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We left Freeport for Key West at 8 AM on
Monday, May 5, with a pit stop in Fourchon,
Louisiana on the way. The weather was good
while I was driving, deteriorated while
Melanie was driving, and went completely to
crap when John was at the wheel. As soon as
I came back on watch, the seas calmed and I
began to have a very high opinion of myself.
We stopped in Fourchon and took 800 gallons
of fuel, serviced the engines, and off to
Key West. Flat seas while I was on watch,
getting worse when Melanie came on watch,
and completely to crap when John took over.
When I came back on, they flattened once
again. Now, I’m getting insufferable. We
repeated the process the next day again,
except I couldn’t get it to calm down when I
came back on, so we continued to Key West in
4-6’s on the port bow, not too terribly bad
of a ride, especially compared to last year.
The trip took 3 ˝ days, we burned 2200
gallons of fuel, tested the watermaker, and
refilled all nitrox banks with 36% for our
first charter. We boarded the Ault mission
on Sunday evening, May 11, and got underway
for Dry Tortugas National Park. Dr. Gerald
S. Ault is a Professor of Marine Biology at
University of Miami (Go ‘Canes), and
conducts a reef census survey (corals,
lobster, and fish) in the Dry Tortugas
National Park and North Ecological Reserve
every 2 years. This year is an Ault year.
The diving is a little different from a
sport diving trip, as all diving is
performed “live boat”, and no diving is done
from the buoys. It’s a great way to find new
dive sites, but very nerve wracking on yours
truly. We set many records for diving this
year, due to outstanding weather and some
other factors with 800 dives performed and
over 200 sites surveyed. That total is
almost as much in one leg as the total of
2004 (the highest total year). We expect to
blow out previous totals away in the next
leg. Weather was good (not great), but we
were able to pick dive sites based on wind
direction and wave height and get a full day
in every day, some days were more than full,
with us working until 7:30 or 8:00. We had 9
full days of sampling, and a ˝ day on the
last day. Back to Key West for beer and
frozen drinks, and we will get ready to take
some sport divers out with us on the next
trip. We hope to see some of you
here for some tremendous early summer
diving. Capt Frank
M/V Spree
Stock Island, FL |
