Holy guacamole, what a trip. The weather forecast was calling
for flat calm seas, and this time, NOAA delivered. The seas were like a parking
lot for the entire weekend, with no squalls, not a breath of wind, 86 degrees
surface temperature. Unfortunately, NOAA never predicted the howling current of
68 degree bottom temps. That's right, current was stupid strong, and the
upwelling from the deep was un-fricking-real.
We got underway from Stock Island at the usual time, arriving at the North
ecological reserve to tie in to Dante's Inferno at 7 AM. I noticed the current
was a little strong, as evidenced by the wake thrown by the mooring ball, but,
as in all things, I figured it would slack as the day went on. WRONG, but it did
get significantly stronger. The fish at the bottom were holding on for dear
life, and so were the divers. We had 16 passengers, 3 members of the press doing
a feature on oil impacts on the Dry Tortugas, 2 members of the Sanctuary Staff,
and Captain John and his lovely bride stowing away. Showing the press the
conditions in the Dry Tortugas in a howling current was NOT what I needed this
year. Anyway, we tried 2 moored dives and decided that drift diving would be the
only way anyone would see anything. Now, I'm used to drift diving with 24 NOAA
scientists, but some of these divers were barely out of Open Water class. We
assigned divemasters and trip leaders and away we went.
The first dive of the afternoon was at Alice in Wonderland. The current was
strong enough to move the divers 1.7 miles in 45 minutes. Bottom temps were 68
degrees, and bottom visibility was 30 feet. However, there was a murk layer in
the thermocline that had 0 visibility. We did the second dive at little bank,
where we had far better conditions. Little bank is only 44 feet deep, so the
long drift (1 hour 10 minutes) was done above the murk layer/thermocline. Lo and
behold, during the night dive, current dropped to near zero, and we were able to
do a night dive on 8 fathom rock. We spotted many blacks and a goliath, along
with the usual night denizens of the reef.
Saturday's dives were not nearly as successful as Fridays. We put the divers in
at Bat Cave for the first dive. Those of you who know the Dry Tortugas know that
the reefs out here are patch reefs. Patch reefs are like little jewels out in
the sand, but you gotta find them. I figured that putting the divers in at bat
cave would let them see the reef, then drift across the sand, finding more reef
patches as they went. That worked fine in some cases, but some divers acted like
they were in Cozumel and waited for the reef to come to them. I had very mixed
reviews on the dive, from we saw nothing but sand to we saw lots of patch reefs.
For the second dive, I moved to the largest reef tract in the Dry Tortugas,
Dan's canyon to What the heck. I underestimated the strength of the current
again, and after the divers covered some 1/2 mile of reef, they saw sand for the
next mile and a half. Or some of them did, 2 groups were in the sand, 2 groups
were on reef. The same 2 groups that were on reef in the first dive were on reef
the second dive too. The third dive I took them out of the Ecological reserve to
dive the edge of the Tortuga Bank. We put the divers in, and 2 groups followed
the reef most of the way. 2 groups saw nothing but sand. It got a little
frustrating.
Fro the 4th dive, we went to visit Ft. Jefferson instead. I figured I couldn't
screw that one up much. Ft. Jefferson was a brick oven, the thermometer on the
boat read 114 degrees, it must have been 120 in that place. Everyone enjoyed the
visit, and back to the water we went. We made our last night dive on Texas rock
which everyone agreed was the highlight of the trip. CP shot photos of cryptic
teardrop crabs, and the resident grouper were booming at the guests.
Our last dives of the trip were on the Vandenberg. We arrived to see squalls on
the horizon and a blowing current. We tied to the buoy 6 and set current lines.
Current was high at the surface, but slacked off below 40 feet. Current further
slacked on the second dive. The divers had a great time.
Sadly, we will be saying good-bye to Chris Mitchell, our own Boy, Man-Boy, Man
Candy, or Twinkie for the rest of the season. Chris is off to Ziare, Zimbabwe,
or Zambia to be an aide in a AIDS and Cancer Hospice. He is a nursing student,
and that's the way he will spend the rest of the summer. Tune in to
www.twofriendskeywest.com to see us wishing him well, and singing him into
the future this evening. Fair Winds and Following Seas, Twinkie.
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