Dive Report: 10/11/03 PBCRRT Dives Royal Park and Larsens Valley

Photos:
http://www.geocities.com/tiswango\1011pbcrrt\index.htm

Friday 10/10/03 AUE Social
Team: Christos, Mike, and Matt

Friday night at 6 PM Christos was nice enough to take Mike and I for a spin to Monty's South Beach in his BMW. What a machine! Christos said we would live as long as he didn't push, "the button" in front of the stick labeled "sport".

Association of Underwater Explorers (AUE) and Michael Barnett was nice enough to reserve some tables with TVs to view his underwater video while talking with fellow divers. There was the Brownies weeknight dive table, the AUE table, the Decostop table and us. It was fun meeting so many friends from the internet live and in person, though everyone seems taller in person. Why is that?

Mike wowed us and other patrons with his video playing on the TV's all around the bar. Too bad he didn't have a sign advertising his new book to everyone there. I stepped up for a copy with autograph, Thanks Mike! Christos picked up a book and some T-shits as well.

After a couple of hours we left. The valet pulled up and I noticed Christos has pushed the button. We took off like a rocket and I said, "Hey you need to u-turn...." I think I blacked out from the G-forces, but there was a blur, then everything shifted. Stopped in the street we dug out the CD's to get a taste of Christos' Greek music collection. That was a ride I'll never forget. Has anyone done 115 mph in a 45? I wonder what the ticket would be like?

Saturday 10/11/03 Palm Beach County Reef Research Team Dive

Team: Matt (32%) and Anita (air)

Dive 1: Royal Park Bridge
8:24 AM
Time: 7 AM
Seas: less 1ft
Winds: 10 knots NE
Visibility: 40ft
Depth: 75
Runtime: 39 minutes
Water: 83 degrees
Deco: 50/1 40/1 30/1 20/3 10/3

Running on 5 hours sleep I was up at 5 AM to get ready and drive to WPB. We loaded up early and waited for Captain Bob to arrive, give the 1 minute safety briefing, and say the line, "I'm so excited, cast off lines and make way for sea!"

We got our dive plan together. Andrea got some great photos of my bald spot and fellow E-divers Wade P. was sporting the new urban diver look. With a full staff of divers and fish counters we could safely spread out over the side. With all the easy to locate fish stations given away, Anita and I would swim 300 ft to a nearby barge/tugboat combo. The barge landed on the tug boat propping it up and making it home to some large fish.

The lack of current made for a rare dive day in WPB. We swam right over to the barge and I was surprised to not see the resident Goliath Grouper. But there were Blacks, Yellowmouths, Gag, and Scamp all over. After my 10 minutes fish count we explored the tug boat and found the biggest Gray snapper I've ever seen duck into the stern deck. The hole was too small for me to pursue him.

Anita was an air sipper so we cruised back over to the rest of the bridge debris and swam around. Large jacks and grunts all over. I couldn't find any of our other marks. I learned latter on the boat, no one could. The mappers will have to replace them.

Dive 2: Larsen's Valley
10:12 AM
Depth 78ft
Run Time: 38 min
SI: 1:09
Water: 83
Deco: 50/3 40/1 30/1 20/6 10/3

After an hour, Anita had 30 minutes at 70ft for the second dive. Larsen's Valley is a 4ft ledge near Royal Park that we use to compare to the artificial reef to see how were doing. Mike the DM placed a ball on the first marker and we all jumped in. I found a group of Yellowheaded Jawfish and some Blue gobies in the sand near the ledge. There were Sunshine fish and Purple Reef fish all over the ledge. One undercut had a group of active Black Margate. Out of the corner of my eye I say a HUGE hogfish bolt by and dive for the ledge. I guess you don't get that big by being stupid, he must have been about 3 ft long. Other divers saw him so I know I wasn't hallucinating.

Our average depth was about 75 ft and Anita's bottom time slipped by. At 25 minutes we started up. She was not Nitrox trained by got the lecture by me and others on the boat. Since there was no current I shot my lift bag and made for a slow ascent. At 20 ft I offered my long hose with 32% for her to breath for 6 minutes.

On the boat she mentioned how the gas tasted different than air. On the way in I had a nice discussion about dive computers with Anita and Joe. Joe just left his Dataplus for a Cobra and was concerned about the lack of bottom time it gave him. I showed him the deco graph on the Dataplus and how the "green" zone was equivalent to the Cobra's time and how the dataplus lets you go into the yellow "caution zone". That was the difference. But hey, its not how long you stay down, its how fast you come up!

Almost everyone went over to the Brass Ring for burger after the dive. Later, one of Andrea's co-works from Templeton came over to show off their new baby. On the way home we hit Fill Express for gas to get ready for the night dive at Datura, see the next report.

--Matt