Pompano Beach Dive #1
I was invited to dive with the Caloosa Dive Club (Fort Meyers area) and after last week I was looking forward to it, things were looking up. Of course it was in Pompano Beach almost a 300 mile trip. I hate to drive, really. But I was going to share the driving with a dive buddy, Walter. I got to drive 130 miles to his house and he would drive the rest of the way. This would mean that I have to leave at O’Dark 30 (6:30AM to be exact) for a 1PM dive but that does seem to be the usual around here. But I didn’t have to drive it myself!!! Maybe...(More on this in dive #2, you know how my dives go guys)
Weather on the west coast was horrific and I received doom and gloom from the local dive shop as I filled my tanks, but I was determined.
I arrived early at Walters house and we packed up his jeep and off we went. Since we had gotten an early start and I had yet to see an alligator in alligator alley we stopped to try our luck. At first it seemed futile, but then I saw one! And saw another and saw another and then one really big one saw me and came over to take a look. They have an amazing speed, grace and dexterity in the water. They are definitely DIR. Luckily they cannot climb rocks. Having fulfilled another item on my Florida wish list we continued on our way.
We arrived in Pompano Beach early and stopped for breakfast. This caused us (some of you may remember my TGI Fridays troubles...this place must be part of the same company) to be late for the boat. We arrived with seconds to spare and loaded on board. There were 20-25 of us, the sun was shining and it was 79 F. Not a bad day for diving. This boat was different than others I have dived before. There was no dive platform just gates to each side which you walked up to and just made a giant stride into the water.
The first dive was on the Ancient Mariner wreck. This was the former USCG Cutter "Nemesis" that was decommissioned and turned into a floating restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale. Due to her aging hull and the fact the restaurant was condemned for the largest outbreak of food poisoning in the history of Ft. Lauderdale, she was sunk as an artificial reef in 1991. It was not recommended we eat anything while on the wreck. We tied in at the bow and descended to the top deck. There was a bit of a current and the water temps were 74 F and visibility about 60 feet.
I made an initial swim all around the exterior of the wreck and my first observation was that there was little marine life about the exterior of the boat. I moved on to explore further, there were many large cut outs and swim throughs making this both fun and interesting . And once inside I found where all the fish were hiding! I made my way up to the top section which must have been the wheelhouse. This had multiple large windows encircling the entire portion of the structure. I peeked in through the openings and the fish were so thick inside it looked like a huge aquarium. I am still not good at identifying different fish so I just enjoyed the passing parade of marine life until it was time to ascend.
31 minutes at 69 feet, a most pleasant dive.
Upon surfacing the boat presented another new experience. The entry ladder was a straight up stainless steel thing similar to a pool ladder. I handed up my fins and climbed on up.
While the mate untied from the wreck we scanned the water and noticed what appeared to be some plastic bags floating about, as they got closer we realized our mistake. They were actually Portuguese Man O Wars. Lucky we were moving on to the next site...right?