Back home and warming the house up this morning. I already miss the weather in South Florida!!
We headed down to Englewood for our annual Christmas holiday with the in laws. This year they purchased a nice place on a canal near the bay. So we hauled the yaks and dive gear south for a much needed vacation. Goal was to come back with a Meg tooth. The west coast was pretty much a bust right from the get go with storms blowing through and a bad case of red tide in the area. I hit the beach and immediately had a bad reaction to the red tide. My head instantly filled with crap and my nose started running, like a river, non stop! No beach combing for me. Kate found some nice teeth but I blanked. We did try to scooter out off of Venice but in my excitement to get wet and hauling 2 sets of gear down, scooters and my new banks board, I forgot my weights. We got out past the pier just north of it and I could not get down. Diving sick, no vis (6-12 INCHES) and poor planning on my part had me tired and disappointed, so I called it a day and headed back to shore. I had set up a trip on the Aristakat with Capt Jamie but that was blown out from the storms as well. So we kayaked about and did some hiking at a couple of parks, visited her brother and sis n law and had a nice Christmas. No Meg tooth for me this trip!
But they will be there when I go back in April.
Next we headed east to Ft Lauderdale and a friends house to set up camp (literally
). We set up my tent on his back sun porch and threw the cots down.
First sight on the hit list was BHB. First day we had an amazing 90 minute dive and followed up with a trip the next day with our local freind who had not dove in 40 yrs. We had another great dive and after a while my buddy got his groove on and was diving like a champ. 2 days at BHB is just not enough!!! I love that place.
Here are some of my favorite shots.
After being blown out on the west side, I wanted to do a boat trip with the scooters. Question was do we do Jupiter, WPB, Boyton or KL? I decided on KL since it was Kates 4 yr diving anniversary this weekend and KL is where she was certified. Called around KL only to be turned down by the first of the 3 shops I checked with because of the scooters. I shot a message to Chris at Silent World, knowing he owns TDS and is a techy. I knew he would allow the scooters onboard. He hooked us up and hauled us out to the Speigel Grove and the pool was open. I had my new Go Pro3 on the nose of the scooter. Dropped it in the water and tied it to the tag line. By the time I jumped in and hooked onto it. The little go pro had fallen off, the sticky pad did not hold, thankfully I tethered it to the scooter the night before so I would not loose it. I ran it up to the boat and handed it to Capt Todd and away we went. This was the first time in the ocean on the new to us scooters. My Hollis H160 was about as much fun as a guy can have with his swim trunks on and after getting Kates Mako's boyancy sorted by adding a 3 lb weight to the nose, we were off to explore the Speigel Groves exterior from stem to stern, top to bottom.
Next was beach dives off Datura in LBTS. I swear you folks in SF are so darn lucky to have these waters to play in. We did a double dip on friday with the first dive with the scooters and I towed my friend while Kate rode her Mako. We explored the first and second reef and I let John my buddy try them the the first time. He said it reminded him of riding a roller coaster, with out the rails.
Second dive was a photo dive and we slowly ran the first reef from the peir south. Saw 2 turtle, 3 nurse shark, Nudi's, cought a big slipper lobster, and simply had a blast.
See the rest of the shots
here .
