RRF dive log
Friday
Blew off work to go diving (imagine that).
Big John bailed again, just Shawn and I (Lynn and Kevin too).
Shawn has a bad kidney infection and can't take his medicine because we will be out in the sun all day. (a kidney is a small price to pay to go diving). Again he dives in the face of great pain. Always a trooper. Privet charter w/ SDD. 6 Nitrox tanks (4 100's and 2 80's). Left the dock about 12:30 pm (Lynn had to be back by 6:00). 2-3 foot seas with a few swells, high tide, and a beautiful day. The plan was to hit a section of old reef just N of the outside reef line off Lynn's reef. Lynn said there used to be a reef there but it was destroyed by monofilament line. (I didn't think it was possible but I won't doubt the captain, later I found proof she was right) We suspected that the rock would be just below the sand.
First dive,
Lynn wanted to scope a spot just N of the inlet on the outside reef line, mostly to see if there was any algae present. We dropped Kevin to see what the area looked like. He reported 70' deep. Little to no algae. Broken patch reef along the roll off to 90'. He thought it looked like it had potential.
Second dive,
When to find the old reef line. Water temp low 80's. Viz 45-60 feet. Turbid near the inlet (down to 15 feet). Light N current. Depth 60-65 feet. We started out just N of the Jump and headed N then W then E. We didn't hit any rock. I think we got off course and were not actually following the old reef line. (The reef lines do not run due N and S) We spent too much time (and air) chasing nothing, should have bailed and surfaced earlier. This area is ruled out.
Third dive,
N side of the N hump on the inside reef line near the S side of the inlet. Wanted to follow the inside reef line N to see if the rock followed N. We headed N and immediately ran out of rock. Headed to the surface shortly thereafter. Short dive. No rock, area ruled out.
Should try S of the S side of the humps in the future.
Fourth dive,
Not exactly sure where? Back toward the N side of Lynn's reef. About 60' deep.
We dropped with only 1000 pounds of air. We made a few probes and hit no rock.
Headed to the surface. Shawn ran out of air and missed his deco stop. He got a slight case of the bends (pain in elbow and shoulder, not to bad). Fourth dive today and we haven't even hit any rock. Moral is fading. We are running out of logical choices to survey.
Fifth dive,
Lynn decides to make a few zig zag runs across the 70' roll-off to see if we can find bottom (on the depth finder) that looked like what Kevin had found on the first dive. She finds an area (slightly S of the inlet on the outside line) and we decide to drop Kevin to take a quick look see. He comes back up with a BENT probe (he obviously hit rock!).
Sixth dive,
We all decide to go back down and give it a shot. We hit the bottom in 70' and instantly Shawn and I got Nitrogen narcosis. It took us a minute to gather ourselves, and decide if we could even finish this dive. We were ok and continued with the dive (albeit narced).
We immediately hit rock and gave it the thumbs up to continue the survey. We swam W till we ran out of rock (100yds or more) then swan N and E following the rock (several hundred yds). We found broken patch (10' x 10' or less) reef only along the roll-off. Some corals on the patches and very little algae. Saw a really cool fish that at first I thought was a scorpion fish, but later found out it was a Flying Gurnard. Kevin had to go up early (out of air). We found a patch that was being killed by monofilament. Now I saw first hand what Lynn meant by mono killing a reef. It does happen! We stopped and cut away as much of the mono as we could hoping to save the coral. Those pesky small gray triggers are back…….. We were both satisfied that this was a good area and headed back to the surface. We even made a full deco stop and had air left in our tanks when hit the surface…..imagine that…..
This was our safest dive yet (except for the Nitrogen narcosis). This was the first time I narced in 70'….. Must have been the repetitive diving and residual Nitrogen. I think we found a potential spot. It's the first time in seven dives we found a place that met most of the criteria. It's a little deep, and has the 15' turbid surface layer from the inlet on an outgoing tide. Clear water below 15'. No silt and corals are present. We could build the reef to 50' so at 5' off, you are only in 45'. Best thing about this area is that it is not to far from a place on the main reef system known as God's spot. Supposed to be the most beautiful spot on Lynn's reef. How cool is it that we can put Raggs right next to God's spot.
Maybe, maybe.
Seventh dive,
Since all went well on the last dive we decided to go spear fishing and hunt for bugs. We should have worked the last area again, but we had too much Nitrogen to dive deep again and had to do a shallow dive. We had already pushed our luck, no need to be stupid (er) We hit midway on Lynn's and dove 40-45 feet deep (top of outside reef line). Lots of algae. Viz was deteriorating to 40 feet. (Tide was going out). Lots of barrel sponges. We collected algae samples to send off to the labs. Few ledges, no bugs. Large schools of baitfish, and a small school of medium Jacks in chase. Shawn shot a nice Hog Snapper (pole spear).
Nice dive to degas.
Total time on bottom today was almost 4 hours.
Brian
