Drift Diving in Jupiter

This weekend, Lee and I went to Jupiter, Florida to do some drift diving. These dives were amazing and superseded my expectations by far. I must admit that at first I was skeptical about jumping into the ocean without a line to descend and ascend by. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found after I jumped in behind the leader who held the buoy. I looked down into the blue, tranquil water and could see clearly to the 80 foot bottom. The boat followed the leader's buoy as we traveled approximately four miles or more along the Gulf stream. The current gently floated us along the bottom as we were, in essence, sight-seeing in an open water aquarium. The beauty that surrounded us was full of life. There were abundant schools of brightly colored fish swimming in and around brilliant varieties of sea vegetation.

During this dive, Lee saw his first Goliath Grouper which we estimated weighed in around 900 pounds. (I'd seen one before on a previous dive, but not quite this large.) And I saw my first shark; a nine-foot nurse shark which was cruising in and around the reef and ledge. We also encountered a very curious sea turtle that was about two-and-a-half feet big. He swam up and hung with us while we were doing our deco safety stop at about 15-20 feet deep.

The dives were incredible and fun. And I met one of my online scuba buddies, Sandy, who lives in the Jupiter area. While we were drift diving, she and her dive buddy, Michelle, were hunting lobster.

The Sugarbowl & Eric's Double Ledges

Today I dove with Charleston Scuba again. (Yea! I love this dive shop and all the people who work there.) The water was so flat and the weather gorgeous. It was one of the best days I've seen off the Charleston coast. (Course, I've not seen as many as the veteran divers have seen. But they were all amazed, too.)

With Tom as our captain, we took The Trinity out about 27 miles off the coast. Our first stop was at the Sugarbowl. The Sugarbowl Reef is about 90 feet to the bottom. Ledges circle around like an amphitheater with nothing but white sand (like sugar) in the middle. The fish were abundant and the visibility was about 30 feet. We saw many beautiful fish, including the very poisonous Lion Fish in all its splendor. It was a good dive.

From the Sugarbowl Reef we went towards Eric's Double Ledges. Before we got there, we stopped to anchor on a new find that looked like a great dive. But when Gary, our dive master, came up from tying in, he recommended we move onto the other site as there weren't many fish there.

Eric's Double Ledges were about 80 feet with around 25-30 ft. vis. Again we saw many fish, including a Goliath Grouper, some more Lion Fish, the adorabe Jacknife Fish and some spotted eel. Another good dive and a great time was had by all.