The Boynton Dive Chronicles (new and improved)

[Scubakevdm]

Hey I had alot of fun diving today too! I don't have any pics from the morning dives with Kelly yet... I was sporting the old Nik V, as I was directed to clear out the big bricks of film in the fridge by the domestic supervisor. One down, 49 to go.
I did take the digital in on the afternoon trip though.
In the morning, it was flat calm, there was a slight south current, and viz was about 50' or so. We did tabletops and then Gazebo. Tabletops was alot of fun, and we had a buddy swimming with us for a little bit... about a 7' lemon shark. He was, for the most part shy, staying on the periphery, but circled within 20' once that I'm aware of. I tried to get close enough for a picture, but he bolted as soon as I started towards him. All in all it was a pretty good dive. The Canadian fellows that were with us got a great shot of a young green turtle, and there were eels, nurse sharks, etc.
Next we did Castle and Gazebo. This is where Kelly spotted the guitarfish. I also spotted an enormous lobster, but I didn't mess with him.

I don't know what happened over the lunch break, but when we got back out, it was kinda rough. We did The same dive, Castle to Gazebo again, because we had all new people on board, and they were trying to catch lobsters. I figured they could snatch up that big lobster before anyone else did. No luck though with that, he must have ducked back inside his hole.

I was diving all by my lonesome on this one, and I found the most curious and unafraid Blue Angelfish that I've ever seen. There were two smaller Blue Angelfish and a very small Queen Angelfish with him, but they were considerably more timid. At one point, I caught him eyeballing my right index finger, and had a distinct feeling for a second or two that he was considering chomping on it. He did actually nip the lens of my camera, but not very hard. I hung out with them on Gazebo for about fifteen minutes. It was awesome. I'm gonna see if I can find them again.

This guy was very tame.

Here he is again, about to bite my camera.

We did the last dive of the day up at a secret lobstering location. Dave cleaned up pretty good, and if he didn't limit out, he came darned close. One of them was big too. Not as big as the one from the morning, but big. We also found a friendly Hawksbill Turtle who hung out with us for a little bit, and tons and tons of eels out of their holes.

Dave got this one.

Here's Dave and the turtle.

 

[Scubakevdm]

[-]Oops. Sorry about the big pic again.[/-] Nevermind, I fixed it.

 

[ReefPhotoKelly]

Sweeeettt!!!

Duuuuude!!!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed you got a good shot of that Guitarfish.

 

[Scubakevdm]

Only nurse sharks today! Seas were flat again though, at least in the morning. Also a slight thermocline rolled in over the reef, it was 71-ish feeling, but I forgot to check my computer to see exactly what it was. The cold layer was fairly clear, but seemed to concentrate the cloudyness of the warm water. Viz on the bottom was something like 60' and blue, but it was kinda dark. I had trouble taking pictures, but some came out.

Another large bug was plucked off of the reef.

This Porcupinefish seems kinda grumpy, like "Whatever, get out of my sponge with that thing".

I was hovering about two inches over this guy when I took one of the lobster catching pics (not shown), I didn't notice him until I moved away a bit. I'm glad he wasn't one of the twitchy ones!

 

[augie]

Good job Kevin,

I was fortunate enough to be on Kevin's boat yesterday morning, along with my son Jason and my brother Mark ( that's Mark capturing the bug in the picture!)

A typically excellent trip on the Underwater Explorer.

Thanks to Kevin, Captain Alex, and fellow divers Elana and Ron for an outstanding morning.

Oh yeah - the Scuba Diver sandwich from the deli next door to the shop was killer too!

 

[SeaLevelScuba]

Sounds like you guys had a good time Steve. See ya soon.

 

[fisheyeview]

Nice shots Kelly & Kev. Wish I could have made the trip.

 

[Splitlip]

Kevin:
Thanks for the shots.

Boynton is a little piece of heaven.

 

[Scubakevdm]

Okay! I'm back! I didn't get a chance to post anything about the weekend dives as we went, but I'll catch up as much as I can now. I was wiped out every day by the time I got home.

Saturday we started out with Black Condo. With the clocks turned back, by the time we get in the water at about 8:30 or so the fish are just starting to move around out of their sleeping spots, so it's kind of an interesting time to dive. There was a slight north current, and viz was about 50 feet or so. There were fluffy little particles in the water that looked sort of like snow. I think seas were 2-3'.

With the time change, we caught all of the creatures on the way out of the house, on their way to work.

Here's a green moray brushing his teeth. Unfortunately for us, the banded coral shrimp that was doing the cleaning was sort of shy. At one point, the moray had it's mouth wide open and the shrimp was scampering around picking away in there. Unfortunately, I was too far away to be able to pull a shot of it off with the lens I had on. As I got closer they got a bit nervous and took a break, but you can see parts of the shrimp sticking out from behind the eel's mouth.

I also Found some kind of mutant sponge or something. I can't figure out what it is, or find it in my book. It looks like it's made of the same stuff that the barrel sponges are made of. I'm gonna go post it in the ID forum.

Lobsters abound as the end of the season draws near. Nobody was plucking them today though.

Oh yeah... I also found a little stand of staghorn coral that I'd never seen before. I think it's new. 97% of Florida's staghorn coral population has disappeared in the last decade. I was recently added to the endangered species list, and our reefs have been designated as a critical habitat for it. We have been helping Ed Tichenor of Palm Beach Reef Rescue and the FWC to identify and map colonies of this coral.

 

[Scubakevdm]

I'll try to add in the rest of the trips later on today.