DEERFIELD BEACH LEDGE
Our next dive was a drift dive on a ledge with no particular name. To the Captains credit we were dropped directly on the ledge and this was a truly relaxing and amazing dive.
I wish I recognized more fish because I had about a gazillion questions. Many of the fish here were quite mature and therefore large. The sponges and coral were thick and colorful with hundreds of varieties to observe. I know there were stoplight parrotfish and other parrotfish, squirrelfish, batfish, hogfish, sheepshead, trunkfish, one that looked like a rock, and another much smaller green eel and a spotted moray eel.
As we cruised along I was intently looking under the ledge when my buddy put a hand on my arm. I looked up and was face to face with a small sea turtle. He was very curious and just swam around us for quite some time before taking off. Way cool kinda describes it.
This is the first time my dive was defined by the type of gas I was diving and not my tank size. My computer told me to call the dive at 50 minutes 62 feet with 1200 lbs left in my tank. Nitrox is in my future.
The surface chop had picked up some and we floated for a few minutes on the surface with other markers coming up around us and the boat came right in and picked us up and we were on our way home.
I like the reef dives.
Of course I needed gas on the way home but I will not bore you with my story of getting lost in the Panther preserve since I dont have pictures because I was scared too get out of the car. Lets just say I may have scared myself enough to learn how to pump gas. Florida has a sick sense of humor on where they put gas stations, there are only 30 panthers left and the reason is probably because they all try to cross this road.