Palm Island Ferry

We have attempted two times now to dive the Palm Island Ferry. Previous attempts were foiled by boats on the dive spot, and today was no different. However there was a big enough chunk to call our own and we decided to drop and do some diving. We used the following coordinates N 26° 49.236'  W 82° 31.951' however due to using a friends boat out of Boca, we did not have a depth sounder (smacks head into wall) So we dropped in the area and hoped to run into reef/bottom. This was not the case and all I got to see was flat sand bottom about 60'... however we had a blast shooting Amber Jacks, we ran into a school and had our choice of the litter. My friend fired into one and did not stone him, he pulled with great force dragging us all over the place until we were able to brain him with our knife. I could not even imagine getting into his big brother (AJs get quite big). Visibility was around 10'-12' and we walked away with a couple keepers to end out the AJ season. Overall awesome dive, however not quite the best review on the reef. We will make another dive on this location and I will post pictures of the structure/video if I can.

Shrimp Boat, Venice Ledge, Venice Reef

I came home and noticed posts from local captains stating that the viz was top to bottom in the Venice area, and just so happened to have a friend call me and my daughter was with her mom for the day (all the planets aligned) almost begging me to dive. We loaded up the boat and launched from the Venice boat ramps, heading out on one the flattest days I have ever seen. We arrived around the coordinates I have been given for a shrimp boat wreck (  27° 4'19.93"N ,  82°36'12.61"W ) I found these coordinates to be off by about 100' to SW, get to that area and look at your depth finder for changes. We dove this site and found buried masts, and nets from what appears to be an old shrimp boat. Marine life was scarce and appeared to be relatively newer +/- 4 years? (est.), this was found at a depth of approx 50', and viz was 30+ feet above the thermocline which just so happened to be around the bottom at 40+ ' causing our bottom viz to be 6-8' viz.

We then had a surface interval as we rode out to Venice ledge, which I have listed the coordinates too before. Today we saw small snook held up on the ledge, and plenty of aquarium/reef fish, but no shooters. This is located straight out of Venice beach at about 28'. Beautiful ledge/coral life. Always a pleasurable dive at really shallow depths, viz 6-8'

A friend of mine wanted to take a look at the last spot of the day that a boat was on coming in, so we dropped in on Venice Reef, which he tells me is concrete rubble and several culverts. Again fish populations appeared to have moved out, and we were unable to locate any shooters here. Again a beautiful dive to round out the day, and another site to add to my list.

Blue Wild Expo and Jupiter Diving

I was approached by a friend of mine from the Fire Department, if I wanted to go on a two day weekend trip. When I found out we would be attending the Blue Wild expo in Ft. Lauderdale, spending the night and bug diving the next morning there was no reservations I took the days off, and made arrangements for my daughter to be watched by my father and ex.

The drive over to Ft. Lauderdale was awesome, sharing stories of diving, and talking abou the industry. Local dive shop drama, and tales. Stopping to get beer for our drive and arriving at the expo around noon. We walked into a conference room filled top to bottom with amazing dive gear, and raffle prizes that we could enter with purchased tickets. Walking around were celeberties in the dive community; Sheri Daye, Manny Puig, Daryl Wong and many others I posed for pictures with many of them, listened to a thrilling conversation with Manny about his trident spear he uses underwater and for hunting wild boar on land (what a bad ass man). I took pictures with the Deep dive girls, and enjoyed looking, touching and feeling all types of dive gear. I even made a purchase for a handle for my Gopro which was a fantastic deal. Towards the end of the night we all united and I even won a "Ballenita Racks" speargun rack... not bad for 20$ worth of raffle tickets.

We then drove to a friend of a friends house and spent the night, playing Call of Duty for awhile and enjoying a fantastic steak dinner. The anticipation for the dives of the next day were looming.

Waking up on dive day was a thrill like a kid on Christmas, we met up with John owner of Koah Spearguns and Owner of Hypnautical Charters. Leaving the home port and exiting Jupiter pass I noticed water had top to bottom viz...... (OHHH YEAH) We filmed and did a total of 3 dives that day. 100' 40mins, 80' 40 mins, and 75' 40 mins..... water temp was around 73* at the bottom, vis was around 40' phenomenal for Florida. The entire boat (3 other divers) caught about 6 bugs, and I did not get any :( First time out, I landed on a honey hole of about 5 monsters but could not loop them or grab them out of the hole. (I guess I will practice and have to return) Overall the dives were relaxing, exciting, and the dive operation was top notch. There was not a lot of hand holding as John understood our level of experience and basically just let us do our own thing. The boat was full of friends and everyone knew eachother which was also something new to me and amazing on a charter.

I plan on attending next years expo, and when I get the dive charter off the ground may even attempt at having my own booth at the expo.

Dive on.....

Spear Fishing (Venice Reef)

Today we were planning on going 15 miles off shore and attempting a shipwreck that I will write about later. However when I woke up today I found out that there were 15 MPH gusts offshore, which was upsetting, because I had looked forward to diving. I decided to go ahead and attempt a basic dive on Venice Reef (2706.29 8228.904). My friend, my Dad, and I anchored up with ease and were greeted by tons of birds on the water, and dropped down with visibility being about 10-15 feet. We found TONS of life which is amazing because we have been experiencing red tide the past few days. We had a few shooters today, and attached is a picture of my friend holding his prized keepsake. I saw a few dive charter boats out anchored which reminded me of my trip to Mexico, just seeing the life and energy out on the water. During our surface interval a local Kayak sharks tooth diver swam up to us and clipped onto our boat to take a break due to all the current. We exchanged some numbers and stories, and went for our second dive. Although the second dive of the day did not produce any keepers to get any shots off at I still enjoyed the millions of bait fish and marine life. I love the calm that comes over me during these periods of visiting another world.                                         

Brendan (Author) preparing for the dive/ Dave with his hog fish