Drift Diving off the coast of Boynton Beach, Florida

Lee and I kicked off our dive season with a bang. Early on May 28, we packed the rental car with our dive gear and listened to XM's Laugh USA on and off during the 10-hour drive to Boynton Beach, Florida. (Boynton is just past West Palm Beach off the Atlantic Ocean.)

With four dives ahead of us, stopping in local dive stores like Diver's Direct made our adventure come alive. (If you're not a diver, think about planning for a vacation or something else that gets you excited and you'll know what we mean.)

We dove with Underwater Explorers. Lee found them through recommendations on Scuba Board. (Scuba Board is an online community with divers from around the globe and forums on an array of diving topics.) I quickly learned that their 34-foot Crusader was really designed for back rolls and not giant strides. But after doing it the first time, I was hooked and wondered why I've only done it in my dive training classes.

Basket Sponge

Basket Sponges

All four of our drift dives were amazing. In fact, I found the underwater reefs to be as scenic - if not more - as the ones we've dove in the Keys. The first two dives exposed a veritable forest of basket sponges. (Typically, I've seen only one or two every mile or so, not hundreds.)

We saw a plethora of fish, including:

Moray Eel

Blue Tang (my favorite)

Cow Fish in Basket Sponge

French Angel

Loggerhead Turtle Under a Ledge

Rock Beauty

Hawksbill Turtle

Two French Angels

I hope the rest of our dives this season are as amazing as these four dives!