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§ Click on the image to go to the photo album of the dive (if available) §   Big Flat Top Charter May 21, 2011 Six of our members boarded the Big Flat Top out of Englewood’s Royal Palm Marina for a day of fossil hunting off of the Venice Beaches. The weather was super and the seas were calm. Winds around 5 knots, and beautiful sunshine all day. Travis Jones, Skip Reed, Frank Panhuise, Barbe Koss, Don Bergman and Paul Joly all enjoyed the hospitality of Capt. Don and his mate “Fosselbabe”, a self proclaimed expert in fossil hunting and identification. They were very helpful throughout the course of our trip. Our first drop was in about 24 feet of water with viz of about 6’ or better, which is good for this type of diving off the beaches. Water temps was 80, and we all stayed down with our 80 cu.ft. tanks for over an hour on the first drop. After the first drop we planned to move to a little deeper water, but after setting the hook…and dropping down, viz was less than a foot, so we aborted the dive, except for TJ who hung in there for about 20 minutes before surfacing. We then moved back close to our initial drop to hopefully get decent viz again…to really no avail…most of us surfaced after a half an hour of struggling through pea soup viz, except for Skip who managed to find a few bones in his vast wandering of the bottom. We did enjoy the day, the big roomy pontoon boat was spacious to say the least, and it was a close option to get in some diving.  Key Largo PGI Dive Club Trip Report, April 9 & 10, 2011 Our dive club chartered the Keys Diver II through Keys Dive & Snorkel operators in Key Largo. These guys were terrific and cared about us. They were there to help all and especially helped those who needed some assistance at various times over the two days of two tank dives. We had 9 divers as well as 4 members who chose to snorkel for one reason or the other. But a good time was had by all. We also received free drink tokens on both trips for the Pilot House restaurant for no one puking down below in their ship’s head! The Gods were smiling on our trip this time, since we were blown out last November, when we originally had it scheduled. The weather was great all weekend, with hot air temperatures, and sea temps around 78 & 79 degrees, with a light rolling 1’-2- sea. On Saturday afternoon we first motored out to French Reef and dropped onto the reef with beautiful blue water, as it was all weekend. Water depths averaged about 25-35 feet on the reefs. Viz was great, maybe 80’. So we explored this reef, and the sealife and sea creatures it held. The next drop of the afternoon found us out on Molasses reef, a short motor away from our first drop. We all had about an hour of surface interval before this drop. We were greeted at Molasses by a host of other boats, and a little more current then we found in our first drop. But the reef was pretty and we found many of the normal tropical fish, snappers, grunts, gobys, cowfish, trumpet fish, groupers, hogfish, squirrelfish, a spiny lobster and green moray eel; and best of all, Vanessa and Denis were entertained royally for a while by two large eagle rays! Too bad Frank and his camera had departed. On Saturday evening the entire group met at the Pilot House Restaurant at their waterfront restaurant for a nice dinner and some celebratory libations. Then off to bed at our hotel, we all stayed at the Bayside Resort, and it was a nice, close, accommodation for our trip. All too soon, we had to wake up, pack up and check out of the hotel, since the AM boat called for us to arrive and board at 7:30 AM Sunday with an 8 AM departure. On our second day of diving we first dropped down on the wreck of the Benwood. Which is an actual wreck from 1942. This wreck lies in about 30-35 feet of water and has tons of fish on it after all these years. The only problem with this dive was current--it was kicking! Viz this morning was a little less than yesterday, but about 50’-60’. A few of our divers had a real go of it getting used to the flow down below, but after about 35-45 minutes all returned safely back on board. Our captain took us back to French Reef for our final drop of the weekend and we again dropped into calm pretty blue waters. It was a relief to both divers and snorkelers to get out of the current of the Benwood location. This reef again was covered with reef fish. We had a nice time exploring the reef and completing a great weekend of diving, snorkeling, and camaraderie. Attending this trip were the Beezleys, Bergmans, Bowlings, Cournoyers, Mitchells, Panhuises, and Vincents.
Disney Dive Quest March 12, 2011 Our dive club again traveled to the Living Seas at Disney World’s EPCOT Center and dove with Living Seas dive masters and their videographer in their enormous aquarium. Just eight divers made the trek this time up to Orlando and enjoyed a behind the seas tour of the facility and then were equipped with diving gear and shorty wetsuits to do about a 40 minute dive in the Living Seas. Traveling up for the event were Gary Gaddy, Kim Kosiba, George and Shelley Vincent, Frank Panhuise, Skip Reed, Barbe Koss, and Paul Joly. Our group enjoyed an informative tour of the facility and received the royal treatment from the Disney staff of diving professionals. The Living Seas aquarium in Epcot was once the largest aquarium in the world. It contains 5.7 million gallons of water in a circular tank containing several thousand different species of aquatic animals. The tank is 203' in diameter and 27' deep. Several species of sharks, rays, sea turtles and coral reef fish species made this a very special trip for our divers.The dive log for this experience goes like this: time in 7:45 PM, time out 8:25; bottom time 40 minutes; visibility was over 200 ft. in the crystal clear water; water temperature was 78 degrees; of course there was no current and no sea conditions…just placid, smooth water. At the completion of the dive, the divers showered, changed and then completed Disney post dive surveys to evaluate their experiences for Disney staff. All in all it was an educational, positive and fun experience for all involved.
 Disney Dive Quest January 22, 2011 Our dive club traveled to the Living Seas at Disney World’s EPCOT Center and dove with Living Seas dive masters and their videographer in their enormous aquarium. Fourteen divers made the trek up to Orlando and enjoyed a behind the seas tour of the facility and then were equipped with diving gear and shorty wetsuits to do about a 40 minute dive in the Living Seas. Traveling up for the event were Denis and Vanessa Cournoyer, Bob and Cate Peterson, Jim and Lynn Olzacki, Don Bergman. Mitch Miller, Terry Bandel, Travis and Debbie Jones, and John, Marilyn and Paul Jorgensen. The group enjoyed an informative tour of the facility and received the royal treatment from the Disney staff of diving professionals. The Living Seas aquarium in Epcot was once the largest aquarium in the world. It contains 5.7 million gallons of water in a circular tank containing several thousand different species of aquatic animals. The tank is 203' in diameter and 27' deep. Several species of sharks, rays, sea turtles and coral reef fish species made this a very special trip for our divers. Also on the tour we observed manatees and dolphins in their separate tanks. The dive log for this experience goes like this: time in 7:45 PM, time out 8:25; bottom time 40 minutes; visibility was over 200 ft. in the crystal clear water; water temperature was 75 degrees; of course there was no current and no sea conditions…just placid, smooth water. Everyone was issued identical shorty wetsuits, which seemed a little underprotective for the cooler than normal waters (usual sea temp in the aquarium is 78, but due to the cold winter weather and the filters locations outdoors, the Living Seas were cooler than advertised). Disney also supplied all dive equipment: BC's, regulators, boots, fins, weights, and masks. Lockers, showers, and after dive drinks were also part of the dive package. At the completion of the dive, the divers showered, changed and then completed Disney post dive surveys to evaluate their experiences for Disney staff. A video of our groups dive was shown and available immediately for all who wanted to purchase a copy. All in all it was an educational, positive and fun experience for everyone involved. Bonaire Dive Trip September 4 - 11, 2010 Our much awaited trip to Bonaire finally happened! We flew via Insel Air directly to Flamingo airport in Bonaire in just 2 ½ hours. We had a great week of diving and snorkeling via boat, shore dives or just jumping in from our resort, Sand Dollar and then diving our own Bari reef as much as possible all week. Bari reef has had as many as 375 different species of fish identified there from REEF surveys, making it the most diversified reef in the entire world for fish species. We dove with Bonaire Dive and Adventures on this trip. They were only operating one boat this week, since September is a slow month by Bonaire standards. We made 6 one tank boat dives during the course of the week, three on the reefs of Klein Bonaire--which is a large uninhabited island about 1 mile off the western shore of Bonaire. The sites we hit off of Klein Bonaire were named Carl’s Hill, Keep Sake, and Hands Off. The other three dives off of the Bonaire western coast were on the Hilma Hooker, a wreck off of the southern end of the Island; Small Wall, a beautiful and healthy wall dive, and a popular shore dive site which is easier done by boat named 1000 steps. All boat dive destinations were only about a 15 minute ride from our resort. Shore diving in Bonaire is a must. There are about 80 + sites which you can get to via a truck. Since we had unlimited air and nitro tanks available to us all week, we soon became acquainted with many of the locations. We dove and snorkeled on such colorfully named sites as Aquarius, Lake City, Angel City, Batchelors Beach, and others. Entries into the beautiful shades of blue were sometimes tricky to say the least, especially wearing scuba gear, carrying fins and a camera! But once in on the reefs, the diving, colors, and diversification of species made it all worthwhile. Water temperatures were in the low to mid 80s all week. The viz was good, ranging from 70 - 80 feet most of the time. We wore skins all week for diving and these were fine. As all of the waters of Bonaire are protected as a marine sanctuary, no gloves were permitted, since they wanted no touching of any of the undersea corals. The health of these reefs was utterly amazing. Above the water line, we also toured the island from the salt ponds and slave shacks in the South to the cactus covered hills and elevations of the North. Donkey and goat herds roaming free throughout the island was another experience we discovered. We even had the pleasure of having a donkey put his head in our truck window looking for a handout. On Tuesday night we had a nasty storm and lightning hit one of the islands oil storage tanks, it burned for 3 days and nights--a real amazing site to see from anywhere on the island. Last, but not least, we enjoyed many fine dining establishments throughout Bonaire. We enjoyed breakfast daily at our own Eddy’s at the Sand Dollar. We also ate at Paradise Moon, a restaurant owned by one of our boat captains from Bonaire Dive and Adventure, Carl--who, by the way is also the gourmet chef, and his menu was outstanding. In town we ate at City Grill on the waterfront, at a fine restaurant in the business district named Mona Lisa, and also at the Chibi-Chibi restaurant of the Divi Flamingo Resort on the harbor. One other meal was at the Bon Pasa Pizza restaurant…great pizza but it was hot inside the open air restaurant…better maybe to order take out here in the future for us! Be sure to check out our three sets of photo albums for this dive adventure, one above the sea and two below. And don’t put off taking your own trip to Bonaire in the near future. I know I’ll be going back!
Islamorada, Florida Keys…Lobster Season 2010/11 Opens Some of our PGI dive club members joined friends from the Caloosa Dive Club of SW Florida on a trip for the opening weekend of the “regular” lobster (aka “bugs”) season. Lobster season in Florida annually runs from Aug 6th through March 30th. Prior to this regular season, the state of Florida annually permits non- commercial sportsman to have a two day “sports” or better known as “mini” season held annually on the last Wednesday and Thursday of July. We dove with Keys Dives out of Islamorada aboard their boat “Giant Stride”, a roomy 42’ dive boat. The services aboard the boat by the captain and dive master were great. Besides free air tanks and weights supplied by Key Dives, we enjoyed fresh fruit after each drop, and enjoyed the fresh water shower rinses as needed by hot and, at times, dehydrated, sweaty divers! Joining me and several of my friends from the Caloosa Dive Club www.diveclub.org on the boat for the two days of dives were John Jorgenson and Travis Jones. Barbara Panhuise also came down for the festivities during the weekend (for her this meant, dining, cocktails, shopping, and last but not least hoping for hubby to bring home some lobsters for dinner!) The four of us enjoyed a great sunset and a few “adult beverages” at Lorelei on Florida Bay on Friday evening, and a great after dive al fresco dinner under the giant Tiki hut restaurant at the Islamorada Fish Company on Saturday, again with great waterfront scenery and sunsets! We enjoyed warm water in the mid-eighties all weekend. So we only needed to wear dive skins for protection from any “stingy” type things in the ocean. We all were using 80 lb. aluminum tanks with air for the weekend. We dropped into depths ranging from the mid 50’ range to the mid 30’ range as we enjoyed the great viz (50‘-70‘), and very healthy looking coral reefs off-shore Islamorada. And yes, we were successful at bagging a few “bugs” to bring home for dinner. Hopefully more PGI members will be able to join us for these out of town adventures in the future! For more photos, see the Photos section. Bayronto Wreck Dive 5/26/2010 Skip Reed and I, along with a few other buddies, chartered onto the six pack boat “El Gavilan” captained by Jim Joseph, (owner of Fantasea Scuba) and left the dock in Placida at 7AM to venture out to the wreck of the Bayronto, 35 miles offshore, a trip of about 2 ½ hours each way. The Bayronto is a 400’ freighter which sank in 100’ of water during a hurricane in 1919, so it’s been down a long time. The Bayronto lies upside down and over the years has had some structural collapses from the 90+ years it has been under the sea. But the wreck is magnificent. Air temperature was about 85 degrees. Water temperatures were in the high 70s at the surface, then at 75’ depth we hit a thermo cline which dropped temperatures continually until we bottomed out about 68 degrees in the sand. The wreck is covered with anemones, soft and hard corals, and is home to a myriad of sea life. There were too many goliath groupers to count, as were there too many barracudas, along with thousands of snappers schooling all over the wreck. A large southern stingray scurried away as I closed in on it. Many other species were all over and through the wreck. We did two drops on this wreck, accounting for one hour total dive time. We did a surface interval of about 1 ¼ hours between dives. The seas were relatively calm with about 1’ waves at best. There was some current on top of the wreck, but it wasn’t too bad down below the starboard and port sides. Viz on these dives was in excess of 40’, not bad for the Gulf. Aside from the thermo cline and current, the dives were super.
 Sea Trek Dive Pics 5/8/2010 The day started out early on Saturday, May 8th…3:30 AM to be precise…headed out to get aboard the Sea Trek out of Captain Bills marina in Fort Myers Beach. It was a nice calm morning and was going to stay that way, producing fine, calm waters…we headed out at 6 AM and it was already 78 degrees…we traveled out and about the many west ledges which are limestone rocky bottom areas in the Gulf of Mexico.We moved about for hours, everyone getting in three drops during the course of the day…we were dropping half of the boat load of 16 divers at each drop, which makes for 8 divers down at a time. Water depths were all about 50‘-55’ and the bottom temperature was 77 degrees. Topside weather conditions were perfect, sunny, 85 degrees by the middle of the day and very little breeze.. not so the underwater viz…each drop became tougher on all of us… at best we had about 20’, then 15’ and on our last drop. The divers on the trip were there for a few different objectives, some to do photography, some to do some hunting in the way of spear fishing, and a few just for recreational diving and exploring. Needless to say the hunters did well, several groupers, snappers, hogfish, sheepshead and a few other assorted species will be filling up the home freezers for these divers. The photographers had other issues…with lots of backscatter in the pics, the hopes of any landscape or wide angle shots were really diminished with the lack of good viz…the best the photo bugs could hope for would be to do some macro, and a lot of bottom dweller pics. Some nice photos revealed a beautiful SW Florida sunrise, some dive trip pics, lizardfish, sea cucumbers, anemones, starfish, tube sponges, sea spiders, leopard toadfish, juvenile drumfish...and a friendly remora right at my leg as I was about to get aboard the ladder at the end of the day. All in all we enjoyed a nice day on the water and returned back to the dock by 6 PM, and that only left us with another hour to drive home. The gear will be cleaned up tomorrow! Needless to say, I slept well that night.  Key Largo 5/1-2/2010 We traveled down to the Keys for a weekend of diving on the first weekend in May with Island Ventures dive operators in Key Largo. We dove from the boat Diversity with captain Joe and divemaster Hugh. Sea conditions were not good as we had a steady wind from the SE at 20+ knots all weekend, leading to some rough seas and heavy surge on the shallow reefs. We traveled to Molasses Reef and did two drops, first on Logan's Run and the second on a site known as the Aquarium...these dives were not very deep 34' & 27' respectively. Water temperatures were about 77 & 78 degrees for all the dives over the two days, which were OK in the 3/6 mm farmer john wetsuit I chose to wear. Picture taking was a challenge for those attempting to do so because of the surge. Viz was about 40 max due to the rough seas. I can only equate these dives as knowing what it must feel to be inside a washing machine. We did manage to see many nice coral formations which appeared to be very healthy in this marine sanctuary area of the Florida Keys...the reef fish were too numerous to mention, I alone saw over 40 different species as well as many healthy sponges, soft and hard corals and even some conch and spiny lobsters. So the first day was rough but we did see some nice sea life. On the second day,we opted to go to a little deeper reef this time, French Reef, which was about a 1 hour boat ride, like the day before, through rough seas and then we dropped onto two sections of the same reef known as Woody's Ledge. Our depths this day were deeper 46' & 52'...deeper water was fine, with only a light current, but the tradeoff was poorer viz, about 25' max., again due to the rough seas above. All in all I've had better weekends of diving conditions, but the important thing was that we got back into the water again, and that felt great.  Venice Beach Dive 4/17/2010 The PGI dive club went to Venice Beach for a shark tooth fossil hunting excursion on April 17th...attending the trip were Eddie and Karan Beezley, Denis and Vanessa Cournoyer, and Frank and Barbara Panhuise...the water conditions were smooth, but cool, water temp was just about 70 and the viz wasn't too good, 6' was about the best we could do once we got off the beach and into about 15-20' of water. The bottom had silted over very badly from the rough winter we had, so searching for the sharks teeth was a real challenge. All in all we did get in a nice dive, we saw dolphins on the surface, and under the sea we saw baitfish, flounder, snappers, small crabs, conch, soft corals, sand dollars, starfish and some sea cucumbers. The most important part about the day was finally doing some diving this year. Denis Cournoyer managed to even find a small Megaladon tooth, about 2 inches, but it was his first, so he was happy with it..We hope to come back to Venice and have beach dives often and hopefully the silting will go away, the waters will warm up and the sharks teeth will fill our collection bags.  | ||
