A final day of diving off Anclote Key, for this year at least.... June 7, 2015

Tim Metcalf and I went out for my last day of diving for this trip to Florida.  We dived two ledges 29 miles offshore of Hurricane Pass and Anclote Key called 8ft ledge and 5 ft ledge.  It was so calm that we only took about an hour to get 29 miles out in Tim's very fast boat.  Power trim tabs rule.  We cruised out between a large thunderstorm to the South off Indian Rocks and another fading thunderstorm to the north off New Port Richey.  We quickly found the 8 ft ledge, covered by a large school of bait that came up 20 feet from the bottom at 70 ft.  We went ahead and started our first dive even though the light was poor with a large cloud from the remnants of the thunderstorm.  It was dark and the visibility was only about 30 ft vertical and 20 ft horizontal on this dive.  We saw one good sized shark tail - I was taking a picture of Tim and the school of bait over the ledge and saw a four foot high shark tail going past behind him.  Not sure but I think it was a hammerhead.  I was sorry he was too shy to hang around long enough for a picture.

Our second dive was in 63 ft of water on the "five foot" ledge.  Visibility and light were much better, more like forty to 50 ft of visibility and again, lots of bait fish.  This ledge went on and on in both directions from our anchor and we started seeing lots of grouper, including some nice sized Gag Grouper.  We were forced to surface by our nitrogen saturation instead of exhausting our air like usual, first time I've had this happen diving here, but 80 cu ft tanks give you enough additional bottom time compared to our 71 cu ft in the old days....Safety stop was important!  Great dive.

We started looking for new rock to dive on as we started making our way back toward Hurricane Pass.  Tim realized he could see bottom from the boat and we were soon cruising in 40 ft of water and could see patches of rock and sand in every direction.  We snorkeled on an enormous school of sardine then dived again on a different part of a nice ledge we'd found several weeks earlier.

A great final day of diving off Florida for this trip.  Great fun.
Below are some pictures from these dives, for more, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6158555884876580465?authkey=CJTn44D0oY-7OA

 The first dive was deep, dark, and not very clear.  Lots of baitfish!

 A Belted Sandfish in the left foreground, an Arrow Crab just right of center.

 Triggerfish

 A Red Grouper with bait school over the ledge.

 Making our way up from 70 ft to Tim's boat.

 A nice sized Red Grouper and his friend the Soapfish welcomed us to the 5 ft ledge.  Light and visibility were double though we were still at 63 feet.

 A Beau Gregory with beautiful gorgonia soft coral.  No algae "gumbo" on these dives!

 Tim over the five feet high 5 foot ledge....

 In all my diving in the late 60s and 70s I never had so many baitfish on the ledges we dived.  Wonderful to see.  The Gulf is back to nearly what it was when I was a kid rather than how it was when I finished college and moved to California.

 A beautiful loggerhead sea turtle.

 Tim with amberjack and a beautiful ledge.

 A Hogfish and a butterfly fish show off their color.

 A lonely Spadefish matches his stripes to the sponge he was hiding in.

A pair of Key West Grunts face off.  I could stay to try to get better closer pictures because I was sucking the last of my air out of the tank at this point.

Four Dives off Hurricane Pass May 30, 2015

Tim Metcalf and I made four separate dives on two tanks each of air yesterday.  We started on Mainmast Ledge in 55 ft of water the went further offshore and dived two separate rocky areas and then returned to another part of Mainmast Ledge to finish the day.  Vertical visibility was 45 to 50 ft, horizontal around 30 ft and water temperature was 81 degrees.  We had a 10 to 15 mile easterly wind to start the day but it died in the early afternoon, the seas flattened, and we were able to run in at 35 mph, fast and fun.  We saw lots of Gag grouper, a few of nice size (season is closed), some small red grouper, juvenile hogfish, and lots of Mangrove Snapper and Key West grunts.

 I recognized the remains of a stove Tim is hovering over on Mainmast Ledge from the dive Donna and I made there three weeks ago.

 Managed to get a half decent photo of a three inch blenny with my wide angle lens.

 A new (to me and Tim) type of crab on the ledge.  It was sort of half way between a Stone Crab and a spider crab.

 Tim over this five foot profile part of Mainmast ledge.

 Soapfish peering from their hideout.

 A juvenile hogfish.

 Tim spotted a Great Barracuda cruising the ledge.  It sure would make it hard to land a fish hooked while fishing this ledge!

 We saw a large cloud of fish on Tim's sonar hovering above the ledge, we found this large school of small fish, Tim is hidden behind them, under the ledge.

 TBD sand diving fish.

 If you look closely you can just make out the head of a Yellowhead Jawfish peering at me from his burrow.  It's the first time I've seen one of these in the Gulf, you normally find them in the Caribbean.

 A curious triggerfish let me get a half decent photo of him.

 A pair of juvenile Hogfish.

 A juvenile Hogfish with his frills extended as he gets tense about my close approach.

 A nice red grouper.  Hope he doesn't get speared before he gets a chance to grow to a decent size.  Some folks call these strawberry grouper, I think it is because of the size some people spear....

A cool toadfish.

To see more from these dives please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6155163938848110385?authkey=CMb7n-n0ipuDIw

A great dive on a long ledge off Mandalay Hotel, Clearwater Beach May 23, 2015

I had another great Gulf of Mexico dive with Tim Metcalf yesterday out from Hurricane Pass.  We had 81 degree water temperature, we could see the ledge 55 ft below us the moment we splashed and it was really cool hearing Goliath Grouper giving warning "booms" as we approached their homes.  We saw at least four different adult Goliath Grouper and I saw my first young, maybe 15 lb, cautious juvenile Goliath Grouper.  We saw a number of Gag Grouper, lots of several kinds of jacks and Bonita and a school of Spadefish.  Below are some pictures from this dive, if you want to see the rest please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6152466640812193825?authkey=CPfb-LiU29ehaA

 Tim descending through wonderful blue water to the ledge.  There was less green algae "gumbo" suspended in the water this week, maybe due to the break in rain until yesterday afternoon...

 Mangrove Snapper on the ledge.

 There are always Remoras with Goliath Grouper, we were hearing them and soon one of their remoras considered changing his ride....

 Juvenile amberjack on a cleaning station.

 Tim and a remora with the ledge.

 One of a number of Gag Grouper (season is closed) we saw yesterday.

 Tim above a large overhang.

 Tim rummaging under the ledge, closely monitored by Amberjack, always on the watch for an ambush meal.

 Hermit crabs on the march.

 A Key West Grunt demonstrating the truth to the adage "Where there's grunts, there's grouper".

Goliath Grouper closeup.

Goliath Grouper in his lair.

Dives off Clearwater FL, at Rube Allyn Artificial Reef, a 60-65 ft ledge, and on the Sheridan 5-16-2015

Tim Metcalf and I had three excellent dives off Clearwater yesterday.  We headed out from Hurricane Pass in Dunedin and headed for the coordinates of the Sheridan, 24 miles offshore.  The easterly wind was stronger than we hoped so we soon slowed down and started looking for a ledge.  We realized we weren't far from the Rube Allyn artificial reef so we went over to it for a dive.  The part of the reef we hit was not very extensive and we didn't want to swim and wander with fishing boats near by so we ended this dive with about 1/2 tank of air.  Water temperature was 80 degrees and visibility was 50 ft vertically but only 20 ft horizontally at the bottom due to an extensive bloom of algae (thanks to warming waters and runoff from fertilizer on lawns and golf courses etc).  I saw a Bermuda Chub on this dive, I've seen them in the past in the Bahamas but have never seen them off the west central coast of Florida before.  Our second dive was on a large ledge we found running from 65 ft to 60ft - we kept working our way offshore as the wind dropped and the seas flattened.  On this 1/2 tank dive we saw lots of Amberjack, a Nurse shark, three lionfish, etc.  A beautiful ledge that Tim kept the coordinates for.  Our final dive was on the Sheridan, a large tug boat sunk as part of an artificial reef in 75 ft of water.  Two highlights on this dive were five Goliath Grouper and a large group of large, four and five feet long, Great Barracuda.  The wreck itself is of course great to dive on.  We also found and recovered a like new large Danford anchor and a great anchor chain.

For more from these dives, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6149938131310213345?authkey=CPWzg8nyhqjsMw

 A large school of Spadefish on Rube Allyn Artificial Reef.

 Sheepshead

 A Bermuda Chub, yet another fish I never saw off the Gulf Coast of Florida growing up.  The fish knows the Gulf is warmer than it used to be.

 Juvenile Hogfish

 A Gray Angelfish with an invasive Lionfish on the 65 ft ledge.  Tim dispatched one of them on the dive.  In the Gulf and the Caribbean the only good Lionfish is a dead one.

 Juvenile Amberjack on the 65 ft ledge.

 A six foot Nurse shark, too bad there was so much algae bloom in the bottom 15 ft.  Thank you fertilized lawns and golf courses.

 Another Lionfish about to meet his end.

 Tim with the good kind of Gulf Lionfish.

 Tim on the Sheridan.

 Small fish and large Great Barracuda.

 Goliath Grouper under the Sheridan's fantail.

 Juvenile Gag grouper.

 Tim with a plethora of grunts.

 These Great Barracuda ranged four to five feet in length.  I saw more large Barracuda on the Sheridan than I saw in all my diving in the Gulf in the 60s and 70s.  They like the warmer water, too.

 We found a beautiful like-new large Danford anchor and chain, Tim had the smarts to tie it to our anchor instead of us separately lugging it to the surface and trying to lift it into the boat.

 Back to the boat, limited bottom time at 75 ft.