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.
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