Saturday, January 18, 2020

 
Fog Bow Kind of Day


link to accompanying photos:


It is a nice mid-January day when you are loading the boat at 6 am in your T-shirt and shorts. The rest of the day didn’t disappoint. Initially the fog was pretty dense as we headed out, with an occasional buoy appearing in the milk-bowl where it should be. All eyes were forward as we continued into the Gulf. At 25kts the viz wouldn’t provide much time for avoidance if there were any other adventurers out, but we didn’t see anyone all day. 
 
Sol was cooperative as we approached our AOR and the sky was getting bright, creating a pretty amazing “Fog Bow” that was persistent for quite awhile.
Paul started us off on our rotation with the first dive on a pretty good patch of hard bottom. He wasn’t able to fill his “pickle jug”, but he did manage a respectable showing of lion fish. (I don’t think we have had any full jugs since the hurricane.) It was good to get a report of decent viz and no current. 
 
I was up for the next dive in our rotation. It was a pretty interesting dive on some concrete pipes and big cables, a site I hadn't seen before. I cleaned off the lion fish and then managed to nail 3 nice mangrove snapper.
Al’s 1st dive wasn’t quite as satisfying as mine and Paul’s. Apparently, as best I could determine from his explanation, the “repair” he had made on his BC the night before didn’t take, resulting in his having to cope with a water-filled sack for buoyancy compensation. He was too stubborn to dump his weight belt for the ascent, so he got a good workout swimming up and waiting on pick-up. He didn’t have to wait too long. Good thing he saved that weight belt. Between the three of us, we probably don’t have more than about 300# of weights to replace it with. I think he did manage a respectable number of lion fish and a very nice Lion’s Paw. I haven’t seen a live one of those since H Michael. 
 
My 2nd dive was on some nice hard bottom. The anchor drop was pretty precise. There was a nice big Florida spiny lobster on each side of the anchor and they were accompanied by a couple of lion fish. I wasn’t anticipating such a bounty and hadn’t brought my lobster bag. I could have gotten one of the bugs in my jug but instead decided to sweep the reef for lion fish and come back for the lobster. While policing up the LF I came across several more spinys. This was a really nice reef.  We usually wait a year before back-diving a reef but this was a little different situation. After I got some “sit”, time Paul and I went back down to tag team the bugs. It was pretty exciting. When you each know what is suppose to be happening, crew coordination isn’t a problem. I think I was the bag man more times than not and we were able to gather up 7 bugs and a bonus Triton’s Trumpet which my hand found while groping after a bug that had backed under a ledge. That was a better outcome than what Paul had a few dives back, when he managed to find a lion fish the hard way.

I hope the weather will offer us another calm day soon.  Maybe I'll get my fill of diving someday, but that hasn't happened in the last 30 years.

































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