It didn't feel like late fall; we had a breezy, partly sunny day in the mid-seventies. The vis was about twenty feet and the water temperature was eighty-one, very nice for our one hour, ten minute dive. Actually, my dive buddy, Leyla, kept on going with her camera after I called it quits. She won the award for having come the longest distance to the dive/picnic, from Switzerland. (She is home to share Thanksgiving with her family and took advantage of the dive opportunity.) We saw a polkadot batfish, a gorgeous little butter hamlet, a neck crab for which I looked very hard with my magnifying glass, a very cooperative, displaying intermediate flying gurnard, a sharptail eel, many Atlantic spadefish, juvenile highhats, yellow stingrays, juvenile blue angelfish, juvenile french and gray angelfish, and many other critters. Other divers from the Jupiter Drift Divers club saw several spotted eagle rays. Many thanks to Veronica and Stan for setting up and cooking. Their deeply appreciated efforts make the Jupiter Drift Divers a very active and successful club. It was an absolutely pleasant late-fall afternoon with friends in south Florida! Get in the water, Ham
Dive Report 18 November
It was very nice to be back at the bridge on such a gorgeous day after having been out of the water for two weeks. What a day to come back! Parking was easy! The air temperature was about seventy-two at eight this morning as an open water student and I geared up. The vis was an exceptional sixty feet as we could see one set of pilings from another; they are one hundred feet apart. The water temperature was a very comfortable eighty-one as my student and I were wearing three milimeter wetsuits. There were more Atlantic spadefish intermediates there than I have ever seen before; there had to be close to a hundred in two or three separate schools out by the channel. We could see well out into the channel. The little blue angelfish juvenile in the "canyon" out by the channel has grown significantly. Yellow stingrays were in many places. Lobsters were in the rubble under the fishing pier. We watched a sharptail eel hunt for breakfast. The highpoint of the dive for me was a beautiful spotted eagle ray cruising between the seawall and the first set of pilings. They are so incredible to watch and with the vis today we got to see it for quite some time. The Jupiter Drift Divers are having a picnic at the bridge on Sunday, November 22 after a dive on the 11:44 high tide. We'll be there about ten o'clock or so. I'm thinking about having bagels and coffee at the bridge before the dive and then picnic after the dive. Why not? (It was so good to be back in the water.) Get in the water, Ham
