Alhambra - Dive Report - Sharks teeth

Another update from a friend in the Alhambra area, 2-3 foot VIZ around 20ish foot of depth.

Dive Report- Sharks tooth dive

I was personally unable to make a dive today due to my tanks being at my local dive shop getting filled/viz/hydro-static inspections. A friend of mine Angie and her brother went diving off of Alhambra and had a very productive sharks tooth dive turning up all these beauties. The report today: Depth: 23ft. 81 degrees and viz was 5-8ft Water looks beautiful from topside.....

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.

Turtle Beach- Donut Dive (Event)

Today I enjoyed my first Donut Dive, this is a monthly event sponsored by a local dive shop: Florida Underwater Sports (Sarasota). Today's theme was Halloween in nature and was an underwater pumpkin carving contest. We met up in the parking lot of Turtle Beach around 9am, a group of approximately 30 divers enjoyed free donuts (hence the name) and awaited the briefing from the DM. We hit the water in self organized dive groups and began carving pumpkins just offshore from the beach. Visibility was not the best around 2-4 feet with suspended particles, however just fine enough for us to work at the task at hand. IT WAS A BLAST! After the dive (no set down time) we met back at the same meeting area for voting. A winner was selected, unfortunately not me.... and 2 dive charter packages were handed out.

I highly recommend the "Donut Dive," great way to mingle, network, and of course dive. If your partner-less it is a great way to meet people, enjoy getting wet, and a new locale. I will have to re-dive Turtle Beach again and post a review on the spot, it lacked any structure from what I could tell and apparently has an abundant array of marine life. I was focused on an orange pumpkin so I cannot really comment on that. The dive was well organized and had a check in/out board for accountability and tracking. I have included a video of the dive and the link for the dive shop so you can find a list of events they are sponsoring.

www.floridaunderwatersports.com/

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

M15 Reef

M15 Reef (27° 05.001’ 82° 32.524’)

I have had the pleasure of diving this spot several times. About a week ago a friend of mine and myself decided to spearfish a few of the local reefs looking for something to shoot. We arrived to find a few fishermen on the spot and passed it to go to M16. On our way back in we dove M15 which is mainly concrete rubble, we were unable to find any shoot able fish on this day, however the colors of fish/reef are beautiful and always proves to be a very enjoyable dive.

Today dove a new spot off of Venice Beach. Approximately a mile or so directly West of the life guard stands in about 25 of water you will find a 4 or 5 foot relief on your depth finder. This appears to be a natural ledge with rocks. Beautiful reef with tons of fish, hogs and varied other species. Today the viz was not quite ideal 5' range with suspended particles and areas a lot less then that. However had a great time finding big sized Meg (Sharks teeth).

M16 Reef

Today's dive was a 2 tank dive at M16, after planning this dive for several days and meeting up with a couple friends we hit this spot around 11am today. I was a tad nervous getting out to this spot in our 19' Seapro CC, but it did great with the 1' waves. We arrived exactly at the coordinates listed and found concrete culverts, basins, and what appeared to be some sort of I-beam from a bridge. Tons of small fish, several Jew fish in the 30+ Lb range, and Barracuda. We also found 3 fishing rods, and a boat anchor. The site was not too crowded  we were able to find our own chunk to call our own and really enjoyed the diving here.

M16 is located 8.5 Miles West out of Venice Pass (27° 03.827’N  82° 35.625’W) at a depth of 50'


Youtube video of us diving M16 : HERE

Sharks Tooth Dive Spot (Venice Florida)

A great local dive spot for beach/shore diving is South Brohard. Located just south of Venice Beach and just North of Caspersen. You are looking to go aprox 1 mile out if you can safely make it in about 27' of water. This location is home to Megs, Hemis, and other fossils.