weiland
Contributor
Hi,
My company sent me to the Right Coast (Orlando) for some training and my wife suggested that I should extend the weekend and try to get in some diving. Man, this could be a trap is what I was thinking! I decided to risk the trap and take the free pass and finally do some warm water diving. An added bonus is that I could miss CARMAGEDDON! 99.99% of my diving has been in Southern California at the Channel Islands, so the idea of 80+ degree water seemed unbelievable to me since I'm used to sub-60 degree water and tons of neoprene/drysuit for protection. I made the drive down from Orlando on Friday evening and checked into Juno Beach for the night. The rain on the way down was insane - I'll take the seasonal brush fire over that.
I did 4 dives on Saturday and 2 more in the morning on Sunday with Jupiter Dive Center. JDC was more than accommodating and I'd definitely dive with them again. I think the dive sites that we did on Saturday were:
Tunnels
Bonnies
Scarface
Sunday was:
Scarface
and another site that I don't recall the name
I have to say I think I enjoyed Tunnels the most because there was tons of life on that dive. Critters seen were: Leatherbacks, loggerheads, monster nurse sharks, goliath groupers, Barracuda, reef sharks and many other reef fish that I couldn't even begin to try to name. Tunnels was also my first drift dive ever (on purpose), so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was surprised when we all jumped off the back of the boat in 2 single file lines like we were jumping out of an airplane on some sort of an attack mission. It was awesome when we started our decent thru 30, 40, 50+ feet to the bottom and it was still 80 degree water and 60+ feet of vis. All in I really enjoyed drift diving, but it made doing macro photography difficult. Because of the deeper sites and doing 4 dives on that Saturday I really had to watch my NDL later in the day. I had to pick and choose my times to dive deeper to try and get a shot of something. I'm used to sitting on the bottom and rattling off 10 shots on the same subject until I'm satisfied. I'm sure diving more there would make me a better photographer because I'd really have to think about my camera settings before attempting a shot.
Below are the pictures that came out. Any ID's of fish is much appreciated.
Greg
PS:
There was 1 Lionfish spotted and I tried to get a picture of it. I wish I had my dive knife with me because I'd have tried to stab it after. There was a diver who I've forgotten his name that tried to spear it, but he unfortunately missed.
My company sent me to the Right Coast (Orlando) for some training and my wife suggested that I should extend the weekend and try to get in some diving. Man, this could be a trap is what I was thinking! I decided to risk the trap and take the free pass and finally do some warm water diving. An added bonus is that I could miss CARMAGEDDON! 99.99% of my diving has been in Southern California at the Channel Islands, so the idea of 80+ degree water seemed unbelievable to me since I'm used to sub-60 degree water and tons of neoprene/drysuit for protection. I made the drive down from Orlando on Friday evening and checked into Juno Beach for the night. The rain on the way down was insane - I'll take the seasonal brush fire over that.
I did 4 dives on Saturday and 2 more in the morning on Sunday with Jupiter Dive Center. JDC was more than accommodating and I'd definitely dive with them again. I think the dive sites that we did on Saturday were:
Tunnels
Bonnies
Scarface
Sunday was:
Scarface
and another site that I don't recall the name
I have to say I think I enjoyed Tunnels the most because there was tons of life on that dive. Critters seen were: Leatherbacks, loggerheads, monster nurse sharks, goliath groupers, Barracuda, reef sharks and many other reef fish that I couldn't even begin to try to name. Tunnels was also my first drift dive ever (on purpose), so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was surprised when we all jumped off the back of the boat in 2 single file lines like we were jumping out of an airplane on some sort of an attack mission. It was awesome when we started our decent thru 30, 40, 50+ feet to the bottom and it was still 80 degree water and 60+ feet of vis. All in I really enjoyed drift diving, but it made doing macro photography difficult. Because of the deeper sites and doing 4 dives on that Saturday I really had to watch my NDL later in the day. I had to pick and choose my times to dive deeper to try and get a shot of something. I'm used to sitting on the bottom and rattling off 10 shots on the same subject until I'm satisfied. I'm sure diving more there would make me a better photographer because I'd really have to think about my camera settings before attempting a shot.
Below are the pictures that came out. Any ID's of fish is much appreciated.
Greg
PS:
There was 1 Lionfish spotted and I tried to get a picture of it. I wish I had my dive knife with me because I'd have tried to stab it after. There was a diver who I've forgotten his name that tried to spear it, but he unfortunately missed.
