I've been in Florida almost three weeks and yesterday I finally went diving for the first time since March 12. My friend Tim Metcalf and I took his boat out and made three separate dives. We had very calm seas and excellent visibility, about 50 ft vertically and about 35 ft horizontally. It is always great when you splash and can immediately see the bottom under you. Water temperature was a very pleasant 76 degrees.
Our first dive was on a ledge that Tim has the GPS coordinates for, it is a long ledge about 2 ft to 3 ft high. One of the really cool things on the ledge is a very large fossilized rib cage, maybe from a Mastodon - these offshore ledges that we are diving on were above water during glacial periods.
The exposed part of the rib cage was maybe about 3 ft by 3 ft and the ribs (my hand in photo below) were maybe 3 inches or so in diameter.
We saw lots of red grouper, some black (or gag) grouper, lots of mostly juvenile Hogfish which I was delighted to see, lots of Mangrove snapper (there weren't nearly so many of these this far north when I dived these waters forty years ago), Sheepshead, and the usual grunts.
Tim found a beautiful Helmet shell which we left on the ledge.
Tim is swimming up the ledge past a Hogfish and Mangrove Snapper.
Hogfish are beautiful and also incredibly delicious, we didn't take any yesterday, the ones we saw were a bit small for our standards but it was great to see many many juvenile Hogfish.
This is the kind of sea star I expect to see in the Florida Keys and in the Caribbean, I never saw one of these off Dunedin forty years ago when I dived out here all the time. I had no idea they were now being found this far north as the seas gradually warm (and rise).
Tim found a nice sized Horse Conch which we also of course left on the ledge.
Sailors Choice and a very nice sized Red Grouper. And for sensitive folks, sorry about that, but we're having him for dinner tonight, courtesy of Tim's spearfishing and cooking!
A cool looking toadfish
A pair of Jackknife fish.
When you start a dive you want to be sure the anchor is well placed so that you still have a boat to go to at the end of the dive. When you finish a dive you want to make sure you will be able to get the anchor up from the boat. Tim is getting the anchor ready for retrieval in this case.
For many more pictures from yesterday's dives, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6139465885295293681?authkey=CKfckdCY4erVUA
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