I always get a little concerned as we approach the end of the month, but the fact is with all my other commitments, the last week is often the best time for me to be able to carve out a day for diving. (Not that I don’t work the rest of the day to “make up for it”) Anyway, Tuesday’s conditions were nice even though visibility was down a bit. There were two couples on the boat from Quebec; one who was experiencing Key Largo diving for the first time. A different couple whom Hubby was guiding (along with the others) had been trained in lakes and a quarry so this was their first ocean dive. I did my best to find them all some really cool stuff and wasn’t able to come up with anything “big”. However, I usually come up a little earlier than Hubby and it turned out they saw a baby Goliath Grouper after I headed back to the boat. “Baby” in this definition was probably close to 75 or more pounds. The same thing happened on the second dive where they saw a nurse shark. While I would have enjoyed seeing both of those, it’s more important for the visitors to have the extra experience.

The usual array of fish was good, especially on the wreck of the Benwood where we saw three or four large schools. I did find a big worm although I didn’t know what kind. In this case, “big”, was about 4 inches long and Hubby told me it was a fire worm which is a type of bristle worm. On the first dive I did see a stingray, but it was moving too fast and away from the group for me to be able to get them pointed in the right direction to possibly see it. On the second dive I found nice-size cowfish to show them too. As always, I was happy to see a rock beauty like in the photo.

Rock Beauties are the smallest of the angel fish we have on our reefs.

I did a post back when a girlfriend won a lunch-time session at Jules Undersea Lodge in Key Largo. It was a fun and interesting experience. For those who may be new to the blog, Jules Lagoon is the only place in Key Largo where the open water part of scuba classes can be taught when weather keeps boats off the reefs. (https://jul.com/) It’s actually a complex with multiple segments/functions and the “Underwater Hotel” was originally a research habitat in Puerto Rico. The only way to access it is to dive and enter by the “Moon Pool”. You carry everything you need to change into in water proof bags and yes, that’s how meals are delivered.

The “Hotel” itself was closed during COVID although the lagoon stayed open for training purposes with the same kind of protocols as were used for other outdoor venues. As with many places forced to close, they used the time to make improvements and/or come up with ideas for changes once they re-opened. Hubby went down a few weeks ago to take photos and get an update on the plans. He’s written the article for the paper and it will run sometime soon.

One point discussed was whether to continue to bill it as a “hotel” or try to market it instead as a “habitat”. Even though you do have to dive to get to it, for someone only interested in the novelty of the idea, spending a single day and night will probably provide as much novelty as desired. The public area is nicely set up with small kitchen, dining table, couches, TV complete with DVD player and WiFi. There are snacks and non-alcoholic beverages, too. Naturally, there are wide windows to look out into the lagoon. For someone considering a Habitat stay though, they might want to do something like cataloging all the marine life they see over a couple of days. The shallow depth allows for extended dive time and night diving is especially easy. Different creatures are nocturnal and that makes an interesting addition. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a fan of night diving, but Jules would be an exception.

On the other hand, I don’t actually expect us to go do this since Hubby has to dive there so often.

I was able to make my March dive although I did cut it close being the 29th. Hubby has been working multi-day stretches as it’s the time of year with “rolling spring breaks” where different parts of the country take off at different times. It’s always popular to dive here then, and of course some overseas destinations not yet open. That means divers who might go to the Caribbean are opting for Key Largo. Since Easter is early this year, that also means there will be divers and snorkelers who specifically want to go to the Christ of the Abyss site. I’ve posted before that it’s one of several statues placed underwater by the Cressi family in honor of I think it was a son who died. (They’re a big name in scuba equipment). I’ve forgotten how many statues there are, but it is a concrete robed figure on a rectangular pedestal with his arms outstretched upward set at about 20 feet deep. It’s used on many underwater ads for the area and is something to be seen. The drawback is because of being shallow and such a popular site, it’s usually crowded and often low visibility, as well as surge (which rocks you back and forth and can cause sediment to be kicked up reducing the visibility even more). Additionally, the actual reefs around it aren’t very good from a marine life perspective. Anyway, several people on the boat yesterday were hoping for the statue, but reports were poor visibility so Captain D broke the news and took us to one of the outer reefs.

Although the water is still cool, the visibility was excellent on both dives.  Since I didn’t see the small goldentail eel tucked into the rocks, there was nothing extra special for me. However, there were plenty of fish to include some of my favorites and a couple of older conch shells that had lost their colors. Even so, they still have the distinctive shape.

Juvenile Spotted Drum

My friend Richie Kohler called the other day and wanted me to take a quick look at an article he had due to the scuba magazine, “Alert Diver”. He just needed another set of eyes for “Hazards in Wreck Diving”. As usual with his writing, it was well done. It also brought to mind the whole recreational diving and technical diving. A quick detour though into scuba.

From the 1950s through at least the 1970s scuba was pretty much an extreme sport due to rudimentary equipment. As more people joined in and developed  increasingly sophisticated equipment with the idea of making it a mainstream kind of water activity it changed considerably. Yes, during training you focus on the safety aspects and how to handle emergencies, but with the right equipment properly maintained and following normal precautions, it’s a safe sport. Now though is where you diverge into two paths. Recreational diving (with no decompression) means you dive to 130 feet or less. But if you dive much below 50 feet when you start to surface, you do a “safety stop” where you hang at 15-20 feet for 3-5 minutes to allow the nitrogen gas in your body to dissipate. This is the primary precaution against decompression sickness (the “bends”). Since how deep you go also impacts how quickly you use air and therefore how long you can stay on a dive, most people will not go below 80 or 90 feet for long and 50-70 feet lets you have nearly an hour of diving. It so happens the reefs around Key Largo are shallow at like 30-40 feet with the deeper dives on the wrecks. This is the kind of diving I do.

Since there will always be those who “want more” in any sport, technical diving requires specialized equipment and training that allows a diver to go deeper than 130 feet and get into what are now decompression dives. So, if a diver goes to say 200 feet, he or she has to calculate “decompression stops” as part of the dive time. That means stopping multiple times on the way up for a designated number of minutes in order to allow the nitrogen to dissipate. (This is also referred to as off-gassing). Notwithstanding the fact guys like Richie, quite a few of my friends, to include Hubby get into this, it is simply way more complicated than I want to mess with.