Charlie's Diving Blog: Very Good Dives on Rube Allyn Artificial Reef and "Beautiful Crack" ledge with Can-Tank-erous

Yesterday I lucked into an opening with Tanksalot diving for a trip on their dive boat "Can-Tank-erous". As always Captain Ryan and Seth did a great job of taking the eight of us out to two excellent dive sites. We had very good sea conditions both going out and coming back.

The first site was Rube Allyn Artificial Reef (https://www.pinellascounty.org/reef/pdf/rube-allyn.pdf. ). It is a huge reef created from the massive girders and other debris from the old bridge between Clearwater Beach and Sand Key as well as a barge used to help with reef construction. We had excellent visibility for the Gulf, I could clearly see the bottom 45 ft below as soon as I splashed. Water temp was 73 degrees, on my computer, so up a degree from last Thursday's dive, which I'd expect this time of year. Hopefully it will be another degree or two warmer for the dives Tim Metcalf and I plan to make tomorrow. The part of the reef we dived had huge vertical structure coming up about 20 ft from the bottom. There was lots to see on this dive in addition to the huge reef itself I saw Goliath Grouper, a flock of Eagle Rays, Great Barracuda, Atlantic Spadefish, and more. Below are some photos from this dive, for more, please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qGoiNVceJYdPtWgu5

The reef has huge girders from the old Sand Key bridge, piled high.

After seeing some Great Barracuda above me, I looked up to see this school of Eagle Rays cruise by, they wouldn't stop for a photo though.

The Goliath Grouper were curious but shy, seemed to enjoy playing peek-a-boo.

Huge structures on this reef!

Atlantic Spadefish

I think a Filefish vs a Triggerfish but TBD.

Though shooting with my wide angle fisheye Tokina 10-17 mm lens, sometimes I pull off a decent shot of small critters like this Arrow Crab, the largest of its kind I've ever seen, it would have been 10 inches across with its legs and outlandish blue and white tipped claws outspread, the carapace a bit less than two inches across...Twice as big as other Arrow Crabs I've seen.

Our next dive was to the north on a natural limestone ledge, doubtless one I dived over 40 years ago when I lived here. This site is called "Beautiful Crack" in 45 ft of water just north of West of Clearwater Pass. As you will see, I got obsessed with shooting the largest Regal Sea Goddess nudibranchs I've ever seen. The largest one had to be about 8 inches long. Below are some pictures, still more can be seen at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WyTkiY6UoUnAnMTD6

A Mangrove Snapper and a shy Key West Grunt. This reef, based on the invertebrate sound level and appearance, faired better with last year's red tide than Masthead Ledge Tim and I dived a few days earlier. Still, not a single Red Grouper when I'd have expected to always see several.

Isn't she or he, well they bat both ways, regal?

Huge Regal Sea Goddess Nudibranch. These sea slugs are called nudibranchs from the latin nudi - naked, and branch - lung, so naked lung, which is the gill flower on their rear backs.

I prefer to photo small critters with my 60 mm macro lens but I'd have struggled to get this monster in frame on my macro lens. My fisheye does ok on closeups if I take my time...

I never once noticed this type of nudibranch or any other in all my years of spearfishing the Gulf before moving to California and trading my speargun for a camera...