Wonderful Shore Dive at Blue Heron Bridge May 17, 2019 May 17,2019

Donna and I had a wonderful dive at the site known as Florida's best shore dive, Blue Heron Bridge on Friday, May 17.    I'd read about diving Blue Heron Bridge and seen lots of pictures from there, by when Captain Ryan of Tanksalot diving in Clearwater told me I had to do it, well, we did.  I could dive this site a hundred times!

Timing is everything for diving Blue Heron Bridge.  You need to start your dive at least 30 minutes before high tide and finish it about 30 minutes after in order to have slow moving, and clear, tidal water from the nearby Atlantic/Gulf Stream.  High tide was 7:46 the morning Donna and I dived so we had an early start to our morning.  Entry was convenient and easy from our parked car.  Donna towed our new float with its Dive flag so that we won't get ticketed or run over....Visibility was easily 65 ft and the water was 78 degrees.  Average depth for the dive was 15 to 20 ft, we hit around 30 ft at the channel under the main bridge span.  Our dive lasted around an hour and a half.

A quick surface shot looking south at Donna with our towable dive buoy as we started our early morning dive.

As soon as I put my snorkel in my mouth and started to swim to where we'd drop down with scuba I started seeing cool fish like this Half Beak (I think, TBD) and juvenile Great Barracuda.  Love the bridge in view overhead.

The bridges pilings are heavily encrusted with invertebrate life and there is a huge range of fish species everywhere you turn.

                                  Surgeonfish, named for the "scalpels" at the base of their tails.

                      Donna holding our yellow diving buoy reel with a school of Sailor's Choice.

A beautiful French Angelfish with one of about four different species of grunts we saw on this dive.

A large Arrow Crab and a photo bombing juvenile Grunt of another species....

Donna with one of the many sea stars we saw.  She's done some great paintings of sea stars.

An Atlantic Sheepshead and Atlantic Spadefish.  I used to love to spear and eat sheepshead in my early years of diving and spearfishing.  Now I just hunt with my camera.  Except sometimes still grabbing California Spiny Lobster...

                                A Mutton Snapper and a pair of hugging Cushion Sea Stars.

                                A pair of Gray Angelfish

    A Purple Mouth Moray Eel.....I didn't get to look into his mouth, he stayed nose down hunting prey.

                                Porcupine Fish and a sea urchin of some kind, TBD..

                                Pair of Tortugas aka Scrawled Filefish

    Scrawled  Filefish, with a Sergeant Majors above.

                 A school of Porkfish swimming among the pilelings marking the edge of the boat channel under the mainspan of the bridge, our turnaround point, about 35 ft deep.

                                A new fish, for me, name TBD.  About 5-6 inches long.

Another new fish, for me.  Check out the fake eye that's part of his camouflage!  About 3 inches long.  Not bad with my Tokina 10-17 mm fisheye lens..

    An Arrow Crab and Coral Shrimp next to sponges and hydroids.

A goby, species TBD, and a Blenny, species TBD.  Each 2-3 inches long.

                                Donna with a Batfish

                                Juvenile French Angelfish

 

There was another, larger, Great Barracuda lurking during our dive but I didn't get close enough for a decent photo of it.

A fascinating Sand Sea Anemone.  This is a great "muck" diving site as well as fish gazing site.
I sure look forward to more dives here on my next Florida visit!


To see more pictures from this great shore dive, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ld5H7GDAueNbE4ag6

Two Fun Dives on Veteran's Reef with Tanksalot May 14, 2019

I enjoyed two dives off the dive boat CanTANKerous operated by Tanksalot yesterday.   These dives were my kickoff dives to start my 53rd year of being a certified scuba diver.  I was very very young when I got certified, though, it is true, that I'm still as young as I'll ever be.   Our first dive was on the Airplane Wreck, a sunken barge that had a plane sunk on its deck but which now is in pieces alongside the wreck.  I enjoyed seeing Goliath Grouper, Gag grouper, barracuda, and Snook along with the usual mix of other small fish.  Near the end of the dive, the boat's Dive Master, Seth, found a well camouflaged seahorse in sargassum weed growing on the deck of the barge, I'd of never spotted it by myself.  Visibility was 30 ft due to algae "gumbo" clumps now growing in the water due to a combination of more lawn fertilizer run off, etc from the rain we just had and due to the warming water, now up to 78 degrees.

Below are some pictures from the dive, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3UhCcfpps1EY6Xxo8

    I was greeted by an Atlantic Spadefish and a Goliath Grouper when I reached the barge.

    A camouflaged, well, he was until lit by my strobe, no reds at 45 ft without artificial light,  juvenile Hogfish and a school of Atlantic Spadefish.

                                A Snook lurks in the wreck along with Mangrove Snapper.

                                The Snook wouldn't let me get very close.

           Somehow, Seth found the extremely well camouflaged seahorse.  See it?  I couldn't either.

 I managed to get one half decent photo, though full of backscatter.  There was enough back and forth surge and heavy sargassum growth to make getting a picture very difficult...He was about 4 or maybe 5 inches tall and hard to see in the sargassum.  This was my first encounter with a full sized seahorse in my 52 years of diving, though I've seen quite a number of pygmy seahorses on tropical sea fans.

For our second dive, we moved a short distance to another site on the huge Veteran's Artificial Reef.  The second site is called "Three Barges" since it has, guess what, three sunken barges.  More fun with Goliath Grouper and had a Spotted Eagle Ray fly over my head.  Below are some pictures from this dive, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RLHpxVw5FMtUfFts8

 Approaching the first barge.

    Looking through the wreck.

                                          One of two beautiful shiny anchors, chain, and rope I saw on this site.  Anchoring on wrecks is a great way to lose anchors if your fishing and can't dive to free it...

I played peek-a-boo with this Goliath Grouper until I finally go a face shot, this one was 250 lbs or so, there was also a 400 lb one roaming about.

     This Spotted Eagle Ray with a Remora flew right over my head.  He was about 5 ft across.

Two fun dives, sadly these were my last Gulf dives for this trip to Florida.  Donna and I plan to dive Blue Heron Bridge Friday morning over on the East coast near Palm Beach.  I've been hearing about it for years.  It's a slack high tide dive so it will be early, the high tide is at 7:42 am...

Thanks again to Captain Ryan and Seth for several fun days of diving off Clearwater Beach.

Two Fabulous Dives at 29 Mile Ledge and at 5 ft Ledge off Anclote Key April 30, 2019

Tim Metcalf and I took his boat far offshore to 29 Mile Ledge and "5 ft Ledge" off Anclote Key last Tuesday.  We had great conditions, there was a significant easterly breeze but the chop was going in our direction for the long trip offshore, fortunately, as forecasted, the breeze dropped and the chop laid down in time for our trip home.  Tim's new 22 ft Pathfinder has a deeper V than his last one and, combined with trim tabs, gives a great ride on a moderate chop.  The water turned a dark blue as we got about 20 miles offshore.  When we splashed for our first dive we could instantly see details on the bottom 65 ft below, this is the kind of visibility you dream of getting in the Gulf this time of year.

The moment we started our descent down our anchor line we could see a big school of juvenile Amberjacks coming up to greet us.  Once we were down about 20 ft you could see Gag grouper, ranging in size from small juveniles to at least 20 lbs, easily a hundred of them, coming from every direction to see what was coming down the anchor line, it was like time traveling back to diving the Gulf with Tim 47 years ago.  Spectacular!  Fish were everywhere.  The ledge included plentiful beautiful Red Grouper, the first I've seen on this trip to Florida, so this ledge wasn't hit by the horrible red tide that engulfed most of Florida's waters last year.  Soon we encountered a huge, dense school of baitfish along with at least three Goliath Grouper, one that cooperated for pictures.  The invertebrate life on the ledge was healthy and there were also two types of Angelfish and Butterflyfish.  You could easily see Tim's boat on the surface while swimming on the ledge which ran from 72 ft to 65 ft.  An unforgettable dive!

Below are some pictures from our dive on the 29 Mile Ledge, to see more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JQWpHkJLqhedbsRV8

Tim splashes to start our dive, look at the deep blue water.  We could immediately see the ledge beneath us.

We were swarmed by juvenile Amberjack as we descended.

    Tim's boat on the surface 65 ft above.  My camera's sensor overloaded by sunlight way down here!

     I love this photo of a Hogfish searching for hidden prey in the sand.

Hurray, a healthy Red Grouper.  I think red tide wiped them out on the other dive sites I've visited this trip.

 I've seen more Batfish on this trip than I've ever seen before.

     Another beautiful Hogfish!

    Another nice sized cooperative Red Grouper

Tim couldn't resist reaching for the flounder's tail!

                                              Beau Gregory and a juvenile Queen Angelfish
 

                                                 Tim spotted something inside the school of baitfish

    Tim and one of the three Goliath Grouper we saw, this one was less shy.

                          Time to go up for our safety stop.



We needed a surface interval before our second dive so we made our way to another nearby ledge, "Five Foot Ledge".  There were fewer large fish on this ledge but it was still very alive.  Many divers have seen and photographed Yellow Head Jawfish but this is the first time I've encountered and photoed them, they are really cool fish.  Below are some pictures from this dive, to see the rest, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VomhV3n8LfhKdWY69

         We were welcomed by a pack of Juvenile Amberjacks instead of the last ledge's huge school.

                                Barred Hamlet

As we reached the bottom we spotted a nearly new danforth anchor, chain, a beautiful nylon anchor line lying on the bottom, doubtless cut and dropped by an unlucky fisherman.  Two dive trips with Tim, two beautiful anchors.  Tim pointed out that we got three anchors in one day on my last visit.

                          Invasive Lionfish.  Tim found and dispatched two on this dive.

                    Gray Angelfish

                                          Filefish, species TBD

                                                  Beau Gregory

                                High Hats

     A shy fish that dives into the sand to hide, this is cropped so that you can see them.  Need to look these up, don't know what they are.  While noticing and trying to get close enough to photo these, there were many in the sand near the ledge, I notice Yellowhead Jawfish, a photographer's favorite, but one I'd never photographed before.

    These Yellowhead Jawfish are about five inches tall, very shy.  I could spend an entire dive watching these guys and trying to get close enough for a good picture...

First time I ever saw these in the Gulf (perhaps anywhere, to my memory) common in Caribbean and off the Keys and east coast of Florida.

                  Jackknife Fish

                              One might start to suspect that I can't resist photographing Hogfish....many years ago I could resist spearing and eating them, too, they are really delicious...

                               Blue Angelfish

       What a fantastic day of diving.  The breeze and chop had calmed significantly when we started the long ride back.  Tim spotted a large patch of sargassum weed with a Trippletail hovering next to it.  My old bones were too tired and relaxed to try to slip back into the water to try to photograph it, maybe next time.  Plan to get out diving with Tim this Thursday after my two day Catamaran sailing class, necessary to get me ready to captain a big catamaran we've got booked for ten days of sailing and diving and snorkeling with Humpbacks in Tonga this coming August.  I like retirement!