Lauderdale by the sea June 11th and 12th

[bilsant]

Planned to drive home to Savannah this morning, but checked the LBTS webcam. Looked promising, so I drove down from BHB Blvd., found a parking spot, pumped in 3.5 hours worth of quarters, carted my tank up to the shower area, and saw a gaggle of divers commiserating on the beach. Inquired about the viz on their dive and was told 3-4 ft. Rats. Made somebody's day with my abandoned parking spot. . .

Oh, well. Gave me some time to futz around with some pics from there a couple of weeks ago.

Kevin

Sorry Kevin,

All I could do was offer the forecast. Sorry you wasted the drive.

 

[mntlblok]

Sorry Kevin,

All I could do was offer the forecast. Sorry you wasted the drive.

Thanks, Mr. Bilsant. No apology necessary. I had checked the webcam daily all week and knew that it had been on the rough side, and had suspected that there was a good chance that the viz might still be off. Hadn't realized that it could still be *that* off. Just looked at the webcam again this morning and the "breakers" are approximately one inch high and breaking about two inches from shore. I'd love to hear from someone who dives it today what the viz is like after this sudden change to glass smooth. I'd love to have a better idea of whether one might predict the condition *under* water at LBTS based on above water factors. My last trip there a couple of weeks ago must have 50 feet or more of viz - best I had ever seen.

As to the extra driving, had I not done as I did, I would have missed some of the greatest driving excitement of my life. I heard a noise - I think (memory is spotty for the early part of this) - and remembered seeing some black stuff thirty feet in the air a bit in front of me and was stumped as to what it might be. Then suddenly, the car in the left lane up ahead (I was in the right of three) began spinning around amidst tire smoke. Straight out of a NASCAR event. My brakes wouldn't slow me down quite as quickly as he was slowing, but just before we would make contact, my spotter (or something) got me over to the emergency lane and we just slid by. He came to a stop, finally, sideways in the middle of I-95. He was able to re-fire and move it to the emergency lane, himself, before the oncoming traffic arrived. Oddly, this was about the *only* time, to that point, yesterday, when an incident like that wouldn't have taken out multiple cars in the vicinity. He and I had been sort of isolated at the time. I now recall that his right rear rim didn't have much rubber around it as I passed.

 

[mntlblok]

Considering that it's been blowing for 3 weeks +, 3-4 ft vis ain't bad!

Yer evil.

 

[bilsant]

DiscoZZ, how was the trip. I had to work all weekend or I'd have joined up with the GCS kids and seen you on Sunday.

Mntlblok, glad you got home OK, and yes, I can confirm that Jenny is in fact evil.

Jenny, when are we gonna dive together again?

 

[dlscozz]

Had a good trip with the GSC group.......We went to Datura on Sat and the vis was 5-10ft in most of the areas but we did run into a few very low vis areas.
Sun we did a beach dive to the SS Copenhagen which was a very good dive with good conditions and vis. Good company from the meet-up group, good food at Sea Watch and nice hotel in Lauderdale by the Sea. Santa Barbara Inn which gives a 10 % discount to divers.