Trip Report- Key Largo May 11 & 12

Benwood and Molasses May 11th <--click for link to pictures
Went out with Ocean Divers- nice operation for a big boat.
did you all know that they had all steel tanks on their boats?

Anyhow, we were supposed to do the Duane in the morning, but when we arrived the mooring balls were practically underwater due to the strong current so the captain decided to go check out conditions on the Spiegel Grove... the current was still quite brisk there and had kicked the sand up to the surface so captain said no on that site too. We then tried French Reef, but apparently the boats that were already there were unintentionally swapping divers so we went on to a 4th site...

Finally got in the water at the Benwood wreck.
Conditions were nice, slight current and viz was about 50'. I ended up diving with a nice group of guys from Atlanta and Miami, found a lobster taunting us, lots of cleaning going on, love the swarming school of midnight parrot fish and found a resident in a nice big conch shell. we did 2 laps around the site, took lots of pics and finished the dive after about 35 mins.

2nd site was Molasses Reef:
another nice 35 minute dive, always lots of life on the reefs in the keys and even had a nice buzz by a reef shark! he hung around long enough for me to get a couple pics-posted in the link above.


Benwood and Molasses May 12th <--click for link to pictures
The next morning I had already planned to dive with a group from Orlando that included OTownDiver, FlStarfish and Vias...
we went out with Rainbow Reef and did the same 2 sites.
First stop was Benwood again (link to video) Viz wasn't quite as good Saturday morning, but all the same creatures were hanging around- I love the swarming school of midnight parrot fish(did i say that yet??)!! We decided to pose with the resident scorpionfish, found some more lobsters, a nice little spotted golden eel and plenty of christmas tree worms as well.

At Molasses we tied up near Fire Coral Cave and swam around enjoying all the beautiful reef life there! The swimthrough was pretty cool and the rest of the dive slightly uneventful.
Until the end of couse, we were hanging under the boat just burning off the last of our gas when a nice long green moray comes to visit.. he was swimming freely out in the open and headed right for me! Fortunately I still had memory and battey on my camera to take this nice long video!

Hope you all enjoy!
dl.

Cool!!

I enjoyed your pictures D'Anne. I got to do KL again when I get back from Wisconsin. Check out my picts from Grand Bahamas where I was last week, great diving, rough seas due to the non storm.

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=2402

D I knew you'd like diving with Ocean Divers those tanks are pretty nifty. Molasses can be hit and miss but I think I ran into the same reef shark the last time I dove there.

Cheers.

-J.-

The free swimming video was quite nice.

35 minute dives? Were there some issues that caused such short dives.

On Saturday I did the morning dives with Blue Water Divers and we had easy conditions on the SG (almost no current, the water was blue but a bit snotty), and then a nice second dive at French's Woody's/ Turtle Reef (the deeper outside section) with a big old Goliath hanging out. Only 6 divers onboard made this a nice trip

A passing shot on the Grove (with divers hanging on the line in the background)


The Goliath in wide angle


Safety stop at French


In the afternoon I made a quick run over and went out with the Minnow. With 3 divers (including myslelf) we took our time and picked the sites based on the conditions.

One of my favorite images from the weekend.


I posted some images from Sunday's dive in another spot on this board. But in summary the 3 tank trip my group did with Divers City (just 6 divers on their 30' Island Hopper) was a 5 hour laughfest trip with outstanding conditions, both for WA and Macro.

wow, thanks for sharing the awesome pics and videos!

All of the pictures and video's were very nice thank you, I was out on the 11th,12th and 13th and the chop was not to fun but we still enjoyed ourselves. I to was out by Molassess and a few other reefs that day. What a nice way to spend Mothers Day.

Jeff -
i saw your report in the other post it looked like you had a great time!
i was definitely jealous when i read about it! Looks like i got the worst conditions friday morning... i just ended up bailing on the Friday afternoon trip since the boat would have likely ended up at the same place...
then because i already had plans to go out with the group from Orlando Saturday AM i ended up doing the same dives anyway! It was a fun time though.

friday's dives were short because I was just tagging along with other divers who were ready to come up..in fact I only ended up using one tank for both dives! (I've never been the first one back on the boat before...interesting! )
Saturday's dives were much better - a hour each...

nice pics - i'm sorry i missed my chance to dive with you and get some good photography lessons!

next time!
dl.

Just to continue the weekend from where dldiver left us, the rest of the group from Orlando headed out for some evening/night dives back on Molasses reef. The sunset dive was amazing, as there were creatures everywhere! We had a fairly close visit by a curious reef shark, a couple of good sized nurse sharks, a turtle, numerous eels (green and spotted), tons of barracuda and of course all the reef fish you could ever want to see.

The night dive was a first for all of us in the group except our fearless leader, Ranger Rick! What an unforgettable experience! We covered a lot of territory on the immense Molasses reef and got to see a lot of the same animals, though it was a whole different experience with them in the dark. The highlight for me was a nice turtle that swam right up to me and just passed by within about 6 inches of my face! If only I had had a camera. In fact, everything on that night dive seemed interested in checking me out closely, a large nurse shark swam up and just out of arms reach, and the barracuda were quite interested in checking me out. One barracuda even let Ranger Rick pet its underside with a stick he keeps on his BC!

The next day we headed out to the Spiegel Grove and were quite happy to see no current and that you could actually see the bottom from the dive boat!! The dive was cool and we saw a solid 150 lb goliath grouper hanging out by the side of the wreck. I was impressed by the SG's massiveness, but I was ready to get back to the reefs.

We hit French reef next and while nothing could top the previous evening dives, the vis was excellent and there were a couple of cool swim throughs we did.

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures, but I may be purchasing a camera this weekend, so I'll be ready for the rest of my diving adventures to capture some of the awesome stuff we divers get to experience in the water!

Reef sharks have been showing up at Molasses alot lately