Lots of travel, bad weather, and equipment servicing had all gotten in the way of our diving and, believe it or not, we had not been out for a dive since the end of February. Well, this Friday we had 84-degree seas, waves under one foot and visibility approaching 50-60ft. It was a perfect day for diving.
We headed out from Fort Lauderdale with the American Dream crew. Over a dozen divers (and even our friend Dave!) had managed to get Friday morning off to enjoy the wonderful weather. The first site was the Ken Vitale (or Tracy Wreck). We had done this site before, but it’s a great wreck to dive. At 70ft, even the newly certified divers with us could get close with comfort; thanks to the great visibility and almost zero current, making for an easy dive.
The resident Goliath Grouper was present, and came out to greet us! There were large schools of reef fish circulating in the wreck, making it picture perfect. Unfortunately, I messed up with my camera settings and didn’t have the underwater setting so the colors are off, but either way it was a great dive. We’ve now left ourselves a note to make sure we have the right settings on every time: Flash enabled, underwater wide-angle mode…check!
We love our steel 80-liter tanks! Even with our full 3mm suits, we had 6 pounds and felt over weighted. We will go down to 4 lbs next time, maybe even 2 lbs! We’ve both been exercising and losing weight, so that may also help us get a little leaner and less buoyant. We did great on air, and even after almost an hour at 70ft got chased up by the divemaster with 800 psi remaining in our tanks.
Being last to get on the boat, before we knew it, everyone was jumping in for the shallow reef dive. We had only been up for a 15 minute surface interval, so we stretched it out a little and were the last ones in the water, only to hear: “Be back in 45 minutes!” Drifting over the reef at 30 feet with almost no current, we got to hover over and see curious eels, many lobsters, a couple of arrow crabs, and lots of beautiful angelfish and butterflyfish! Time went by fast and we came up with almost 2000 psi left in the tanks not wanting to have the boat waiting for us again. No regrets, it was a great dive with friends and wonderful visibility. Reminds us of how lucky we are to be here in Florida and to have the opportunity to go out on a whim anytime we like. Life is good 🙂
7 Tips for Underwater Photography:
- Practice good buoyancy! This will help give you more stability and you’ll also avoid kicking up sand or silt.
- Use a macro lens to capture tiny creatures. The Olympus has a microscope mode also that lets you get within 1/2 inch of your subject.
- Use a fisheye lens for wide angle shots of wrecks and picturesque reefs or landscape shots.
- Invest in good lights to avoid blue or dull pictures. Use a strobe for photo mode and one or more spots for videos. Forget APS mode when using a strobe.
- If not integrated in the camera system, use a red filter on the lens to bring out the loss of colors at depth.
- Be ready. Fish rarely stay in place posing for a picture!
- Keep practicing! The most important thing is to have fun!