Wreck diving in Florida
Eric Keibler Apr 21, 2008
have just dropped Pam and Bob off at the airport after returning 4 sets of twins and 14 stage bottles back to Fill Express. This brings to a close another Technical Wreck diving trip to Florida.
Pam Radford, Terry deWolf, Kelly Plato, Bob Sloan, Dave Snyder and Geoff Streitel, joined me for this wreck diving weekend. We started diving on Friday with the Hydro Atlantic and ended on Sunday with the R.B. Johnson. We had some great dives and and saw some big fish. Terry saw a bull shark on the R.B. Johnson and we all saw a BIG turtle on the Lowrance.
Of course the trip started with a challenge — Capt. Oliver blew an engine and our plan was put into a bit of a tailspin. But thanks to a little help from some friends (thanks Oliver and Mark), I was able to do a fast shuffle and set-up the diving with another operator. Jeff and Suzanne rearranged some of their diving and found us boats and let us pick the dive sites. They helped make the trip a success; and, their large boats were a treat!
We also set-up a few dives with Capt. Conrad who took our group out to the R. B. Johnson.
The diving in the Ft Lauderdale area is primarily on artificial reefs — i.e. sunken ships. Florida has been very aggressive in creating artificial reefs for fishing and diving. The resulting dive sites are varied both in design and depth. They offer something to almost every diver. There are also some natural reefs but I have yet to dive them (too much wreck diving).
Thanks everyone for a fun trip and some great dives!
