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Date: Friday, April 27, Key Largo, Florida
 Finally,
we heard those welcome words – The Pool is Open! Or in dive boat jargon
– the boat is anchored, jump in. Tomorrow is the official beginning of
the Caloosa Dive Club dive season. The charter dive schedule is planned
in October and trips are scheduled with several different dive
operators. This weekend the trip was organized with Cristal Clear
Charters in Tavernier (www.cristalclearcharters.com)
for two dives on Saturday afternoon and two on Sunday morning.
A few divers were too excited to wait for Saturday so a Friday trip
with Island Ventures (www.islandventure.com)
in Key Largo was too good to pass up. The weather was great, the seas
were calm and the water in the Keys had warmed up to about 78 degrees.
Captains Steve & Darrell loaded us up quickly and put us in the water at
Turtle Ledge on French Reef. The reef is a great photography site –
loaded with overhangs and swim throughs and every coral head sported
tiny forests of colorful Christmas Tree Worms. Our crew told us that the
visibility on the Benwood had been exceptional in the last few days and
that it was definitely worth a visit for the second dive. They spoke the
truth. In all of the years we’ve been diving on the Benwood, this was
one of the best days. Pieces of structure spread and curve along the
ocean floor and you could just gaze along the wreckage and see how large
this wreck actually is. The wreck is home to thousands of sea creatures
and parts of the wreck have sea fans sprouting off at all angles.
Peeking under twisted metal plates, a diver can see lots of colorful
coral encrustation and plenty of opportunity for prize winning photos.
The dive gear was rinsed quickly and stuffed back into the truck and
we continued the journey to the Tropic Vista & Keys Hotel in Tavernier.
By 7:00 we were showered, had downloaded our photos to the laptops, had
juicy steaks grilling on the BBQ and were rehashing the day’s adventure.
Saturday - by late noon, we had 24 (or so) divers loaded onto the big
Cristal Clear 46’ Newton. Captain Rob & Divemaster Jason thought we
would enjoy a spot called Betty’s Reef. It turned out that Betty’s Reef
was a very pretty spot with good viz and a “sporty” current. We managed
to bring back all of the divers and head for a spot with less current,
called Amy’s Reef (previously known as Pete’s Reef). The temperature was
up to 80 degrees and although the dive site was shallow, there was no
surge or current. There were some big grouper hiding in the overhangs
and a few divers were surprised by a large Nurse Shark having an
afternoon snooze under a quiet ledge. We anticipate some interesting
photos in the Underwater Photo contest this year – a count of underwater
cameras on the dive boat came up at 12.
By 7:00 pm, everyone was showered, lubricated and looking for dinner.
Pasta sauce (or if you are the right Italian colony – gravy) sent its
enticing fumes through the air and conversation drifted to the success
of the day’s dive trip. Cheesecake (not the Marilyn Monroe kind) wrapped
up a very relaxing evening and everyone headed to his or her respective
rooms. Ours was a luxury suite with two electrical outlets, a microwave
and an air conditioner set at “chill” mode.
A weird little tune on the cell phone gave us our wakeup call at 7 am
on Sunday morning. By now the group is back in prime dive mode. The
first dive of the season is always a little rough. It’s not actually the
diving, but it takes a while to remember how the gear is set up and to
get into the smooth pattern of loading the boat, setting up the
equipment, finding places to put the cameras and spear guns and making
sure everything is good to go. The disorganization of yesterday is a
distant memory – the boat is loaded and the group is ready to go in
record time. When Jason tells us we have 10 minutes until arrival at the
first morning site, everyone suits up and has time to spare – so we
entertain the Captain and Divemaster with our own version of Lola,
Gilligan’s Isle and the Mexican Hat Dance performed with an orchestra of
about 44 floppy dive fins on the deck of the boat. Despite our raucous
behavior, our crew still offers up a prime dive spot called The Secret
Garden. We can’t tell you where it is because we are sworn to secrecy
but it really lived up to its name. Across a wide sandy bottom, there
are huge clusters of coral gardens. Every peek under a coral clump
yields a treasure – a tiny shrimp in a translucent anemone – a bright
red crab waving its claw in search of some crabby delicacy – a hermit
crab that has managed to make a very nice home in an empty shell – a BIG
nurse shark trying to hide from a group of bubbly humans encased in
black rubber.
By now the crew figures we’re going to keep returning to the boat and
they are going to have to find us another good dive site and again they
take the challenge. The second and last dive for most of us is on Little
Crocker. There are all of the normal underwater things to talk about but
for some reason this appears to be Nurse Shark City. A look under a
coral ledge shows not just one – not just two – but sometimes three (or
more) Nurse Sharks cuddled up on the sandy bottom. By the end of the
dive, the sharks are cruising in front of the cameras and trying to
steal some nice Hogfish that the hunters managed to capture. It takes
more than one jab in the nose with a speargun to let the sharks know
that the Hogfish are going back onto the boat with the divers.
Time to take the jaunt back to Cape Coral/Fort Myers with a quick
stop at Hobo’s for some fresh Yellowtail. Damp, tired and very happy –
we declare this weekend – the Official Dive Season Open – a success. |
