We were all excited for this mornings dives. There was a total of 16 divers from Discover Diving Dive Center on board for this trip. Most of us were on Nitrox and a few divers had not done their certification yet so they were on air. As you may know, diving with air, your bottom time is much less than diving with Nitrox (Tanks with a higher percentage of oxygen in it). Those divers with air tanks had a bottom time of 30 minutes, while Nitrox divers had a limit of 45 minutes.
Our first dive was on "The Danny". Named for a 16 year old Danny McCauley who was in a tragic automobile accident. This artificial reef was sunk two days prior to our dives on February 22, 2013. This 110 foot World War II vintage tugboat, formerly called the Pocahontas, was deployed perfectly upright with the bow facing south. Being a relatively small vessel at a moderate depth with plenty of open areas to explore this promises to be an excellent dive for openwater divers. We dropped down and with the northern current pushing us, we landed right on the wreck. The tugboat sits in 74 feet of seawater with the deck in the 50 foot range. Large holes throughout the wreck make this a perfect wreck for getting all of the required dives done for your wreck certification. It hadn't been down long enough to do a penatration dive for our wreck certification divers this time so we will have to come back another day. Oh Darn, we will have to make another dive trip down to West Palm Beach. LOL Once we got around the tug a few times, it was time to drift onto our next wreck site, "The Spud Barge". All of our air divers had used up their aloted time of 30 minutes at this point so they were on their way back to the boat. Those of us who still had enough air to get to this point got to see the two groupers that lived on this wreck. We even got some video of these two beautiful creatures. By this time it has been just about the full 45 minutes and most divers have used up their air or reached the 45 minute limits and we all made our ascents to the boat.
Our second dive was "North Double Ledges". This dive is always a great one with two ledges to follow along the bottom. Once again we filed off the charter in two sets. Because this was a drift dive and the current pushes you with the direction of the ledges, it allows for a nice relaxed dive, while seeing all that the ocean has to offer. Not everyone gets to see what the other does. There were sightings of a shark, many Lionfish, a Scorpion Fish and a Moray Eel, just to name a few. These dives are always fun because most of the time, the two groups catch up to one another and divers that don't always get to dive together, end up together.
Hope to see you on our next trip down south.
Happy Diving!
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