LBTS/Dania Area Shore diving 11/20-21

[KeyLargoBrent]

Hot soaking bath, echinecea with goldenseal, vitamin C, homemade chicken soup, good nights sleep...what else is left? Here it is going on day 3 and the sore throat is worse.

Meanwhile, I hope ya'll have a good dive.

... LOTS of water! Get well soon.

 

[KBeck]

Simon and I will be at Pompano 12th Street @ 1:00 this afternoon; hope to see a few people there!

 

[showboat]

I am jealous that I cant dive for the next few weekends, I am stuck in Tallahassee for the next 2 weekends before I get home back to Hollywood. Ft Lauderdale beach cam looks like a perfect day for diving and I am sad.. Have fun

 

[ReneeC]

Let me know how the conditions were! I need at least a little vicarious right now! Client's kept me at their beck and call, and call, and call all day so didn't dare risk getting under. Next weekend for sure!

 

[simbrooks]

Nice dive on sunday afternoon. We arrived around 1pm, found one of the 4 elusive spots by the showers, pumped it with change and chatted for a few moments whilst rigging up with another pair just coming out.

There were about 12-18in wavelets breaking on the shore, nothing too bad. Scubaguy had already been out that morning as had the other pair, they said it was quite green and sands had shifted due to hurricanes, but i dont think it was too bad. I would say viz was 15ft at worst and close to 30ft at best, we jumped in around high tide, so that might have hindered the conditions. We swam out about 100yds or so and dropped down, there were a couple of patchy reefs, that actually got quite shallow (11ft) with sandier reaches between (17-18ft), i think we crossed two larger sandy reaches - although we seemed to swim due east for the longest time The first line was patchy, but ran into an area that looked like the honeycombing around LBTS, the second line was lumpy coral/limestone, the drop off was just after a healthy looking section of coral on a heavy limestone reef - again just like LBTS when you go far out. So after about a 30-35min swim out we reach the drop off, a good number of fish, lots of nice nooks to peek into. We swam south for about 15-20 mins or so. We maxed out at around 25ft, but we didnt hit the bottom of the drop off - checked out the fish for a while and then headed back in on WNW. Came in pretty much dead on the parking area - with the north current to assist Krista was trying out her new E7-80 water cooler bottle with her recently dived new 5mm wetsuit although still used so little air it made me want to baulk!

The water was ok for viz, temp in the mid-70's, there was some kind of thermocline from 75 to 77 out further, couldnt approx the distance, only that it was out nearer the dropoff. Just as a precaution i put a bit of the old alcohol solution in my ears to keep them away from further trouble. It was a good 80 min dive, could have been longer, but wasnt sure how long it would take us to get back in so thought better safe than sorry! Sorry no-one else could make it out there.

 

[Scubaguy62]

Great report Simon; you guys made it all the way to the Pompano drop off??? Wow...dive boats go there...that's quite a ways out!! Anyway, glad you guys had a good dive. We definitely have to do the next one.

 

[simbrooks]

Great report Simon; you guys made it all the way to the Pompano drop off??? Wow...dive boats go there...that's quite a ways out!! Anyway, glad you guys had a good dive. We definitely have to do the next one.

That is two drop offs now, LBTS and Pompano. It was quite a ways out, constant kicking for the best part of 30 mins is all it takes! The shore diving guide suggests the dropoff reefline starts at 400yds out from 2nd St, so i guess its about the same at 12th St. with another 100yds across that line to the drop off itself. Makes my SAC suck though, i reckon it must have been upper 0.4's, of course Krista came back with a ton of air, but she only has little girly lungs - She complained about me tearing along the reef, once i had made the effort/spent the time to get out there i wanted to see as much of it as i could. There was some life further in, but more on the drop off. Saw a good few eels poking out of holes in some of the reef. If i wasnt so intent on keeping an eye on the compass i probably would have checked around more and tried to note how the reef lines measured up distance wise. We heard a good bit of boat traffic along the way, however there were some jetskis zipping past us on the surface swim, so it could have been them as well as other boats. I really feel the need to get a diveyak to take the edge off the swim out that far, Krista suggests a larger tank (i had my empty double 120's in the car, but didnt like the idea of the walk down the shore with those ) to get more time out there. We shall see next time, might stay on the surface a little longer to conserve air seeing as the boat traffic is thinning out a bit.

 

[Scubaguy62]

Well, other than the usual suspects (hogs, damsels, grunts, groupers, doctor fish, surgeon fish, blue tangs, a couple of gray Angels, 4 eye butterflys, and a trigger that kept following my reel and ended up taking a smal bite out of my finger when I waved him off, and the like), we manage to strike the company of a sharp tail eel who was out hunting, two yellow stingrays, a blue fin scorpion fish (actually I think it's really called a humpbacked scorpion fish..I only say blue fin because he moved when we got close and his pectoral fins looked a lot like those of a flying gunnard fish), and a couple of lobsters, and that was only at the third reef (the patchy reef, sand, honeycom reef, sand, then third reef)

LBTS is a great dive, but I believe this site runs either parallel, or a very, very, very close second (1st IMHO, 'cause is closer to my home )

 

[KBeck]

I had personally never made it out to that (2nd or 3rd?) reef at LBTS, so I was very pleasantly surprised when we hit the dropoff...after 30 minutes of swimming, I was getting a little concerned, and actually would have turned the dive had the guys we just met coming out of the water not warned us that it was a good 1 mile out....so, we hit the reef, and I wished I had a light with me to peer into all the holes and crevices...had my buddy not had a sudden burst of energy to go as fast as possible, I could have inspected the same little section for the entire dive.
Also got to try out both my new toys (finally); the new 5mil Henderson wetsuit (don't think I can ever go back to the regular wetsuits again) and the very cozy new Steel 80. FINALLY, a tank that allows me proper trim. I think I'll be playing with my weighting for quite a while, with all that change at once.
Rick and Angie, sorry about your car troubles; hopefully we'll dive together again soon!!

 

[simbrooks]

I wished I had a light with me to peer into all the holes and crevices...had my buddy not had a sudden burst of energy to go as fast as possible, I could have inspected the same little section for the entire dive.

Maybe you should go cavern diving with me if you want to shine lights in dark places??? I saw enough stuff outside the little holes to keep me entertained....

Also got to try out both my new toys (finally); the new 5mil Henderson wetsuit (don't think I can ever go back to the regular wetsuits again) and the very cozy new Steel 80. FINALLY, a tank that allows me proper trim. I think I'll be playing with my weighting for quite a while, with all that change at once.

Maybe we can keep you diving through the winter???? Sorry about taking away your 2x1# weights and leaving you with 2x2#'s again. I think i needed that little extra when it came to the end. I think if i put a cruise liner attached to your line to tow around you would still come back with loads of air!

Have to set up this dive again with Rick and Angie to see what there is in the area.....