The continuing sagas of the Blue Heron Bridge

[Scuba_Jenny]

To keep things on topic...

Here is an octopus I found today. This is my favorite pic of the day, might even be among my best underwater pics ever.

Octo in a bottle:

[chime music]
If I could find an octopus in a bottle
The first that I'd like to do
Is to shoot everyday
Like pho'grapher gone astray
And then to share it with you

If I could make dives last forever
If tides would always be high
I'd log every dive at Blue Heron Bridge
And then share it with you

But there never seems to be enough dives
To cover the east and west spans
But the pillars are very cool
I've looked around enough to know
The shopping carts are illegal
And very near the boats

If I had dive just of wishes
And photos that were all in focus
My SD card would be full
And the batteries still good
And the camera is not flooded

But there never seems to be enough light
And the strobes are so big and heavy
The seahorses are scurrying
And keep moving away
If I could only shoot one
Then my dive will be complete

[end music]

 

[Splitlip]

Nice! Jenny.

 

[sportxlh]

Two hour dive at BHB today. If one stayed south of the west span, visibility was outstanding. Viz dropped significantly near the channel wall and the western piling (the wall) due to the number of divers. Even some of the photographers were kicking up storms. Saw many interesting things today including this caribbean sea spider

Kevin: saw this guy roaming around and eventually make its way to a bottle, where it stuffed about half its body, but never went fully in.

You can see the beer bottle in the background: this is just about the time it started to push itself in for a nice cool drink of hops.

Again, what a fantastic day with mild current, great viz (where other divers were abscent) and lots of lots critters. I did see two other caribbean sea spiders, a mantis, a couple of immature mantis shrimp and one of those odd pointy nosed blennies.

 

[danvolker]

The pathetic skill level of divers at the west side of BHB today was almost shocking. We went from reasonably good vis, to horrible vis in about 15 minutes... worst offenders were two different groups of 5 or 5 divers, crawling on the bottom, kneeling on the bottom, and kicking the hell out of the bottom with a cluelessness as bad as DD with a knife in his hand and flounder in sight

Maybe we need to start carrying underwater signs to show to the clueless, about how you are NOT supposed to silt the bottom.

 

[Reef_Haven]

I would guess hundreds of new divers are churned out every month here in FL. Two days of instruction and 4 dives later they are cut loose and have their cards. Of course they are going to go to the easiest shore dive in the state. Almost every thread you see that starts with "I just got certified, where should I dive?" will be followed by.....BHB!!!

 

[scubajim 1]

Well I still find the effective and then I make a hovering signal. Sometimes it even works, but seriously, if we model good skills a lot of these divers will follow suit.
Or am I in a PollyAnna phase again?

 

[djtimmy77]

Word on the street is that the two (illegal) lobster hotel shopping carts by the blue sailboat have multiplied to 15-20....

 

[joystershell]

Word on the street is that the two (illegal) lobster hotel shopping carts by the blue sailboat have multiplied to 15-20....

Sadly, after an effort to remove all these illegal carts several years ago, they only re-appeared, mere days later.

 

[diverdad87]

Well I still find the effective and then I make a hovering signal. Sometimes it even works, but seriously, if we model good skills a lot of these divers will follow suit.
Or am I in a PollyAnna phase again?

Given the fact that most new divers don't control where their check out dives are, can you really fault them for the poor skills? They are over weight, task saturated, and sucking the side of the tanks in. If you would have done that to me you'd likely get a one finger reply.

Now the divers that know the ramifications of bouncing on the bottom and the overall "meaning" of the bridge have no excuse.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Good dive today. Started out sucky though.. Walked from near the west side to the east side past the swimming area. Just about when I was ready to drop down, I blew an O-ring. There was a class nearby and there and got a good visual of the importance of knowing how to turn the air off yourself. Walked back to the car to change out the O-Ring, and tried again.
Dropped down and continued east, then I looked up to see a silt cloud of students. If you are the instructor that had a bunch of students with bright yellow fins, please work on their buoyancy and teach them the importance of not bicycling and working on keeping the fins off the bottom. Ya'll went right over an octopus who appeared a bit freaked out.
/rant over

Lots of octopi today. Good dive, got a bit chilled, but managed to hang for 90+ min before I had enough. Nice meeting Airolon/Lisa today!