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We met our 10 customers at the Rusty Anchor
restaurant for a delicious seafood meal
before our departure for Dry Tortugas. As
the weather forecast was a bit snotty for
the latter half of the trip, we got out on
the bank and right down to it. We made our
first dives at Mushrooms where we were
greeted by a southern stingray, nurse
sharks, lots of hogfish (we call them
swimming sandwiches), grouper, and a whole
host of small critters. After 2 at
Mushrooms, we went on to a new to us site
called Cooper’s Reef. Coopers is in the same
complex as Mushrooms and Brickhead, but is a
little shallower, with totally different
stuff. We were treated to a tarpon, black,
tiger, and Nassau grouper, and all of the
usual other suspects. Sunday morning we
dived Sherwood Forest where the divers saw a
big loggerhead turtle, some black grouper,
and lots of healthy corals. We moved after 1
dive to Alex’s Mountains. This is a very
large dive site with 5 distinct hills
surrounding the mooring. We saw 3 goliath
grouper on 1 dive, as well as many small
colonies of staghorn coral. Some of you may
know, the staghorn died out a few years
back. It’s nice to see it coming back to
life. The site is so big, we spent the rest
of the day exploring it. The afternoon’s
entertainment was spawning blue angels.
After the night dive, we moved on to Hog
Heaven to get ready for the next morning.
The best laid plans of mice and men. At
about 2:30 I woke up with the boat pitching
and rolling and both at the same time. I
figured that if I couldn’t sleep, neither
could anyone else, so we fired up and
anchored at Fort Jefferson in the Dry
Tortugas. Seas that day were 5-7 out on the
reef, so we chose to dive in the park and
have a fort visit. First dive was Texas
rock, a new site to us, where we saw Goliath
Grouper, schools of porkfish, a big nurse
shark, and scads of yellow-headed jaw-fish.
We moved on to NAFC, a large sprawling patch
reef, where we saw lots of little stuff that
likes patch reefs—wrasses and juveniles, a
big nurse shark and a squilla (look it up).
After the third dive, we visited the fort
for a couple of hours, then anchored at the
fort for the night.
Tuesday the wind was still howling, so we
dived on the back side of loggerhead reef at
a site named Shutterbug. Shutterbug consists
of at least 15 coral pinnacles rising up
from 72 feet to within 30 feet of the
surface, and is covered with fish of all
kinds. Visibility wasn’t so good, 30 feet-ish,
but it was one of the best sites I’ve been
on anywhere in the world, top 10 for sure.
Healthy sponges, corals, crinoids, anemonies,
spotted lobster, spotted scorpion fish, and
dolphins. 6 wild bottlenose dolphins spent a
few minutes hanging out with our guests, and
almost rubbed on Debra. She smiled. After
three dives on Shutterbug, we moved to the
Avanti, or french wreck. We had a nurse
shark, 6 foot long goliath grouper, lots of
grunts, lots of other grouper, lots of
snapper, and lots of divers. After the night
dive, we went back to the fort to anchor.
Wednesday morning we knew we would only
do 1 dive on the Avanti before heading for
Key West to do the Duval crawl, so after
making sure the same fish were in the same
places, we pounded our way home to Key West.
Thanks to all of our guests for a safe
and fun trip, and congratulations to Alan
for tripling his lifetime dives, and Joe for
doubling his. Emilia almost hit 400 dives,
next week for sure.
Captain Frank Wasson
M/V Spree
Stock Island, FL |
