1999 - 2000 - May 5, 2001 - May 12, 2001 - May 19, 2001 - June 9, 2001 - Curacao 2001 - June 30, 2001 - July 21, 2001 - August 4, 2001 - December 29, 2001 - December 30, 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2009
--------------------------------------------------

December 8, 2001: Boynton Beach, Florida

"Gulf Stream Ledges" - "Briney"
--------------------------------------------------

More than four months since my last dive. Egads! It was about time ...
Diving in the Atlantic Ocean:
  • Directions from Tampa: I usually head down HW60 to Yeehaw Junction, then take the Turnpike south. I get off of the Turnpike at Lake Worth Road.
  • Conditions on the day of my visit: Partly Cloudy.

  • Personal Notes: With the rough semester at an end, it was time to go diving. My sister and John were going out on the "Little Deeper" out of Boynton Beach, so I went with them. Just south of West Palm Beach, the diving in Boynton is pretty much like West Palm. The naturally warmer water coupled with the unseasonably warm weather Florida in general appears to be going through had the water at a very comfortable (with a wetsuit) 77 degrees. Admittedly, having been four months since I was in the water, I did get a little chilly.

    These were a couple of drift dives with a max depth of 61 feet, averaging about 50. Visibility was a nice 70 feet or so, even when the clouds were blocking the sun.

Videos!

My Codecs Page so you can get what you need to see these.

Haven't been shooting film, so I'm a little out of practice ... things are a little shakier than I'd like. But here they are.
Gulf Stream Ledges
[VIDEO LINK] 2.9 MB Here's some good video of a very large Blue Tang.
[VIDEO LINK] 3.2 MB Spanish Grunt are very colorful fish.
[VIDEO LINK] 2.5 MB This Honeycomb Cowfish didn't want to stand still for too long.
[VIDEO LINK] 3.3 MB This looks like a mated pair of Banded Butterfly Fish. There were only two and they always stayed near each other ...
[VIDEO LINK] 1.2 MB This short video of the Lobster pictured below is valuable because there's a hand in the shot and you get a good size comparison.
[VIDEO LINK] 3.1 MB Spotted Goatfish have really neat ways of hunting for food, and it's always cool to watch. They have a couple of feelers under their chin that they use to dig through the sand.
[VIDEO LINK] 1.4 MB I always think Sharpnose Puffers look cute.
[VIDEO LINK] 2.9 MB Here's one of the many eels we spotted. Speaking of spotted, this is a Spotted Eel.
Briney
[VIDEO LINK] 1.3 MB Just something about Lizardfish that I like. Maybe it's that aggressive posture, and the fact that when disturbed, they may not attack you, but they also don't necessarily swim away from you, either.
[VIDEO LINK] 3.7 MB This eel should have been very easy to identify, but I could not find him in my book. (ID: Goldentailed Moray Eel - Thanks Marriard!)
[VIDEO LINK] 1.9 MB I captured this footage of a here it is anyway.
[VIDEO LINK] 3.0 MB This footage of some fish going after some food is pretty cool.
[VIDEO LINK] 3.7 MB This footage of a Spotted Goatfish hunting for food is cool ... it shows the goatfish equivalent of "raiding the refrigerator". Unfortunately, it looks like he didn't find anything.
[VIDEO LINK] 3.4 MB I really like the colors of this Whitespotted Filefish.
[VIDEO LINK] 2.9 MB And some footage of my favorite of the "ugly" fish, a Scorpion Fish.

Pictures!

If the fish isn't moving much, I like to get stills of it. I generally take the stills at the max size and quality my camera allows (1152x864 or something around that neighborhood). I do a little touching up (if need be and if I can make it look any better) and then shrink it to 640x480, save it out, shrink it to quarter size for the thumbnails.
Gulf Stream Ledges
First thing we see as we decend is this very large but very shy Barracuda.
The Balloonfish here were quite large.
I have never seen this coloration in (what I'm guessing is) a snapper before (ID: Spanish Grunt).
I was amazed to get such a good shot of a Blue Chromis.
Fish aren't always cooperative when you're attempting to take photos of them ... it can take several shots to get one as good as this, particularly with Honeycomb Cowfish.
I managed to get two fairly good shots of this Honeycomb Cowfish.
When I don't bring lights you can almost garantee that there will be over cast, and fish that hide in the shadows of coral formations are even harder to get good shots of.
This Lobster was quite bold; considering his size, he probably would have been snatched up by a hunter during lobster season.
I haven't had time to pour over my fish ID book to figure out what this is. Great coloration though. (ID: Spotted Goatfish, Inactive Phase - Thanks Marriard!)
Briney
Lizardfish tend to be a bit aggressive if you get too close.
This turtle probably didn't know we were there ... either that, or she thinks that since she can't see us, we can't see her. We didn't disturb her beyond snapping a few pictures.
This is not touched up; I managed to bring my lights on the second dive and got this guy lit up enough to take a good shot of him.
One of the best shots of a Christmastree Worm.
This is zoomed in quite a bit. He was very small ... probably a baby. I'd say the size of his head at this angle was probably no more than an inch.
A Scorpionfish hidden in plain sight. My sister saw this one ... I'm getting better at being able to spot them when she points them out.


Dive data for dives on this day:

Dive Site Name Max Depth Minutes Water Temp
136 Gulf Stream Ledges 61 feet 53 min. 77 F
137 Briney 68 feet 47 min. 77 F
--------------------------------------------------
By - The Dive Log - Blog - Mastodon
Search this site using Google:
© 1999-2024 Eric Stewart - Contact: eric@ericdives.com - Wanna use what you see?
This site is ad free.