So my scuba diving experiences began early this year. In late April I joined our dive club for the Shark & Turtle trip. Then the first weekend of May we had our traditional Derby Dive trip.

Shark & Turtle

A couple of our members are the proprietors of the Shark & Turtle Pub where we have had many club-related events. This inspired a dive trip where we would seek out sharks and turtles. We started by going to the Jupiter Dive Center where we boarded the Republic VII for two dives in search of turtles. We dove the sites named Loggerhead and Lighthouse and didn’t see a single turtle. The diving was very enjoyable but fairly cold.

On the second day we joined the Emerald Dive Charters in search of sharks. We had a feeder/handler and many rules to follow. Our first dive, starting at the Sun Mariner, of the day led to no sharks coming in. We did see a couple of goliath groupers. The second dive was on the ESSO Bonaire and we had a couple of lemon sharks and a few nurse sharks come in and swim with us. The last dive of the trip was on another wreck that was part of the Zion Train and we had similar types of sharks come in. But we also had a hammerhead come in close but didn’t stay.

Derby Dive

Every year the Orlando Reef Divers hold what is traditionally our first dive trip of the year the Derby Dive. The weekend starts with a gathering in Boynton Beach on the first Friday of May. We then dive on Saturday morning with Splashdown Divers aboard the Loggerhead captained by Captain Jim along with his deckhand/dive master Paul. The seas were a bit rough but the weather was pleasant. The dive sites were Boynton Ledges and Tumbled Rocks and we encountered a goliath grouper hiding under a ledge, a couple of green moray eels, many spotted drums, lobsters, and a stonefish. The battery on my camera died for the second dive but we encountered a rather large nurse shark, a large loggerhead turtle, and other stuff that I don’t recall right now. There was zero current which is highly irregular from our club’s experience.

After diving, we returned to the hotel to rest and clean up then we adjourned to the lobby where we had a potluck get-together and watched the Kentucky Derby. The following morning we returned to the Loggerhead for another trip out to the reefs. We hit the “Tongue of the Reef” and Kronen’s Ledge. We saw another nurse shark and a couple of loggerhead turtles. There was potentially a hammerhead shark spotted. Finally, there were a couple of reef squid that hung around for a minute but then decided to head out when we got too close. The second dive I went without my camera just to enjoy the dive and also be the flag holder.