Since he hadn't been diving for a while, we decided to stick to the first reef. Kicked out & dropped down right onto the reef. Visability was pretty good- 40-50 feet, although there were a lot of particles in the water. It still hasn't cleared up from our nearly 2 months of east wind.
The current was going north so we headed south. The first reef consists of mostly honeycombs up by my house- lots of little hidey-holes for critters. Further down, the make up is a combination of the honeycombs & some small ledges. There weren't a tremendous amount of fish but they weren't scarce, by any means. Saw lots of my personal favorites- parrot fish. Also, one of my #1 favorites- a puffer fish- their faces are so cute. My buddy spotted a small spotted ray & we watched him for a while. We then came across a small eel- more out in the open than I've ever seen one before. Last, on the southward leg, we saw a trumpet fish swimming around.
I was using one of my buddy's aluminum 80's & I normally dive with steel 80's. For those of you that don't know- when you dive with steel tanks, your buoyancy doesn't change as you use up air, unlike aluminum. Even though I added some weight, at around 2k psi, I started having trouble with my buoyancy- I felt myself having to work to stay down. So, we headed back south. My buddy told me later that he was wondering when I was going to head back- he was freezing!
On the way home, we came across a good sized nurse shark 6-8 feet (I'm the worst at underwater guessing). Went up to get my bearings & brought us right back home! My dive partner did have his camera so I may have some pictures to show you. (sigh) Just a typical SE FL dive. Now, have I talked anyone into coming to dive with me????
