Great Dive on Clearwater's Artificial Reef May 3, 2015

Tim Metcalf and I headed offshore yesterday to go diving.   As we went out Hurricane Pass we slowed to watch for tarpon crossing a sandbar that extends out into the Gulf.  Instead of a Tarpon we saw a large manatee scraping across the shallows, really cool to see.   Unfortunately the weather forecast had worsened during the night and, as predicted, a strong easterly wind had picked up.  Tim slowed us down and turned us into the wind about three miles offshore so that we could accurately assess conditions - it is easy to be lulled into tranquility when running with an offshore wind with gradually building seas.   We quickly decided to go no further offshore and proceeded to Clearwater's artificial reef.  We quickly found the reef rising from 30 ft up to only 19 ft deep and we anchored - with a second anchor as well for safety with the strong wind blowing.  Water temperature was 76 degrees and we had 25 ft of visibility.  We saw lots of small fish, a few shy grouper, a sea turtle, a really cool pair of filefish (species TBD), and to top it all a very large - 200 lbs or so - Goliath Grouper.  A really great dive.

Below are some pictures from the dive, for many more, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6144962665207237697?authkey=CMzdganUj5Wb0wE

 I found this small puffer fish on the way down the anchor line to the reef.

 The culverts and broken concrete dropped about 3 miles out in the Gulf to create this reef off Clearwater Beach is all richly populated with marine life.  Here you see a sea star, sea urchin, coral, and a Sheepshead.

 A Hogfish and a Mangrove Snapper and a small school of grunts.

 You never know what you'll see when you look into one of the culverts on the reef...

 You might say we saw a plethora of small grunts...

 A spadefish with some cool white soft coral / gorgonias.

 This vertical culvert had a sea turtle in it.

 A gag grouper.

 These were the strangest filefish I've ever seen, species TBD, they were 1.5 ft long, about a foot high and between 1/4 and 1/2 inches thick.

 The king of the reef, a large (5 ft or so long, 200 lbs or so in weight) Goliath Grouper.

 He definitely had preferred culverts and a planned route through them.  Wish I could have gotten closer.

 Time to surface back up the anchor line.