Actually, after today's dive, we could call ourselves the Florida Sand Divers. It was a nice, long swim with some great dive buddies (Rick and Angie were a team, and I buddied with Marvel and Jenny.) We entered just South of the last rockpile in front of the Embassy Suites and swam northeast. The reef ledge was pretty low-profile (~2 ft), so we swam over some gorgonians and out onto the sand, thinking that we were heading to a better reef line. And we continued to swim over sand. And we continued to swim over sand. We picked up a few very nice sand dollars and we continued to swim over sand. Did I mention that we were swimming into the current over a huge expanse of sand? (vast expanse of sand - wasn't that from Ozymandias? No, that was "The lone and level sands stretch far away."
But I digress)
Anyway, it was a helluva lot of sand.
The nice thing was that when we raised up off the bottom (I ran low on air - Jenny and Marvel still had plenty.) we were able to ride the current most of the way back to the beach. We spent the next few hours hanging out together on the beach (It was pretty hot, but Rick and Angie came prepared with tents and umbrellas that we clustered around. My family was able to join us, as were Krista and Lee, and we all spent time snorkeling around the beach, looking at a medium-sized (~3ft) barracuda that swam right up to shore.
All in all, a good day with good friends. Right now, I'm a little red and cooked and raw, but I'm still planning to try to dive in the morning, around 0700 from Greene Street in Hollywood. (That's in the water by 0700 - tomorrow's a family day.)
Safe ascents,
Grier
