2008 DIVE & TRAVEL HIGHLIGHTS
Dive & Travel Log
Nov - A short trip to the Bahamas to dive with some sharks and lionfish followed by some spearfishing in Marathon (and I even filleted my own fish !). Last dive of year was the Trukey-Fry beach dive at Venice - fried turkeys, lots of people and a rather chilly dive for sharks teeth - excellent !
Oct - Some great weather for spearfishing in Marathon in the middle of the month followed by diving Boynton Beach on my birthday - an excellent way to spend the day!
Sept - The winds kept me out of the water most of the month, but did get out in Venice a couple of times. More weekend trips are planned for Oct.
Aug - Went over to the Orkney Islands in Scotland to dive in Scapa Flow on the WW1 German Fleet. 7 major warships from 1919 are still there along with all the "blockships" sunk deliberately by the British to protect their fleet from U-Boats getting into Scapa.
I dived on 3 of the light cruisers - Koln, Brummer and Karlsuhe (about 5000 tons each) and the Battleship Kronprinz Wilhem - a massive 25000 tons. Pretty interesting stuff, and also the first cold water dive trip for me.
Top side was pretty cool as well, with a visit to a Whiskey Distillery (Highland Park) and the neolithic stone rings - the ring of Brigdar and Stones of Stennes - dated around 2-3000BC, along with various other viking type of stuff and other war memorials (Kitchner monument, Italian Chapel etc.)- even got a bit of sunshine !
July - Scubaboard's Invade the Keys III - did a night dive on the Eagle and then dived with BlueWater Divers a couple of times on the Speigel Grove and then the Benwood and some reefs.
June - A pretty dry month after the Venice beach extraveganza was cancelled due to a beach closure, but had a very successful spearfishing trip into the gulf to finish up the month, where I shot a nice plump red grouper (and a handful of snapper and hogs).
May - A fun weekend in Boynton Beach with Underwater Explorers (diveboynton.com)- calm seas and bright sunshine (with some occasionally brisk current) made for a good weekend of diving. Early in the month, completed my drysuit course up in Venice (in preparation for my Scapa Flow trip in July).
Apr - Went up to Venice and helped witt a navigation class while playing with my new drysuit. Spent a weekend in the Keys diving with Conch Republic Divres on the wrecks - Bibb, Duane, Spiegel and Eagle all in one weekend....sunny skies and 100+ ft viz on the Duane - amazing !
Mar - FIJI FIJI FIJI what can i say. First week was on the small island of Kadavu staying at Mantana Beach Resort with Dive Kadavu, then we went back to the main island for the 2nd week - Wananavu resort with Kai Viti Divers. amazing soft and hard corals, fish, and nudibranches everywhere.
Feb - Started off with a spearfishing trip in the gulf - i even managed to bag 4 fish (although missed about 20 !) - very tasty. Did the shark's tooth thing as well - off Florida Wests boat got quite a few megs. - end of month got a HUGE meg.
Jan - Brought the new year in with a dive in Venice - found a rather nice large megalodon tooth- well worth braving the rain and dull skies. Went over to Jupiter looking for Lemon Sharks - a bit of a windy/choppy day with pretty bad vizability and unfortunately didn't find the sharks.
Dives for 2008: 113 (total: 613)