underwater again

time really flew this past year with me being back in school and it didn't feel like it had been almost a year since we dove, but it had been. but we're glad we dove - 6 dives in 3 days - and it felt great to be back in the water. we did 3 out of 4 of the "heavy metal" fla keys wreck dives - the spiegel grove, the eagle, and the duane. on the duane the current was so strong it felt like we were up against 40 mph wind (i was trying to think of how to explain strong current underwater, and the best way is by thinking of yourself on a scooter...driving about 40 mph and what the air feels like on your face, plus add a little pressure from the water. that was kind of like what it feels like when you're hanging horizontal onto a line trying to get down to a depth of 100 ft.). we saw lots of great things on our 6 dives, including those fantastic wreck structures, turtle, tons of fish and barracuda, green moray eel, parrotfish, some sort of tiny shrimp, groupers, permit, moon jellies, shark, lobster, wrasse, squirrelfish, a buddha statue, and the infamous toilet on the back of the spiegel grove (picture below - not us). none of these pictures are ours, but they're so you can see some of what we saw. my only regret is that it took so much work to get down to the duane (meaning we were sucking air fast) that we didn't get to stick around long enough for the 8 foot bull shark that showed up.

the toilet on the spiegel grove

the spiegel grove

tower on the duane

eagle

Flakeys heavy metal wrecks