Conditions

Winds: West 5 knots

Seas: Less than 2ft

Air Temp: 90

Water Temp: 86 bottom

Current: Slight North

Visibility: 500ft

Dive 1: Dema Trader

After two dives, I felt like I was comfortable on the scooter and ready to take it on a ride. After watching two of Jody’s backward roll entries I was ready to give it a go. Blades set to full; I pulled the trigger pin and rolled in. I landed under the scooter without a problem. However, doing this sort of entry with full wings might make for a more painful experience.

We followed the ball line down the Dema Trader. The first lap up the bow ran us through a school of Midnight and Rainbow Parrotfish dinning on fresh algae. We rounded the bow and headed up and over into the hold. Time to see how good my maneuvering was. The hold is filled with concrete debris so we made two laps around the inside without hitting anything. I learned when the lead guy takes his hand on the trigger, I need to as well or there will be a collision. Flaring my fins out in a backwards kicks also works as a brake.

Now that we had seen one wreck, we were off to the Sarah Jane on a South East course. There was a lot of debris along with the sand with remote outposts of sparse fish along the way. The 50ft of visibility was good enough to see hills and valleys in the sand indicating there was a structure near by. The Sarah Jane was a barge with some debris around it. The fish that lived there seemed unconcerned by our presence, as they hadn’t seen many divers before.

Next we headed due south for the Sheri Lynn. 2 minutes later we came right up on the stern section. The school of a hundred Horse Eye Jacks that I saw on the Tacoma two weeks ago were over here now. Being able to travel around a wreck from a distance gives the site a whole new impression compared to slowly swimming around it. Next stop was the Bow section. A quick buzz around it and Jody picked up the rebar trail to the Rio Miami.

On the way west to the Rio I saw a fish dancing 5 ft off the bottom. Cool, it must be doing some sort of mating dance I thought. As I got closer I saw it was hooked, ah the one that got away. Closer yet I saw it was hooked through the belly, “Dam, that’s bait!” I looked all around for the monofilament line attached to the bait to avoid entanglement. Wouldn’t I be some catch! Luckily I was clear. The Rio Miami was peacefully resting on the bottom with that slight list to starboard. We stopped to peak in the engine room, but it was too tight to get in with the scooters. At the pause I also put another wrap on the towline and added a double ender to get the scooter a little closer to me. My hand was cramping up trying to hold on to the scooter.

The adjustment made the trip North back to the Dema Trader much more enjoyable. A couple minutes later we were back at the Bow of the Trader exactly where we left. 22 minutes round trip, not bad at all. I was extremely impressed with Jody’s navigational skill. Considering he used to swim/drift between all these wrecks, having a scooter makes it all the easier.

I saw the bubbles coming from inside the cargo hold. “Yankee One, requesting permission to buzz the tower?” “Yankee One, permission denied.” Time for the customary “cool guys on the scooters” to buzz the poor swimming divers. I buzzed right over the top of Andrea and she responded with the middle finger of love!

We buzzed the wreck again and found a Southern Stingray off the stern in the sand. I followed it for a little while and then returned to the wreck to start our ascent. We pinned the trigger and turned the blades to zero and headed up from a great dive.

Dive 2: Flamingo Reef

Charlie’s Wife Ana was up to 23 dives and it was time for her to dive with someone else. The only thing that could pull Charlie away was a shot on learning to scooter. Ana and jumped in and enjoyed the reef. We found several lobster in different holes just feet away from the line of lobster pots recently put down.

The reef was just as good as anything I had dove in the keys. Fish were all over, schools of Grunts, Surgeonfish, and Parrotfish. Half way through the dive we found a huge 6ft Barracuda on the reef with school of baby Bar Jacks following it around. The Cuda would stop and the jacks would take turns nipping parasites off the back of the big fish.

As planned at 30 minutes I shot a bag so Ralph would know where we were. At the beginning of the dive Ana said she didn’t want to run any drills. At 40 minutes I was bored and she was looking very good in the water so it was time. I gave her a friendly out of air and she gave the Italian/Argentine hand gesture with all the fingers touching the thumb and moving back and forth under her mouth to indicate, “What do you want?” I smiled. She pointed to the regulator in her mouth and I nodded my head in agreement. She inhaled deeply and switched regs. I got the long hose, but she forgot to exhale so I grabbed her and pulled her back down. We were only in 15ft of water. We swam a bit and I gave her the reg back and watched her tuck the long hose.

It was time to go up and I remember Charlie asking me to watch her as she was having trouble with free ascents. We went up slowly, at 2ft per minute. At 12, 10, and 8 feet I had her switch from her primary to her secondary hose. By the last time she wasn’t taking the “one last breath” inhale before switching the regs. We hovered and 5ft and I noticed why we didn’t really want to go up. It was pouring down rain. I was glad I shot the bag when I did and hoped Ralph knew where we were?

On the surface I saw Ralph picking up Andrea and Jim. I hoped he had Charlie and Jody as well. With everyone aboard I they weren’t coming for us. We exchanged “oks” but the rain and wind weren’t helping. I pulled out Ana’s surface marker and held that up as well to make us easy to find. After five minutes Ralph came over and picked us up with everyone else aboard.

–Matt