Dive Trip Report to: West Palm Beach Reefs
Purpose: To Dive in Florida for Lobster - Yea, Lobster Season is open!
Dive #1: Saturday, 21-Oct-2000, Eary Afternoon Dive. My Dive #344
A. Dive Boat / Location:
The Rampage
/ Princess Ann
B. Conditions:
Visibility: 40 ft?
Seas: 2 - 3 ft
Water Temp: 80 deg on the bottom - Really don't need a full Farmer John!
Skies: Sunny Clear Blue Skies, T-Boomer clouds around!
Air Temp: 80 - 90's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time:
Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 102 ft for 24 min, Analog: 97 ft
Air consumption:
Me: 3200 - 800 (80 cu ft, air]
Current: Mild
Description: Well, our private group from Melbourne jumped in! The rest seemed to take a half hour to get in! I like to swim to the dive ball rope and hold on so we don't get toooo far from the boat. We went down together and the ship cam into view about 1/2 way down! It was a close drop - any longer wait and we would have missed the ship! We came in about mid-ship on the starboard (right) side! Down to the bottom, I led our group into the deck walkway. Ths way, the group could say they did Penetrate the Princess and get Capt. Bob's Shirt as such! We went around the bow and down the port (left) side. We did come up to deck level to look around. On the way to the stern, I found a bug in the reef. Caught it, twas a female and let her go! Well, we continued down to the prop. I had each group member go to the rudder / prop area and look at thier depth gauge. It was over 100 ft! We worked our way up to deck level and back up towards midship! One member was down to 800 lbs, so up we went. This was the 1st wreck dive for this group! Great dive, some big cuda, good tour of the ship!
Dive #2: Saturday, 21-Oct-2000, Afternoon Dive. My Dive #345
A. Dive Boat / Location:
The Rampage
/ Breakers
B. Conditions:
Visibility: 30 ft
Seas: 3-4 ft (getting bigger)!
Water Temp: 80 deg
Skies: Same
Air Temp: 80 - 90's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time:
Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 63 ft for 52 min!
Air consumption:
Me: 3700 lb to 1000 lb (120 cu ft, 38% NITROX), PO2 - 1.1
Current: Nill
Description: Well on this dive, I told the group that I would stay down whey they ran out of time at 30 min! Good Breakers Dive. Lot's of colors and fish. No bugs! But, a typical Breakers Dive - lots of releaf, and things to see. About 5 min into the dive, I saw about a 5-6 ft turttle swimming in front of us. Our novice dive group didn't see it! After 30 min, the group went up, I stayed down. I ran into some Diving Polutions Group and passed them on - I was looking for bugs. None were found! I finally hit the Neptune Statue and contined to the reef end and started to work my way back up South into the middle of the reef. Nothing seen. After close to 50 min of bottom time, with 1500 lbs of air left, I was bored and decided to call it quits! Moral - NITROX really does give you more bottom time if you have bigger tanks and the boat will let you stay down. This was a fun dive, need to do it agan - but need to dive the Bug Reefs!!