Boynton Beach Florida
Gulf Stream Reef
W/ Splash Down Divers
Had to put new inflator valve on my BC b/4 we left.
Out @ 2 pm
Slight breeze, Sunny, 82 deg air, 80 deg water temp, 1-3 foot seas, Beautiful fall day.
Castle rock, awesome dive, 40 foot viz, usual North current, 100 cf nitrox, made 60 feet for 60 min (Navy tables). Nice relief, 1-3.5 feet here and there. More fish to the West, on broken ground. Kevin dove with the other group as Shawn and I were hunting for fish and bugs. Shawn got one bug (he walked it right into the bag) Saw few shooters, Gag Grouper, Gray Snapper, Hog Snapper. Barely legal so no takers. No Lyngbya to be seen!!!! Minimal Hurricane damage (Francis and Jeanine). Just past the Autumnal equinox and the annual bleaching event was under way. Took a few photos for documentation purposes. Also saw an odd number of barrel sponges dieing????? All in all the reef looked pretty dam good considering. Lots of Monofilament line on the bottom. We removed a good bit of it. Saw quite a few big eels. (Kevin has some good eel stories). Nice dive
Lynn’s reef
Viz dropped to 20 feet or so. Same current.
Dropped on an eel, stayed mostly N and W (on the Captains recommendation).
I got hung in the flag rope and almost came down on another big green eel. By the time I got untangles and snapped a few pictures of the eel, Shawn was way ahead. Once I caught up to him we swan W into current. I sucked down some air but ended up finishing about 500 # less than Shawn (I had a 100cf bottle and he did not). Made it close to 60 for 60 again. Despite the poor viz it was still a nice dive.
Maybe saw 5 bugs total 2+2+1 and 3 or 4 questionable shooters.
Excellent dives
Almost 2 hrs on the bottom
Brian
