Key Largo Penny Camp National Park
Head boat with full crew. Maybe 10 or 12 with us.
Beautiful day with 3 to 5 foot seas inside the reef (pukers on board).
25 foot viz 70 deg water.
First dive was on the train wreck (barge loaded with train axels).
Not much left of the barge but scattered train axels here and there.
Nice relief to about 10 feet. Depth was only 20 feet. Lots of Stony corals, big lobster and big snapper (inside the park). Small swim through,. Dove with Daina, Dave, and Christine. Maybe 45 min on bottom. Had to navigate back to the boat. I brought us up right at the boat (probably the only one that knew how to use a compass)…
Good dive despite the conditions.
Christina and Dave are good divers and look forward to diving with them again.
Second dive
Christ of the abyss.
Large concrete statue of Christ @ 20 feet. Surrounded by a coral amphitheater of sorts.
Captain warned us not to go on top of the reef by the amphitheater, but we did it anyway. Totally by accident as it was only 3 feet deep up there. Strong wave action made it a very shady spot. The group was broken up after that little incident and I was on my own. I found Pete snorkeling and gave him my octo so we could buddy breath. He was very buoyant (wet suit w/ no weights) and it made for some difficulties keeping us both down. We made it a good ways before his mouth piece separated from his reg. I noticed it before he did so I got to see the look on his face when he realized he had no air. He looked at me astonished and I motioned for him to give me the mouth piece back. He handed it back to me and swam to the surface. I could tell he was cool about it because he acknowledged me and did not freak out. This was his first test and he passed for sure.
After that I was on my own again. No one was around so I went to hang out with jesus. I spent about 5 minutes floating around upside down in zero gravity pondering in serenity.
He has a metal cross hanging from a chain on his belt. The statue was untouched except for a small spot on the cross he wore. I figure that this was where most people were rubbing on it while they were there.
I rubbed the cross and said a long prayer for Ginger.
After saying my peace I went back to the boat only to find out that when Pete got back they were going to leave. They thought everyone was on board but I was still in the water. He informed the captain that his brother was still in the water and could they please wait for me so I did not have to swim the 3 miles back to shore…….
Bottom time about 1.5 hours