At noon, Tom and I reported to the Pro Dive shop just down the street from our hotel. After filling out the required paperwork , testing the Nitrox tanks Tom and I would be using and getting fitted out with our dive gear we headed out to the boat.  

 

At the dock we met our Dive Master. A twenty something fresh out of college. Cute and very personable. The rest of the dive group seems pretty diverse. The boat had around 12 divers in all. A number of divers in some sort of training group, A young blonde German that is taking a check out dive, a mother and her 13 year old son, one guy in a dry suit (talk about over kill) as well as the usual assortment of divers.

 

The first dive was on a barge/ferry named the “Dantor” that was sunk in May 2002 as an artificial reef and upright on the bottom in 130 feet of water. The seas were fairly choppy making the entry into the sea quite exciting. Descending down the line, I was once again surrounded by the peaceful silence of the water. I slowed my breathing and focused on relaxing as I descended into the depths.

 

The wreck appeared once we were about 20 feet above it. The visibility was approximately 30 feet at most. Not much sea life but the wreck is sitting upright on a white sandy bottom. We came down on the starboard bow, crossed the hold and swam down the other side to the bottom. Then swimming along the side toward the stern and up and over to the starboard side where we swam back along to where we started.

 

Since the wreck was deep, we had pretty much used up all of our time on it and began our ascent up the same line we had arrived on 15 minutes before. According to the dive computer the dive was a total of 25 minutes, 125 feet at it’s deepest and the water was 74 degrees.

 

Once everyone was aboard, the boat headed over to Barracuda Reef. A shallow ridge of coral running from 18 feet down to around 25 feet. Many overhangs with schools of French Grunts. Some really nice fans and soft corals. While descending I noticed a strobe de-fraction plate that had to have been dropped by one of the divers on our boat. I picked it up and stuffed it under the top of my wet suite. Tom and I swam north for around 25 minutes before doubling back and swimming back to where we started, then a short swim west and we were once again under the boat.

 

Once aboard, I found the diver who had lost the camera gear. He was very happy to get it back. Total bottom time 41 minutes at a deepest depth of 29 feet.

 

Overall, the dive shop was very well run, but they nickel and dimes us to death. Since Tom had not been to 130 feet within the last year, he had to pay an additional 15 dollars. The dive boat had munchies (as usual) but only sold them if we wanted them.

 

Doug, Chris and Rob went window shopping on Las Olas Blvd. We met them back in our hotel room and I loaded the pictures to the computer so they could all see them.

 

We met everyone down at a water front restaurant The Cafe Del Mar and had a fantastic dinner - wonderful Lobster and pasta. A superb guitarists playing a mixture of styles, Flamenco, Gypsy Aires, Latin rhythms. Very good, but a little too loud for table talk.

 

Now I am headed to bed. Tomorrow at 11:15 the driver is coming to pick us up to take us to the ship. Fort Lauderdale has been fun, but we are all anxious to board the ship.

 

Next stop, Grand Cayman.