Over twenty of our members traveled to the east coast for a fabulous weekend of diving and fellowship.
 
Steve R. Smith, his son Brian, Ron Robinson, and Alan Marshall arrived early Friday morning for Lauderdale-By-The-Sea beach dives.  They managed to log three each and reports are they all had a grand time.  Nancy Fuentes and I joined MaryAnn McCampbell for an afternoon dive in her Lauderdale-By-The-Sea back yard.  It really is a beautiful reef with lots of life.
 
Saturday morning the entire group met at the South Florida Diving Headquarters dock to board the Coral Princess, a 45 ft long catamaran with lots of room for our 22 divers.  As usual when diving with SFDH, we started our voyage to the sound of the theme to Gillian’s Island.  Captain Shane and Divemaster Ed were very helpful and friendly, their personalities and attitude made them favorites with everyone. 
 
While the seas were not glassy, they were pretty close to it, giving us a very nice cruise to our first official dive on the annual Wreck Trek, the Captain Dan.  The Dan has been on the bottom since 1990 in 110 feet of water and has lots of growth.  It is a big intact wreck with several places you can safely penetrate and a few of us did.  With very little current, over 100 feet of visibility and a great wreck to explore, we all had a blast. 
 
Our second dive was on the Union Express, a broken up wreck lying over on its side in about the same depth as the Dan with fish everywhere.  With almost no current, Nancy and I left the line and made a freefall toward the wreck.  As soon as we hit the water, we could see a large opening in the in the side of the wreck and we directed our freefall toward that opening.  As we descended, we saw a small Jewfish through that hole.  As we passed through that hole, the Jewfish saw us coming and exited the area rather quickly.  This is a beautiful wreck and I believe everyone enjoyed it. 
 
The third dive of the day was on one of my personal favorites, the Ancient Mariner.  The Mariner is a small shallow wreck with lots of openings making it easy to swim from bow to stern inside the wreck, something I do almost every time I visit this wreck.  Ken Roop found the largest gathering of Bristle Worms he’s ever seen and took lots of photos to prove it.  Several folks took cameras on every dive; I know I didn’t see Barry Erhardt, Eva Maloney, Nancy Fuentes, Ken Roop, or Lynnan Grissinger in the water without their cameras.  With all the great photo opportunities, I know they’ll have lots of beautiful and interesting photographs to share.
 
Saturday afternoon, Nancy and I again explored MaryAnn’s back yard, but this time without MaryAnn as she wasn’t feeling up to a fourth dive.  Nancy loves taking photos of juveniles and she got plenty of time to practice on this dive as they were everywhere.  We found an octopus lair and I’m reasonably sure I can find it again.  While we could see the octopus inside, Nancy wasn’t able to get a photo of it.
 
Several of the folks (mostly the group from the Friday morning dives, but I think a few other folks as well) joined SFDH on a night dive, again diving the Ancient Mariner with a shallow reef (I didn’t hear with one) as the second (or sixth) dive. 
 
Sunday morning, we again gathered at the dock and boarded the Coral Princess for a longer cruise than the day before as our dive sites were a tad farther south than those we dived Saturday.  Again, we had calm seas and lots of visiting with members and crew. 
 
Our first dive was the Jim Atria, a large intact wreck sitting in 135 feet of water, our deepest dive of the trip.  Few folks went to the bottom, most of us dived it like we dive the deep wrecks in the Keys, staying well off the bottom.  This is a great dive even if you don’t exceed 100 feet.  This may have been everyone’s favorite dive.  Starting down the line in almost no current, we were greeted by a school of about 200 Atlantic Spadefish hanging out beside our line.  The water was a deep blue and visibility was incredible, maybe 120 feet.  Truly, this was an awesome dive.  Nancy tried, unsuccessfully, to snap a picture of a Midnight Parrotfish that was as big as her.  Everyone was smiling the entire dive.  At our 50 ft safety stop, I left the line and joined the school of Spadefish that had waited for our return.  I love it when I can ease into a school and be accepted as a member.  I slowly cruised around, never in a hurry, never more than about a foot from my neighbors until it was time for me to move up to my next safety stop depth.  I regretfully said goodbye to my temporary buddies and rejoined Nancy near the line.
 
Our second dive was the Rebel, a wreck that is slowly breaking down, but still as much fun to dive as the first time I visited it over 10 years ago.  The bow and stern are still holding up nicely giving opportunities to get inside for the adventurous.  There were lots of fish all over this wreck with one large Green Moray Eel just about dead center of the broken down deck.  This guy looked like he’s lost a fight with Rocky Marciano, taking a hard left to the jaw.  The right side of his jaw was to the left of the left side of the top of his face.  It’s a wonder he can eat at all.  On this dive, I noticed improvements in some of our members' diving skills.  People are improving their kicking technique and getting more horizontal in the water.  I’m very glad we have members who are striving to improve.
 
Our final dive on the Merci Jesus and the Tracy was the only dive with any current at all.  As Divemaster Ed put it, “Nothing too hateful,” but we all noticed the current on this dive.  There were differing opinions on just how strong a current we faced, one diver said she felt like a flag in the wind while other divers ascended and made multiple safety stops off the line.  My favorite description of the current was made by Eva Maloney.  She said she thought the names of the wrecks should be reversed.  She thought Merci Jesus would be a much better name for the Tracy because that’s what she was saying on her swim to the Tracy.  Even with the current, several folks made the trek over to the Tracy to explore a second wreck on one dive.  I personally had a blast on this dive. 
 All the comments I heard from members about this entire trip were very positive, some telling me it was the best trip of the year and that it was much better than last year’s Wreck Trek.  I know we’ll be planning a trip or two with South Florida Diving Headquarters in the coming year.  This was easily the best club dive I have been on in quite some time.  The diving was awesome, the crew was friendly and helpful, the group was fun, and the price was right.  Broward County is the place to go for great wreck diving.