The final ocean dive of 2023.
This last weekend I had my final ocean dive for scuba classes, not that I will not be doing anymore classes but the last dives in the ocean with classes.
We will be going to the various springs in North Florida for certifications. Saturday I took my class to Morrison Springs to do their underwater skills. The spring was crystal clear and cold (68 degrees). Fortunately everyone had at least a 3mm-5mm thick wetsuit on.
After the skills where completed we dove around the bowl in front of the cave entrance. When everyone was cold we got out for about a 30 minute surface interval and then we headed back into the water to complete the skills and swim around. When everyone was really cold we called it a day and headed home.
Sunday morning we met at the boat dock at 8 a.m. central time to board the Big Blue Boat for our ocean adventure for the next 5 hours. Our destination was the Dan Safety Barge, the maximum depth is 65 feet to the sandy bottom so it give me and my students a a measure of safety knowing they cannot dive deeper than they are supposed to.
The visibility was 15-20 feet so it’s been that pretty much all summer this year. The water temperature at the surface was about 72 degrees while the bottom temperature was 77 degrees. It made for an interesting wake-up call when you first stepped of the platform into the water.
Down on the barge there still were some big amberjacks and angel fish, plus thousands of small silver baitfish swimming around. It was time for the students to make their way back up the anchor chain so my dive master was escorting them up I remained on the wreck to find there where three tiny little lionfish hiding along the top edge of the barge.
I thought about killing them but they where so small that I just observed them and how they reacted when I would get close but not to close to them. The boat dive master/captan took some really nice video of them.
It was time to start my way to the surface and get back on the boat. When the captan got the anchor up and headed back to the dock was kind of sad for me because I will have to wait until May of 2024 before I go back into the ocean diving again, unless I decide to get a drysuit and then there will be no end of diving in the ocean.
Until then keep making bubbles.
-Russell Miller #59999