Posted by ScubaStevesWife
I just got back from West Palm Beach. I went diving with our STA Scuba Diving group, got a few of our buddies certified, and enjoyed an awesome day of drift diving.
We dove with Diving Solutions, and did the AM and PM two tank dives. Exhausting but well worth it.
Its bug season, so we were on the hunt. We saw plenty of them, but we only caught one lobster. We were the only ones on the boat casually looking for them, but it was exciting to bring it up and show off our trophy, AND it WAS DELICIOUS!
The two morning dives were AWESOME! 100+ viz, only a mild current, and 87 degree water. We really couldn`t of asked for anything better. The two dive sites we visited had amazing amount of life: grouper, eels, turtle, squid, snapper, of course lobster, and lots LOTS more. The reef seemed wider than ever.
The two afternoon dives were good, but only one of the two held up to what we had earlier that day. The second PM dive had great viz from 0-30` but then the viz drastically changed as we decended to the bottom (60`), it was only 5-10`. There was an upwelling that occurred during our surface interval that caused the viz to drop, much more of a visable thermalcline, and the current picked up by 100%. No kicking was needed, we simply flew over the whole area, an express tour of the whole reef. We held on to eachother, and went for the ride. I was dissapointed with the conditions of this dive, BUT it was a learning experience. It truly shows how umpredictable the ocean can be, it can change at any second, and you have to be able to adjust.
I`m exhausted, time to go gear up for tomorrows diving adventure to Devil`s Den. Got to pull that wet suit out. :(