Dive reports with beach/weather conditions

[SkinDvr2000]

Tuesday I had about 5 ft vis off Alhambra via kayak, Wednesday it was up to 7 on the bottom. Mid-afternoon it dropped to 3 ft, maybe the tide was going out.

 

[divindiva69]

5/8/14
S Venice Beach 8:30 am
Tide high @ 9:06 am
Winds ESE 12 mph
Depth 19 fsw
Time 100 mins
Temp 79 degrees
viz variable. @ the blocks, 3-4. Further West, a few inches. Lots of silt and snot in the water. Some surge from the swells today. Pulled up lots of rope from abandoned crab traps. Saw 2 Atlantic spade fish, snook, flounder, small tropicals.

 

[JesperS]

Blah

5/10
Service Club
82 degrees
9 am
2-4ft rollers

2 or 3 hrs of prep and loading and gearing up. 3 hrs loading back up, unloading, rinsing, haning.

5 mins in the water

Virtually nil visibility. Would have been doable solo but had two teenagers to keep an eye on. We all agreed and called the dive.

2 kayak divers went through the same routine.


Thought we would be golden based on the weather this week but I guess it has been windier than I thought.

In short: that sucked, and now I need a nap.

 

[UntamedSpirit]

Did I speak to you this morning Jesper? I went to service park to check the conditions, and spoke to a couple of people.

Water looked a little better later in the day, I tried to get out around 4pm, had maybe 6" vis. Called the dive after getting to the sandbar.

 

[J_Green]

I went out this morning with a buddy of mine. His first dive at Venice. We went out at Alhambra around 8:30. We swam out about 1/4 mile before we went down. Viz was about 2 feet. We pushed straight west the whole dive and ended up about 1/2 mile offshore by the end. Deepest I saw on the depth gauge was 27 feet. Found most of a 4", a nice 3.25", half a 3' and half of a small meg. Once you got well out there conditions were fairly usable for my tastes it opened up to about 4-5 feet at best further out. Didn't see a lot of wildlife thanks to the viz, but we still enjoyed it. The waves really picked up on the swim in and there was a fairly strong current near shore moving parallel to beach. Ill post the pics in the finds thread.

 

[JesperS]

Did I speak to you this morning Jesper? I went to service park to check the conditions, and spoke to a couple of people.

Water looked a little better later in the day, I tried to get out around 4pm, had maybe 6" vis. Called the dive after getting to the sandbar.

Hi Untamed, I don't think so. I spoke with one gentleman on the boardwalk who had some questions, but he was not a diver, and I checked with the kayakers to see if they were scubaboard members (they were not).

---------- Post added May 13th, 2014 at 08:23 AM ----------

Forgot to mention it, but my folks were at Manasota Beach sometime this weekend, and around lunch, the lifeguards started blowing their horns and ordering everyone out of the water. They used a paddleboard to retrieve a gentleman swimming way out past the swim buoys and hauled him in.

They claim there was a 14 ft hammerhead inside the swim buoys which chomped a tarpon in half.

They would not let anyone back in the water afterwards.

 

[divindiva69]

Tuesday 5/13/14
S. Venice Beach @ 10:30 am
Winds ESE 11 mph
Tide High @ 11:24 am
No swell
In 17-22 FSW
Water temp 79 degrees
Time 97 mins.
Viz, variable. In the blocks, 1-3 ft. @ 20 fsw, 6 inches. @ 21 fsw, I could barely read my compass. Then a cloud went overhead, and I wished I had my flashlight. Turned around and stayed in the mitigation reef. Found a heartbreaker, yes, a heartbreaker, lying in the sand. Pic will be posted on pic page.

 

[Aristakat]

Tues 9 am south manasota vis 6-8 ft water temp 80 wire swim suit and rash guard all day no wetsuit east winds

330 pm boneyard vis was rough maybe 2 ft most places in 22 ft. East winds rain all around but not in boneyard ironically nicest meg found was in low vis last 5 minutes if the trip

Looks like front coming wed/Thurs winds turning nw till week end

 

[SkinDvr2000]

Tuesday I had about 5 ft vis off Alhambra via kayak in 28 feet of water, dropping to 3 with outgoing tide. Wednesday it was 3 ft and surfaced with 2 to 4 ft seas, skipped second tank.

 

[UntamedSpirit]

Good dive this morning. Seas were pretty much flat. Went out of service park about 9:30am, had about 4-5' of visibility. There was a layer of silt over most everything, vis went to 0 if that was disturbed, reminded my of Dutch Springs. Somehow missed the reef on my way out saw it on the way back. Didn't find much in the way of teeth.

Started getting cold at the 70 minute mark, probably should have worn the full suit instead of the shorty.