And I, I took the road less traveled by. I was using a GPS system. ~Robert Brault
As I sat drinking my coffee, I thought……what the heck.
I tossed clothes, dive gear and the dog in the car and started driving for the coast… the other coast…. Pompano Beach to be exact, a short 5 hour drive…. And so the adventure begins.
To get the logistics out of the way let us just note:
Jersey girls don’t pump gas. Still.
My GPS hates me and gets me lost on purpose.
I finally arrive and check into the no tell hotel and unload. Note to self….I gotta be more particular making my reservations.
The Golden Girls are out and about. It is past their bedtime and they have foregone the early bird special to wait for me and pick me up to go to dinner. Sorry guys, just cause you had a 20 hour drive down and 12 previous dives you should not be tired. You also should not remember the words to the theme song from golden girls…..
Let it be known they bought dinner and it was quite good, as was the company and conversation. But it was getting late and we all need our beauty rest for morning so we called it a night.
I have met Dominic and Bob from NJ here in Pompano and am joining them for a day of diving and catching up on the local Jersey news and gossip. We are diving with South Florida Diving Headquarters and our boat, the Safari Diver, leaves at 9am, a most civilized hour, but the air is still a bit brisk here in Florida. A chill is in the air and sweatshirts are in order.
Our first stop this morning is the Sea Emperor. This is a 171 foot shallow draft barge that was filled with large cement culverts and sunk off the coast of Boca Raton. This artificial reef was donated as part of a fine levied on a dredging company that destroyed some reef habitat off Palm Beach County. It listed as it approached its final resting ground dumping the large culverts to the bottom and then flipped as it sank coming to rest upside down.
I have dived this site before. There is a large moray eel and huge ray that call the place home and they joined us for most of our dive.
The eel keeps a close watch on all that goes on and as you swim in and out of the open spaces along the barges hull the eel peeks his head out from within eyeing all that goes on. This eel has been a regular on this site for years and swims in and out of the wreckage and
winds his way among the divers keeping everyone in a constant state of precaution and awe. He is a long thick ribbon of green and snakes his way in and out of holes in the wreckage and large sections of conduit with a graceful fluid motion that you could watch for hours. As he suddenly appears from a crack or small space you are startled but you don’t look away. You see his curious eyes and make out the small indentations on each side of his head. His mouth opens wide as if yelling something and you can make out his pointy little teeth and then… he is off and you watch as foot after foot of his body makes its way on to his next watch post.
There are sponges and corals and all manner of strange sites growing from slowly deteriorating hull and herds of blue tetras and yellow butterfly fish swim past. Sea urchins and the occasional sea slug are scattered about along with queen angel fish, orange squirrel fish and multi hued parrot fish swim in and out of the large cement tunnels littering the sea floor.
We are now down to the sand and on cue from the sand rises a huge ray who floats by us, making only the slightest movements with the outermost edges of his body, veering off the last moment to swim around and come back to look again. As I move along the sand looking for a shell for my bucket I am buzzed several times with the slow precise pattern of swimming up along the sand and veering up and back in a large loop only to repeat again. They are a brown gray mottle atop with their eyes in front and long spear shaped tail behind and as they make their loop you can see their white underbelly mouth. It does get your heart to pumping but you still can’t look away.
After several traverses and circles of this site it is time to go up from the 73F water to the 60F air…brrr.
Our second stop for the morning is a ledge. This requires some navigational skill as there is a false ledge jutting out from it and if you are not careful you can drift to the end of it and then nothing but sand….
No…. I do not offer to navigate….. I follow Thelma and Louise who proceed to swim off the ledge… on opposite sides….. being compass impaired, I do not try to correct them but having no idea who to follow I swim between them, taking in all the sea life below and chasing fish in and out of the stags head coral and huge barrel sponges. We are actually not lost but have over compensated for the false ledge and run over the far side of the ledge catching fish, flora and fauna galore. Hog fish and trunkfish, small trumpet fish and displays of bright blue and yellow abound. Damselfish and small squirrelfish, spotted trunkfish and spotted eels. Parrotfish of all design and sponges and corals in barrel shapes and long fingers.
Warm water and soft currents and endless sights to see and all too soon this dive came to an end.
As I sat drinking my coffee, I thought……what the heck.
I tossed clothes, dive gear and the dog in the car and started driving for the coast… the other coast…. Pompano Beach to be exact, a short 5 hour drive…. And so the adventure begins.
To get the logistics out of the way let us just note:
Jersey girls don’t pump gas. Still.
My GPS hates me and gets me lost on purpose.
I finally arrive and check into the no tell hotel and unload. Note to self….I gotta be more particular making my reservations.
The Golden Girls are out and about. It is past their bedtime and they have foregone the early bird special to wait for me and pick me up to go to dinner. Sorry guys, just cause you had a 20 hour drive down and 12 previous dives you should not be tired. You also should not remember the words to the theme song from golden girls…..
Let it be known they bought dinner and it was quite good, as was the company and conversation. But it was getting late and we all need our beauty rest for morning so we called it a night.
I have met Dominic and Bob from NJ here in Pompano and am joining them for a day of diving and catching up on the local Jersey news and gossip. We are diving with South Florida Diving Headquarters and our boat, the Safari Diver, leaves at 9am, a most civilized hour, but the air is still a bit brisk here in Florida. A chill is in the air and sweatshirts are in order.
Our first stop this morning is the Sea Emperor. This is a 171 foot shallow draft barge that was filled with large cement culverts and sunk off the coast of Boca Raton. This artificial reef was donated as part of a fine levied on a dredging company that destroyed some reef habitat off Palm Beach County. It listed as it approached its final resting ground dumping the large culverts to the bottom and then flipped as it sank coming to rest upside down.
I have dived this site before. There is a large moray eel and huge ray that call the place home and they joined us for most of our dive.
The eel keeps a close watch on all that goes on and as you swim in and out of the open spaces along the barges hull the eel peeks his head out from within eyeing all that goes on. This eel has been a regular on this site for years and swims in and out of the wreckage and
winds his way among the divers keeping everyone in a constant state of precaution and awe. He is a long thick ribbon of green and snakes his way in and out of holes in the wreckage and large sections of conduit with a graceful fluid motion that you could watch for hours. As he suddenly appears from a crack or small space you are startled but you don’t look away. You see his curious eyes and make out the small indentations on each side of his head. His mouth opens wide as if yelling something and you can make out his pointy little teeth and then… he is off and you watch as foot after foot of his body makes its way on to his next watch post.There are sponges and corals and all manner of strange sites growing from slowly deteriorating hull and herds of blue tetras and yellow butterfly fish swim past. Sea urchins and the occasional sea slug are scattered about along with queen angel fish, orange squirrel fish and multi hued parrot fish swim in and out of the large cement tunnels littering the sea floor.
We are now down to the sand and on cue from the sand rises a huge ray who floats by us, making only the slightest movements with the outermost edges of his body, veering off the last moment to swim around and come back to look again. As I move along the sand looking for a shell for my bucket I am buzzed several times with the slow precise pattern of swimming up along the sand and veering up and back in a large loop only to repeat again. They are a brown gray mottle atop with their eyes in front and long spear shaped tail behind and as they make their loop you can see their white underbelly mouth. It does get your heart to pumping but you still can’t look away.
After several traverses and circles of this site it is time to go up from the 73F water to the 60F air…brrr.
Our second stop for the morning is a ledge. This requires some navigational skill as there is a false ledge jutting out from it and if you are not careful you can drift to the end of it and then nothing but sand….
No…. I do not offer to navigate….. I follow Thelma and Louise who proceed to swim off the ledge… on opposite sides….. being compass impaired, I do not try to correct them but having no idea who to follow I swim between them, taking in all the sea life below and chasing fish in and out of the stags head coral and huge barrel sponges. We are actually not lost but have over compensated for the false ledge and run over the far side of the ledge catching fish, flora and fauna galore. Hog fish and trunkfish, small trumpet fish and displays of bright blue and yellow abound. Damselfish and small squirrelfish, spotted trunkfish and spotted eels. Parrotfish of all design and sponges and corals in barrel shapes and long fingers.
Warm water and soft currents and endless sights to see and all too soon this dive came to an end.
Captain Sean took us in for tank refills and lunch and soon we were on our way out once more. This time to the Union Express, a 170 foot freighter, broken in two and laying in 110 feet of water 1 ½ miles east of the Pompano Pier.1. Originally a freighter in the Northern Sea, she later carried food and supplies in the Caribbean. In 1990 the ship was seized by US Customs for drug running and in 1992 she was sunk by the Pompano Fishing Rodeo as part of their artificial reef program.
We dropped down on this site and my requisite blonde moment occurred. We hot dropped from the back of the dive boat and began to descend when I notice Bobs fins tangled in the flag line. I helped to untangle him and caught my trim, looked down at my computer to continue my descent and …. and …. and there was no computer…..from about 30fsw I went back up, flagged the boat, the captain handed me my computer and looking out we saw two sets of bubbles…. not together . They were searching for me and so I descended on the nearest set of bubbles to continue the dive. I quickly caught up with Dom and we swam back to find Bob and continue our dive. Like Batman and Robin to the rescue they had been searching for and found me. I believe Dominic said he fought whale sharks and pirates and 2 alligators coming to my rescue. I don’t want to doubt him but really… 2 alligators!!!…one I can believe but 2…..
The wreck was reminiscent of a jersey wreck with cloudy green water and only about 15 foot of viz. There was just a slight current running and only the 74F water gave hint to our real location. Broken in two with low lying walls in the center the wheel house rising up from the water at one end and the bow propped at an odd angle at the other this ship lays north to south. We swam the length out and back and looked in and about the rear structure. It is stripped of its propeller and anchor chains, but fish swim in and out of the slowly deteriorating walls. I imagine there would be barracuda normally on this wreck and several large fish but with our limited visibility I am sure the larger inhabitants were just out of our sight while I am sure we were not out of theirs.
An excellent little dive just feet from two other dives I would like to make, the Rodeo-25 and the Miller Lite. These are part of the Wreck Graveyard, a group of 7 wrecks within 1000 feet of each other. Too soon our time was up and so were we. The air warmed by the sun making sitting on deck quite pleasant.
Our final dive and off gassing was to be the Qualman Tugs. A group of 2 pusher tugs and a 34 foot vessel called the Dorman. We were told divers can usually see the resident Bull sharks leaving the area as they descend but we did not. Visibility had deteriorated below the water line as the sun began to make its appearance above. Groups of fish swam in and out and size and variety of sponges and corals never cease to amaze me.
After drifting through this area we were soon on a reef and off to sightsee and off gas.
I began this dive carrying the dive flag, but with constantly clearing my mask from a persistent leak (I have grown some pretty long hair but have no idea how to manage
it, especially around my mask apparently) about half way through I passed it off to Dominic and spent some time looking inside the barrel and vase shaped corals and sponges. There were ones of almost every color and deeper than my arm could reach. Fan corals waved in the currents and small fish swam about. I took the flag back for a bit as Dominic found a spotted eel who seemed quite disoriented. Totally outside the reef and wrapped around some coral outcropping. I am hoping the pictures he took came out so I can add them here.For a long stretch we moved along and no fish were in sight. It took me a moment to figure out what was wrong with the picture below me. The corals and sponges and anomies dotted the ledge but no fish swam about. And suddenly as if on cue, schools of fish began to appear again, spade fish and angels and all of their friends. Weird.
Visibility was getting worse and so much time in the water was taking its toll of cold. Amazing how water in the 70’s can go from feeling so warm to so cool by the end of the day.
We were back aboard and headed back to the docks where we sat and talked til dark. Just relaxing on the dock, smoke a cigar, rinse the gear, talk of NJ and diving winter and summer. Family and friends. As a great dive day fades into the warm night air.
The rest? Well …. Let’s just say that the Bit** on my dashboard took me home a different way then we came, just one more adventure which again included more than one gas station….. yes the trip can be made on one tank of gas….. Oh well…. And Dominic and Bob eat “healthy”…they inspired me to stop on the way home and pickup chicken and a salad….. but as we all know…. I am hopeless… I followed it with a HoHo. Oh Well…
Thanks guys, for dinner and great dives….. safe home.