Dive Trip Report to: Florida's Beaches - Urca de Lima & Pepper Park
Purpose: To Beach Dive for old wrecks, cannon, ships, bugs etc!
Dive #1: Saturday, 10-July, Morning Dive. My Dive #
A. Dive Boat / Location: Beach Dive - Urca de Lima (Just north of Pepper Park)
B. Conditions:
Visibility: 10 - 15 ft
Seas: flat
Water Temp: 86 deg
Skies: Sunny Clear Blue Skies - and hot!
Air Temp: Low 90's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time:
Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 17 ft for 57 min.
Air consumption: Me: 3700 - 1200 lbs (120 cu ft)
Current: Nill, small amount of surge
Description: Well one of the goals of this dive was to see the cannon from the Urca! We parked in our approved private lot just north of Pepper Park (pictures to follow). We walked north about 100 yards so we'd be almost straight out to the two state bouy's that mark this wreck site. We swam our on our backs to conserve air, one diver was really just a newbe snorkeler and did great! At the bouy's we went down looking for the ship parts. Well the two bouy's lie on an east / west line! Just west of the outermoset (bouy further out to sea) about 20 feet and 20 feet to the south lies the wooden keel - at least 50 ft long, some ship's rib's, ballast stone and at least three cannon (pictues to follow).
After about 20 minutes underwater on the wreck, we decided to do our thing and bug hunt! We followed the reef to the south! A little way's down, I spotted some bugs. Got one, and at least 4 - 4 pounders got away! They were really BIG!! Just the vibration from me setting myself on the bottom and the bug stick getting close spooked them back into their under ledge hiding spot! The one bug was donated to a worthy cause! After a few minutes of pokeing around, the vis went to zero from the sturred up sand - we continued our dive! The dive trip had some really great relief! Other divers saw some baby blue tang and some big blue tang's. I came across a 10 lb new boat anchor wedged between some bolders. It was donated to some Pepper Park Life Guards since I don't have a boat! Craig found a lead weight, about 5 pounds - we left it there! Patty got another carry shell!
Dive #2: Saturday, 10-July, Morning Dive. My Dive #
A. Dive Boat / Location: Beach Dive - Pepper Park
B. Conditions:
Visibility: 10 ft (not as good as the Urca, and some places it was 5 ft).
Seas: 1 ft
Water Temp: 86 deg
Skies: Sunny Clear Blue Skies - and hot!
Air Temp: Low 90's
C. Dive Information:
Depth & Time:
Me: Genesis Nitrox Dive Computer - 16 ft for 1 hr 5 min - this was a long dive!
Air consumption: Me: 3700 - 1600 lbs (120 cu ft) - don't understand, it was a long dive, yet not much air usage!
Current: Well there was some current to the north and a medium to strong strength surge going E/W
Description: We were going to dive the Paddle Wheeler - but decided to go to Pepper Park as they have showeres and a nice beach for our snorkeler! We headed out to the fourth reef - that's the one with all the relief and turned North! Lot's of relief, not much other life, vis kind of sucked - but it was later in the day - wind and waves a-building! I spotted a 1 1/2 foot turtle, we played with it for a while. This turtle was not very timid and stuck around while we tried to take pictures. After about 40 minutes, we popped up and found that we had gone north to where we got out from the Urca dive - and a long way from our beach entry spot! We turned South. A little way's down, Patty and Craig spotted a 6 foot nurse shark. She was under a 10 foot ledge! When Pat used her banger to get everybody's attention, one shark started to boogie! I got a glimpse of about 4 foot of the tail of the shark as she headed for the wild blue (well yuckie bronw sand laden water) yonder! Starting to run low on air, and getting very tired from two hours under water, we headed for the beach. Pepper Park is nice because when you get out, you head for the showers and wash off all your gear! This was aa great dive! We all were exhausted from lugging all the gear to the water, the long swims out and all the time under - but it was worth it! For those that didn't make it - you missed some great diving and party afterwards!
Signed the Bacardi Beach Dive Team!