dldiver
Guest
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.
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.