Dive Report: Saturday 10/4/2003 Shore dive at Hibiscus Street, LBTS

Photos:
http://www.geocities.com/tiswango/1004hibiscus/

Team: Matt and Ralph Figuroa

Dive Start 12:40 PM
Seas: 3ft
Low Tide at 12:30 PM
Water/Air: 84 degrees
Surge: 1 ft
Visibility: 20ft
Gas 32%
Depth: 19ft
Runtime 1 hour 5 minutes

My morning boat dive out of Miami was cancelled as the owner was not feeling 100%. We thumbed the dive from bed at 7:30 AM. However, I called Ralph and he was up for a shore dive, especially if I loaned him my doubles for a test dive.

At 11 AM Datura was full, so we went South to Hibiscus to find rock star parking down front and broken meter bonus as it read "4 hours" for the whole time we were there, no quarters required. I dive there enough I didn't mind shorting LBTS $4.

We geared up and I ran Ralph through my "How to dive doubles in 5 easy steps" lecture.

1. Roll to far to either side and you loose balance.
2. To balance the gas in the wings, go head up and shake your shoulders a little.
3. To dump gas, the valve is in the middle of the wing on your back, use #2 to vent.
4. You need to add more gas and vent more gas on accent and descent.
5. You will hear the gas moving in the wing, don't freak out. (I forgot to mention this one to him)

When Andrea dove doubles the first time I didn't do the lecture on land, I tried to show her underwater, which didn't work as well. This time Ralph got 1-4 and asked me to add #5.

I also forgot William's classic pre-dive doubles question, "You do know the 5 ways a isolated manifold can kill you, don't you?"

We checked equipment and headed out. On the way to the second reef line we stopped to give Ralph a chance to play with the wing and get used to it. I also shot some video of a Yellow Stingray swimming away from me. I could chase him down with my single tank wing.

On the second reef line I was shocked and pissed. The red algae that has taken over Pompano is now all over Datura Street as well. I found little patched a couple of weeks ago. Now there is a full scale invasion! The ground was covered and the several soft corals had it really bad.

There were squadrons of Surgeonfish feasting on it, but there is way more than could be eaten. I ran into a banded butterfly fish that was friendly and posed for a couple of pictures. Because of time restraints I wanted to keep this dive to on hour, but I also wanted to check back in on the coral I flipped over. We swam down to it and I was happy to see a lot of the bleached tissue was getting color back into it. The water was so clear I took a few scenic shots as well. There is more coral here then probably anywhere else in Florida.

We swam back to the probe that marks Hibiscus and headed back home. On the first reef line I saw a fish net entangled in a softcoral. Ralph assisted with seasnips and I cut it out. The coral was badly mangled, but might make a recovery. At least the net was removed so I wouldn't harm anything else. I went back to swimming and went right by this nurse shark napping with its head under a ledge. I'm glad Ralph stopped me to point him out. The locals always ask, "Are there sharks out there?"

We saw another sick coral and took some photos. This looked like some kind of disease, but I don't know what, yet. I also found a sea urchin. Urchins can vacuum a cubic yard of algae per day. I hope they start munching on this red crap soon!

As we were coming in I notice two divers heading out and one diver crawling out of the ocean like our ancestors did 100 million years ago. The poor guy looked like a sugar coated doughnut, only he was covered in sand. Ralph and I were breaking down our gear as this guy carried up his rig, piece by piece, from the water's edge. His regs were coated with sand and he was rinsing them without the dust cap on the first stage.

Ralph and I struck up a conversation with him. "How was your dive?" He said he didn't get past the surf zone as he couldn't get his fins on. He panicked and waved the others on as he went back to shore. Later we found out he was an Openwater student and the instructor took off with the other student while he crawled back a shore. He looked very sad and disappointed. I got some more details and looked over his rental gear all marked with "TSS". A quick look at the VIP sticker showed he was working with "The Scuba School" off Oakland and A1A. The student was also packed down with 16lbs of lead in his BC!

Considering that a student drown off Pompano several weeks ago in 10 ft of water, I was not happy that an instructor swam off and left a student in the water after they had panicked. Ralph and I gave a pep talk to the student about the joys of diving and told the student that the instructor had not acted in his best self interest and deserved more than he was getting out of the class. I told Ralph we needed to leave as I saw the instructor was getting out of the water with the other student. I didn't want to go G3 on her!

Now that I'm calmer, should I email the owner of the dive shop and share my feeling with him?