3 Sept 2022
Today, I booked some boat dives so I could check out some of the off-shore sites Palm Beach has to offer. What I didn’t realize is that most of the diving here is drift diving, which totally isn’t my thing. By the time I spotted a cool fish, it was too late to get into a good position, or I just blow past him entirely.
Dive #6 – The Corridor
This series of 5 wrecks is one of the most popular here in Palm Beach- we dropped on top of one, the Ana Cecelia, and made it to the 4th, the Amaryllis, before my group ran out of bottom time and had to surface- the current here was seriously rip-roaring!
shamelessly stolen from ReefSmartGuides.com
Even staying low and tucking behind things, I struggled to not get blown away (and almost missed the first wreck!), plus the current kicked up quite a bit of debris, which made photographing anything at a distance quite tricky.
Permit:
Ooh, barracuda!
Two large Gray angelfish:
Another barracuda with a school of little fish:
I tucked behind part of a wreck while I waited for the rest of the group to catch up and found a couple Yellowline arrow crabs:
I think their little purple claws are just the coolest!
A Spotlight parrotfish:
There would have been a lot of cool nooks and crannies to explore, but there was no way I could fight the current long enough to explore properly:
Mutton snappers:
A solo Gray angelfish:
AND A GOLIATH GROUPER!!! This is their aggregation season, so I was hoping we’d find some!
Dive #7 – Mid Reef
I learned from the first dive and tried to scout ahead as much as possible for cool fish, like these Spanish hogfish:
Queen angelfish:
An Orangespotted filefish trying to hide:
A very large hermit crab:
Hogfish:
Squirrelfish:
Gray angelfish:
French angelfish:
A massive school of grunts:
Tucked down long enough to get a picture of this Pederson cleaner shrimp:
I’m pretty sure this is a Townsend angelfish- a hybrid between a Queen and a Blue angelfish!
While diving down here, we are all required to carry a SMB (surface marker buoy)- an inflatable, brightly colored tube, because occasionally the current will catch you just right and pull you away from the group. So this is me and my safety sausage, waiting for the boat to come pick me up:
It’s also why they drill the name of the boat (the Aurelia) into us during the briefing so we don’t get back onto the wrong boat- there were several dive boats out today and someone else’s boat came over to me first- I could see my boat, so I signaled that I was ok, and they left to find their divers.
Dive #8 – Juno Ledge
I was a little skeptical about going out again for the afternoon dives- I really, REALLY dislike drift diving, but these dives were headed to find Goliath groupers and I really, REALLY wanted to see some giant fish, so I suited back up and faced the current…
…which had totally disappeared! There was enough pull to keep us moving, but it was easy enough to kick against so I could photograph cool fish, like this Harlequin bass:
Rock beauty:
and another!
Smooth trunkfish:
Queen angelfish:
Blue angelfish:
(these are the two angelfish that occasionally interbreed to make the Townsend angelfish)
Lionfish:
GOLIATH GROUPER!!! This guy was in a channel and the rest of my group was taking pictures of him from one end- I parked myself at the other so when he got sick of them, he swam right toward me!
Two Goliath groupers, cruising through!
These guys were probably about 6′ long:
They get up to 8′ and 800 lbs!
Reef butterflyfish:
Young Yellowhead wrasse:
This guy was seriously unhappy that I took his picture:
Goliath grouper, with bait ball!
Giant fish, through a sea of little fish:
I found a whole school of Creole wrasses, most of which were swimming in pairs, but, of course, none of those pictures turned out, so here’s a solo wrasse:
Not a great picture, but I think this is a little Cherubfish:
He was such a pretty shade of purple!
A Scrawled filefish:
Dive #9 – The Corridor (minus the current)
I almost didn’t splash for this dive- the first time I dove it wasn’t any fun and since I’d been deep diving all day, I had very little bottom time left. I’m glad I did though, because the current had totally died down and I was able to actually stop and photograph things (plus, since I had just dove the site, I knew what to expect and where to look for critters!).
I actually got to explore the first wreck (the Ana Cecelia) this time, and found this sneaky barracuda watching me from the shadows…
A free-swimming barracuda:
Juvenile French angelfish:
I think this is a little goby? but I can’t find him in my fish book:
This Goliath grouper started swimming towards the wreck we were exploring, then saw us and swam off:
Gray angelfish:
Rock beauty:
Trumpetfish:
Ok, so this is a terrible picture- these guys were too far for my flash to hit, but this is one of the pairs of Creole wrasses that was swimming around:
On my safety stop I gained my own bait ball!
Again, really hard to photograph me and swimming fish, but here are some of my friends:
So very glad I decided not to call this dive- I stayed shallow-ish until I found something to check out/photograph, then dove deeper, so I was able to stretch my bottom time to over 40 minutes! Totally worth it!