Diving On The 4th - PCB

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Wayward Son

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Diving On The 4th

Wow, I'm going to have to work to find the words to describe this. I made it out for a 2 tank inshore trip with Bil & Scott for the 4th of july. Bil had an open water student doing her checkout dives, so he felt that the Black Bart was where he really needed go for for the first drop, and we could pick any other inshore site for the 2nd.

Well, given that I'd like to shoot some fish the Bart isn't my 1st, 2nd or 12th pick, but it's usually a nice dive in any case so why not?

We rode out in calm seas under a clear sky to find clear, blue water when we got there. Scott & his wife jumped in to chain us off & we were marveling at the small fish schooling under the boat & how clear the water was.

I geared up, rolled in & loaded my gun. I find myself in the midst of small fish, minnows or some such maybe an inch or so long. I follow our line down to the Bart & I'm surrounded by this school the entire time. It was a bait ball running from the deck of the Bart all the way to the surface. At times it was so thick that I couldn't see out of it, while my face & head kept getting hit by these tiny fish.

When I could see around it, there was a variety of predators schooled and hunting. Greater amberjack, other jacks, spade fish, spanish mackeral, snapper, grunts and more.

The viz on the bottom, while not as good as the top 40' was still quite good for the Bart. Better than I've mostly seen it there.

I did manage to bag one snapper on the sand, but most of what I saw was just too small. Late in the dive, I had 1100 pounds of gas left and was hanging along the edge of the deck looking down in case I saw something worth dropping down for a shot on, when a 6' shark cruised past, coming from behind me. Never saw it again, though I hung around the deck for a while. No idea what kind it was. I signaled the students husband who was close to me at the time that I'd seen a shark, but it turned out he never saw it at all

Ascending the line once again put me in the middle of the bait ball. Sometimes I could see the edge, others nothing but millions of tiny fish. During my safety stop I could see out more and watched the bigger fish working the ball. Nothing of any real size came near me, though there were barracuda schooled high in the water column.

It was unquestionably an amazing dive and the absolute best dive on the Black Bart that I've ever made. Funny how an "Ok, let's hit the Bart again" trip turned out to be so incredible.

For our 2nd drop we decided to hit the Twin Barges. As the tide had been going out for hours, the viz there, while OK, was not as good. Still, the site swarmed with life. I saw 1 jewfish inside a hull, another out on the sand. There were schools of baitfish everywhere and it seemed that every bit of road bed I looked at had various smaller fish holding to the structure. I even saw what I'm fairly certain was a red grouper (too small), which I never see on the shallower inshore sites. A couple of gags but they were also short.

There were bigger AJ here, but I'm not sure if any were the required 30 inches or not. Some looked like they may well have been.

Bil and Scott both did fairly well on flounder. I guess my eyes are getting out of practice on them as I didn't see any and was looking, but so it goes.

Water up top was in the 80's, then a thermocline and about 75 at depth. I was fine for both drops in a microprene skin, but if you get cold easy it may still be 3mm temps for some.

On the way in, we stopped at Shell Island and was fortunate to have a large dolphin come swim with up. Bil got several pics, with any luck some came out good enough that he'll send them in.

It was really a fine day on and in the water. His student couldn't have asked for a better set of dives to start out with and had a dolphin encounter to boot.

Can't wait to do it again :wink:
 

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