to be underwater. It's much cooler in many ways.

My dive stats:

Juno Ledge North West Palm
Closed Circuit Rebreather (CCR) Poseidon MK VI
Air diluent and oxygen
Entered 2:19 PM
Exit 3:22 PM
Max depth 91'
Average depth 68'
Run time 63 minutes
78 degrees F on the bottom
30' visibility
Notes: Max bottom time set by the boat was 60 minutes

Corridor West Palm
Entered 4:11 PM
Exit 5:02 PM
Max depth 85'
Average depth 64'
Run time 51 minutes
80 degrees F on the bottom
Visibility 40'
Notes: Dive called by Jim

[Chip]

We missed you Cesar!! See you this weekend!!!

Remember to charge your camera. Bring the charger and remove the lens cap. Great job on your first underwater video.

[Chip]

I will try and post a video of the trip in he next few days

Cool! Thanks Lloyd. Who had the camera? You didn't see the giant Goliath Grouper. Max did. Hopefully, you got some of them on video. They were all over.