74 replies to this topic

[zendiver]

I left The Woodlands, TX at approximately 5:00pm headed to Freeport, TX for a fun-filled couple of days (Thursday/Friday) of diving the Texas Flower Gardens. I arrived in Freeport, TX at around 6:45pm, unloaded my truck, and setup my gear. Changed air filters in both Mako compressors and got all paperwork ready for the oncoming customers.

At 8:15pm, headed down the docks to start the pre-board briefing. Greeted the passengers and did the briefing, then allowed them to load. Once loaded, got them all together and helped set up gear, and then their boarding release forms. Once ALL paper work was done, the Captains did their briefing, then the galley, and then the dive master (ME). Got to bed around 1am and was back up at 4:45am to start the day of diving.

Thursday, July 1
West Bank – Buoy #5; Dive #1

Tied off boat on buoy #5 @ 7:45am, which is about 45 minutes late due to late arrivals. Seas approximately 2-3’s on surface with little to no surge. Current, little to none on initiating tie off, all the way to the bottom. Temperature, 82 degrees at the u-bolt at a depth of 78 feet. Visibility: horizontally was approximately 80 to 90 feet with a vertical visibility of 100+. On the initial tie-off, nothing really notable to speak of other than a large school of amber jacks at a depth of 59 feet. When I got to the u-bolt to take the vitals; current, temperature, and sightings, a small damsel decided that she/he didn’t like my presence and wanted me gone. As I was checking out the conditions of the u-bolt, roll-pin, and buoy connection, the damsel decided that I wasn’t moving fast enough and she/he started attacking my hand, backing off and making a charge again. After my inspection, I obliged, and made my way back to the boat to do my dive briefing before the customers were to make their first morning dive. All went off without a hitch.

After the last customer was retrieved out of the water and safely back on the boat, I got camera and gear together to make my fun dive. Made my way to the jump gate and made the plunge off the port side. Decended and did my first half of the dive exploring the reef and just enjoying the serenity of the early morning dive. After about a half and hour of a depth of 87 feet, I decided to head over to the huge sand patch. I made my way and caught a 3-4 foot Silky Shark heading my way. I stopped, took the camera out of hibernation, and poised myself for good footage. The Silky came within 20 to 30 feet, checked me out, decided I wasn’t too interested, and swam off. I proceeded to the sand patch after checking my location in conjunction to the boat. Realizing I was still good to go, I made my descent into this very wide and enormous patch of white sand. After approximately 20 minutes of relaxation, I started getting bored and headed home. On my way back, a pair of eyeballs sticking out of the sand caught my attention so I decided to check it out. Once I got a bit closer, I saw that I had come up on a Southern Stingray, burrowed in the sand, sleeping. I film her for a couple of minutes, getting as close as I could without startling her, but to no avail. I got within 4 to 5 feet of her when she came alive and darted out of the sand only to run into the coral formation just in front of her. I took a deep breath to ascend out of her path so she could make a clean exit without hurting herself. I followed her for several minutes when my computer beeped, letting me know that I had reached my 1000 psi alarm. That was my clue to find the boat and make my way back. I arrived on the down line with 875 psi, a max depth of 89 feet and a dive time of 61 minutes. I honored my 10% BT for my safety stop, made my ascent, and got back on the boat. Nice dive all around.
Dive time: 68 minutes with a max depth of 89 feet.


East Bank – Buoy #4; Dive #2

Jumped in and tied off boat on buoy #4 @ 1:05pm. Seas approximately 1-2’s on surface with no surge. Current, what current? After I descended to tie off the side line to the mooring line at approximately 35 feet, I was in heaven with water temperature registering 84 degrees while I was tying off. Visibility: horizontally was approximately 60 to 70 feet (slightly less and a bit hazy) with a vertical visibility of 80+. On the initial tie-off, nothing much to talk about so I just enjoyed my serenity of being in the place that I love most, the ocean. 70 feet. As I made my descent after tying off, I hit some pretty strong current at approximately 39 feet. After further descending, the current left as swiftly as it had come, but not without leaving a thermo-cline; get this: a full 3 full degrees to 81 degree. For the first 25 minutes of the dive, I never even activated my video camera. After another couple of minutes, I had decided that this dive was going to be someone else’s turn to see the bigger creatures. As I started my ascent back to the boat, something caught my attention at approximately 40 yards off to my right and at about 20 feet below me, so I turned to give my full attention and boy am I glad that I did. Out of the haze came a 15 to 16 foot wing-spanned Female Manta Ray. I hurried and activated my camera as she was quickly approaching. I pointed, to get what video I could before she passed and disappeared. I kept the camera pointed at her and she kept coming, right at me. Over the next 40 minutes, I had the pleasure of shooting video (VERY close up) of one of the most gorgeous, graceful, and playful sea creatures. She must have made 10 to 11 passes towards me, several times smacking me on top of my head with her wings and bumping me. One pass she made, I honestly didn’t think that she was going to veer-off from me, but at the very last second, she did… WHEW! Another time, I had to actually stop filming and push her away as she was trying to snuggle with me, then I went back to shooting some awesome memories of the July 1-2 trip to the Flower Gardens. I had already been down for just over 60 minutes and had approximately 1100 psi left when I decided play time was over and need to get my bearings and head to the boat. The next jump for the passengers was coming up and I still had my safety stop to honor, so I headed to the surface.
Dive time: 61 minutes with a max depth of 85 feet.

East Bank – Buoy #4; Dive #3

Seas still approximately 1-2’s on surface with no surge. Still very little current and most of the other conditions were still the same. I descended to start my dive and decided to head over the south side of the sand patch on this dive. Nothing really much to speak of on this dive other than a couple of pretty large puffer fish, a nice size marble grouper, a spotted moray, and a large school of amber jacks.
Dive Time: 58 minutes with a max depth of 78 feet.

Friday, July 2
Stetson Bank – Buoy #2; Dive #4

Jumped in and tied off boat on buoy #2 @ 6:15am. Seas approximately 1-2’s on surface with no surge. No current and water temp on the surface was a balmy 85 degrees. While I descended to tie off the side line to the mooring line at approximately 35 feet, I was greeted by a large school of look-downs followed by a school of some of the largest Amber Jacks that I have seen in quite a while. Visibility was quite a bit less than at the other two banks, but was still awesome. After descending to the u-bolt located at 82 feet, I took the vitals: No current, 81 degrees, and visibility was approximately 50 to 60 feet. Quite a bit of marine life was out and about and seemed totally oblivious of me. I had to get back to the boat and do my dive briefing to the customers, so I started my ascent. I will continue this dive once I get all of the customers back safely on board.

Continued dive at 9:08am. Jumped off port side of boat, retrieved my camera, and started the dive on my favorite dive site. I descended straight down from my entry as the vis was good enough to see the top of the pinnacles. As I descended, I caught a glimpse of a mother southern stingray and her baby out for a leisurely swim. Once I reached the top of the pinnacles, I started my dive. The reef was very active and gorgeous. Nothing really big on this dive, but did encounter 4 slipper lobsters, 3 scorpion fish, 3 adolescent drums rooming with a spotted Moray and also come across a couple of golden tail morays. Dive time: 63 minutes with max depth of 140 feet.

Wrap-Up
After the last dive, the customers, at 10:30am, they started arriving back to the boat at approximately 11:09am. When we got all of the customers back on the boat, we got the boat ‘make-ready’ for the 6 hour ride back home to the docks. We arrived at the docks at 5:47pm and started the clean-up of the boat for the next trip out (Sat-Sun). I was then asked if I would go back out (a turn-around), for the Sat-Sun trip and work in the galley. I told them hell yes seeing as how Mike was working the galley. I then traded in my DM hat for the Galley apron. That trip report to follow soon!

Pictures and video to be posted soon.

OK, I have finally put together a page with some pictures...these pictures are taken straight out of the videos. Remember, I shoot video not stills anymore. Click on the photo that you would like to see the video of, and it will open in a new window. All of these videos are in .mpg format with very little compression. With that being said, some of them are VERY Large downloads, but worth it. Most of the videos are over 10 MB each with the exception of three. ENJOY!

Here is a list of the videos and file sizes:
01. Adult & Juvy BlueAngel (10.8MB)
02. BlueAngel & Cowfish (10.8MB)
03. Cowfish & 3 Smooth Bellied TrunkFish (5.1MB)
04. One Freaked Out StingRay (30.3MB)
05. Juvy BlueAngel with SquirrelFish watching (4.3MB)
06. 3 Juvy Drums & Yellow TrunkFish.mpg (The trunkfish is very rare) (11.5MB)
07. Juvy French Angel (Very colorful reef) (7.5MB)
08. Up close and personal with a Lobster (10.8MB)
09. A very playful Manta (39.6MB)
10. My snuggling Manta Ray (96.3MB) Really big one
11. Caribbean Reef Shark (10.8MB)
12. SlipperLobsters (4 of them snuggled up) (10.8MB)
13. Slippy on the move (10.8MB)
14. A Souther StingRay out for a Sunday swim ((9.5MB)

Here is the Link: Flower Gardens Videos


-ZD

[scubahoney]

Nice ZD..can't wait to go out there with you. Hurry up with those pics, I am dying to see them...only 2 more weeks til I am out that way...oh man..it's getting hard to even go to work knowing I will get to dive the FG soon!
Great trip report.

[Blublood]

Great trip report ZD....Someday soon!

[Starfish Sandy]

Nice report ZD!!! If I was a manta and saw you in the water - I'd wanna snuggle too!!!! OH MY!!!

Sandy

[Marvel]

It sounds AWESOME, ZD!!! You really make me want to jump on a plane & go out there to dive!! Guess your beak didn't cause you to have any mask leakage....

[WisconsinGal]

Great report ZD... Looking foward to seeing the pics.!



WG

[EbonyMermaid]

Great report ZD. I've been wanting to go to the flower gardens for a long time, but I work on the weekends. Do they have trips during the week? Do you have to be a part of a group? Does the Dive Master lead the group or is it every man/woman for themselves? Do I have to bring a buddy?

[jextract]

Sounds fantastic, ZD! Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to seeing your pics, too, especially of the manta.

[WreckWench]

Nice report ZD!!! If I was a manta and saw you in the water - I'd wanna snuggle too!!!! OH MY!!!

Sandy

Girl...you are a riot...however from personal inspection...I'd have to agree!!! -ww

[Marvel]

Nice report ZD!!!    If I was a manta and saw you in the water - I'd wanna snuggle too!!!!  OH MY!!!     

Sandy

Girl...you are a riot...however from personal inspection...I'd have to agree!!!  -ww 

Ah, the advantages of living in Texas.....

AWESOME new avatar, Kamala!! Who's idea???

[Mitch0129]

Ah, the advantages of living in Texas.....

Marvel, you live in South Florida next to the ocean, can dive out your back door, and you think we have advantages living here in Texas? Trust me, there are days when I want to live in Florida so I can dive more often but I also know I have too much Texas in me. Oh, well!

EM, regarding diving the Flower Gardens, last I knew, there are weekday trips that run out there. Also, you do not have to be part of a group or bring a buddy. Finally, everyone pretty much dives on their own provided that they check out with the divemaster when they get in the water and check in when they get back on board. ZD might need to bring us up to speed but I doubt anything has changed since I went out there.

[WreckWench]

AWESOME new avatar, Kamala!! Who's idea???

Why Missy I did it all for you!!!

[ddierolf]

Sounds like a fantastic trip.. up till the Apron part

[kevininpo]

I then traded in my DM hat for the Galley @#*&% apron.

Great report, but how does such derogatory language make it past the Mods...l'm surprised the women aren't making a fuss...and l thought l was bad

[WreckWench]

I then traded in my DM hat for the Galley @#*&% apron.

Great report, but how does such derogatory language make it past the Mods...l'm surprised the women aren't making a fuss...and l thought l was bad

Hey Kevin...good eye. We do miss a few but usually people hit the "report this post" button so we get to an oversight like this faster! Thanks...ww