Favorite Dives

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  2015-06-06 United States Key Largo. Florida
  The Slab

  Simply known as "Slab", this reef may have been one of the best dives yet! It's small with a lot of crevices and low swim-throughs, especially at the "point" where our Captain, Steve, dropped his anchor. Off of the point, he told us, about 100 yards at a bearing of 220 degrees was an archway that we needed to visit and swim through. An easy traverse back, and around the opposite side of the Slab clockwise would bring us back to the anchor. This is a reef that isn't on most maps, or any that I could find (thus, I'm not sure of its exact location). Capt. Steve says he comes here often to dive and explore. It's obvious that the reef isn't visited by many, as it is very healthy and clean, with an abundance of marine life. We started off exploring the crevices and swim-through at the point. Here, I saw the first lion fish I've seen yet--actually a pair of them. (Not a good sign, but beautiful to see nonetheless!) Cam or Billy, or someone--not sure who--shot a bearing to the archway and we played "follow-the-leader" out to the arch. I stayed a bit behind never losing site of the diver in front of me, or Joseph behind, who stayed back to explore the cave a bit more. Swimming through the arch was cool, as there was a slight current, stronger than anywhere else on this dive, it seemed, and the fish were hiding out under facing and swimming into it, not moving forward at all. But the real treat was swimming back over. Crystal clear waters at that depth, and very colorful, I had the opportunity to shoot some great video of two butterflyfish bobbing up and down around the bubbles coming through the coral from the divers below. Our trip back was over the same, sandy flat bottom sprinkled with all sorts of coral and sponges and small reef fish (including a rather large squirrel fish). We returned to the point, where I filmed the two lion fish. (I later noticed in the video a large grouper hanging out behind them that I hadn't paid much attention to while filming.) We left the point again to circumnavigate the slab. Again, we came across an abundance of reef fish of all types. The highlight, though, was an ancient loggerhead turtle that Billy found. He was half hidden under a low ledge. As I swam by, I was truly amazed by his size! His head was bigger than mine, and he looked very old. We all gathered around while Laurin desperately tried coaching him out of his hiding place. He finally obliged and, as he did so, swam a full circle around me and then slowly swam back over the reef off into the distance. I'm not sure of the size: maybe 5-6 feet long from head to tail, with a 3 1/2 to 4 foot long carapace. He may have been as big as a VW! (Well, he looked like it under water!) At any rate, Billy said later it was the largest loggerhead he has ever seen. And it was a great conclusion to the best dive trip I've been on! Incidentally, we reported the lionfish siting to Captain Steve. SAC = 0.98 cf/min

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  2015-06-04 United States Key Largo, FL
  Uscgc Duane (Wpg 33)

  First dive on the USCG Duane! Sunny and warm, with calm seas and a light current of 1/4 knot. This trip was a ad hoc gathering of friends, Cam, Joseph, Billy, Laurin, Jen and myself. We descended on the stack. Cam and Laurin were working on their wreck and deep specialties, so they went with Billy and Jen, Joseph and I went to explore the ship. We did a few swim-throughs, swimming over the starboard side toward aft, then back and through to the port side. I saw a large grey angel and other smaller reef fish. We continued to swim toward the bow with another swim-through on the way. Jen and Joseph continued swimming to the bow against the current, while I stayed back to conserve air. We then returned to the line and ascended. I got a few more shots of the ship from above. I noticed the flag was almost new: I found out later that she is replaced on every Memorial Day. Overweight: next time try 14 lbs. SAC = 1.19 cf/min

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  2015-06-04 United States Key Largo, FL
  Uss Spiegel Grove (Lsd 32)

  As with our first dive today, our group split with Laurin and Cam following Billy for their coursework, and Jen, Joseph and I swimming toward pilot house to explore the ship. We decended the line on the port side near the bridge, same as with my last visit to the SG. We swam through the pilot house, emerging over some cutouts to a below-deck where there were 3 very large blue parrotfish swimming about. (Further study indicates these may appear to be midnight parrotfish, Scarus coelestinus, because of the shape of their heads and lighter blue markings on their heads.) Jen had said she wanted to descend to 120' (she had gotten down below 100' on our last dive, so we descended over the starboard side near the pilot house, touching the sand at 131 feet! We then swam to the flag to meet the group for some photos. Splitting up again, we swam down the starboard side toward the bow, and made a few more swim-throughs. Apparently, just after we split, Billy, Cam and Laurin saw a reef shark and tried to get our attention, but we never saw it. We swam back to the line and ascended among a very light current, doing our PDIS and safety stops. MOD 137 @ PO2 1.6 SAC = 0.86 cf/min

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  2018-06-15 Ecuador Darwin Island
  Darwin's Arch

  Darwin Island arguably only has one dive site, and that is at Darwin Arch. (We can just assume from this point forward that we saw hammerheads and galapagos sharks on every dive.) Nonetheless, each dive here brought on a different experience. This time, we briefly settling in with the others along the ledge at 70'. I say "briefly" because we were soon up and swimming along with our first of many encounters of a whale shark on this dive. After first entering, Jen pointed out a scorpionfish. These were abundant, and not so much interesting to point out except this one happened to be in our path as we made are way across the boulders. (Later inspection of the video revealed that this may have been a player scorpionfish, but the video is too bad to tell for sure.) I had been wary of accidentally setting down on one of these and ruining my day, but so far we avoided the little landminds. Back to the whale sharks: about 5 minutes into our dive, and shortly after spotting the scorpionfish, Paulo's rattle engaged and I saw him pointing up. Near the surface swam a large whale shark, and soon I heard the tale-tell ascent warnings as everyone ascended to get a better look. (My dive profile, as it turns out, looks more like a heart rate monitor than the pretty flat lines found in the analogue charts.) For a short half-hour, we stayed relatively still as the shark swam figure-8s, approaching us 6 or 7 times during the dive. It turns out that our buddies noticed that this wasn't a single whale shark, but a pair that were swimming in the same path, but opposite of each other. The pair was apparent as one of them had a notch near the tail, and the other a scar on its underside. At any rate, after thinking our first dive-of-the-day could not be topped, I was finding out I was wrong. I had my closest encounter yet with a whale shark, as one threaded between me and a few other divers: totally spatially aware, she tilted to sideways as she swam by: one pectoral fin over me, the opposite under the diver directly on the other side. As soon as she cleared us, she glided back and moved effortlessly through our bubbles. As she went by, the water swept over me with a surprising amount of force from her tail. (We had been warned not to get to close, as an accidental *whack* could send us spinning through the water!) Each pass was as exhilarating as the one before; each time tempted to reach out just a few inches to feel their skin as they glide by. But all of us behaved and just took in the scene, and before we knew it our time was up. We ascended through a thick school of creolefish and jacks to our safety stop, where we were greeted again by one of the sharks. As I began to surface, I noticed a silky shark swimming tight circles around James, while everyone else in the group stayed their distance! I was about to film him when I noticed James already has his camera out, so I kept watching instead. Then the little guy darted toward James! I later kidded him that I was frantically reaching for my GoPro at that point so I could get the attack on video! But she apparently was more curious than hungry, and swam away shortly after. Back on the panga, Jen popped up shortly after I climbed on the boat, with one of the whale sharks directly below her. I yelled out at her to "look down!" and when she finally did, she said her fins were nearly touching. She popped back up wide-eyed and smiling. A great end to a perfect dive! This, indeed, is why we're here.