I had often thought about a Florida beach vacation in the Ft. Lauderdale area. I had some time to kill before my flight home on Monday and decided to check out an area beach. I wanted to get an idea what I could expect while on vacation. I headed south from the airport towards Hollywood along route 1 then cut over to A1A and North Ocean Drive. I found myself in an area named Dania Beach. The hard part was figuring out where I could park. Most of the parking spots had meters, making me wish I had more change.


It was an interesting area with older non-chain hotels. The walkway and bike path along the beach was lined with restaurants, ice cream shops, and stores and bike rental shops. I got photos looking south (above) towards Hollywood and Miami and one looking north towards Port Everglades.

I did not plan on doing any deep dives during this trip but changed my mind on Friday when I learned there was a Saturday (July 5th) morning trip to the Spiegel Grove and conditions were pretty good.

I was a little nervous since I had to abort the dive during my 2005 trip. In 2007 I decided not to go due to dive conditions so it was a dive that was long overdue. I decided not to bring my camera so I could focus on safety since this was my first time at the wreck.

Chris from Rainbow Reef was the dive guide for the trip. The waves were higher than I liked, which made me a little nervous. High waves make it difficult since you pull yourself around the boat to the mooring line along along a “granny” line while breathing through your snorkel. As I learned the hard way in 2005, water getting in your snorkel from high waves can be a problem. I made it with no problem but I still want to get a snorkel with a better wave guard for future dives like the Spiegel.
We moored on ball number three, which put us mid-ship on the starboard side at about 85 feet. There was very little current and visibility was great. We swam towards the bow past the mid-ship crane. We even stopped to salute the flag on the crane tower, which seemed like the thing to do since it was the 4th of July weekend. We turned around at the starboard anti-aircraft gun when I hit 1800 psi and headed back to the mooring line. We did not see a lot of the large fish that hang out around the ship except for two pretty good sized Barracuda. As we planned, I ended up hitting 95 feet for my maximum depth. Overall the dive went as planned and I feel a lot better about doing more of the deep wreck dives in the Key Largo area, especially if I have a better snorkel.

Forth of July 2008 is one I will never forget!
Diving out of Islamorada was great but I was glad to be back on Molasses Reef. Visibility was fantastic and we had many sea life sightings. We saw more Spotted Eagle Rays and several sharks including a Black Tip Reef shark.



We also saw a couple nurse sharks and I was lucky enough to get close enough at the right angle for some good photos.


I used up a lot of air chasing all those eagle rays and sharks so I hung out under the boat while the others were chasing a turtle. I was able to get a nice photo of a Nassau Grouper and a Queen Angelfish.


It looks like this one got part of its tail bit off.

We dove out of Islamorada on Thursday, July 3rd and spent the day at Hens and Chickens reef. It’s a shallow reef with some great coral profiles and lots of sea life. I was able to get a nice close-up of these barracuda near the surface.

The big treat was another close encounter with a green sea turtle.



We had been seeing several large Tarpon crusing the area but I was having a hard time getting a good photo. I managed to get this shot just before the battery in my camera died.

Today was my first dive trip out of Islamorada, which is about 20 miles south of Key Largo. Doing more dives down there was one of my goals for this trip. It looks like I will be diving down there Thursday and Friday as well. Most of these sites are outside the marine sanctuary and don’t have as many divers visiting.
We visited two patch reefs this morning named Patch A and Grumpys. Patch A was a great environment for Nurse Sharks with many overhangs form them to hide under.



I also got this really good shot of a Gray Angelfish. For some reason, getting a good side profile of Anglefish has been difficult so I was really happy to get this one.


I was also lucky enough to have a close encounter with a large Southern Stingray.
The dive site named Grumpies had many nooks and crannies, which made it a great place to find lobster.

This also explains why Nurse Sharks also can be found in the area. I was photographing a Nurse Shark in its “den” when it swam away. The den area was littered with the remains of several lobsters, telling me that Nurse Sharks like lobster as much as we do.


I also got a shot of this Balloonfish from an interesting angle.

Monday turned out to be a great day for shark sightings. I saw a total of four sharks, but only got photos of three and pretty good photos of two. Both these sharks were at Molasses Reef.


In addition to sharks I saw two turtles and more Spotted Eagle Rays.



I learned that I was seeing more Eagle Rays during this trip because there are more around in the spring and summer than winter when I made my previous trips to Key Largo.
I also got a few photos of Rainbow Reef staff members.

Whitney let me user her new SeaLife DSC800 to take a picture of her and Cherry. Excellent camera! I would love to upgrade and buy one.

This is a shot of Whitney taking a photo of a sea turtle.

Jesus was my divemaster three years ago when I fist came down to Key Largo. He know the reef extreamly well and can usualy find some marine life to photograph. He was the divemaster for the afternoon dive.

Chris was the divemaster for the morning trip. The current was strong and we use up our air faster than normal, but we had some good marine life sightings.

I took Sunday off from diving so I could recover from too much sun, a little sea sickness and not eating very much for a few days. After taking to the people at the Kayak rental shop I stopped into the Parasailing place in the Bay Side near mile marker 104.


I did the 1000 foot ride and got a great view of Key Largo.





Parasailing is a blast and I would recommend it to anyone visiting the Key Largo area.

I came down to Key Largo to get experience with my new dive computer and take photographs. Once again I have been divng with Rainbow Reef Dive Center.
I hear the seas are usually calm this time if the year, we have had 2 to 4 foot waves so far. The sun and waves have been making the boating a little rough but the diving has been fantastic. I have been lucky enough to get some great photographs.
On Friday we made a visit to Pillar Coral Ridge. This is one of the last places in the Florida Keys where Pillar Coral can be found. Like other coral, environmental pressues have been taking its toll on the Pillar Coral.


I can’t believe how lucky I have been to see many Spotted Eagle Rays and a Sea Turtle.

Saturday I had one come within three feet of me. It was so amazing!

I was also extreamly lucky to get a close up shot of a Green Sea Turtle. I have been trying for three years to get turtle photos like these.

I recently spent a long weekend at our vacation home in Bristol, Maine, where I got some fantastic photographs while kayaking. I rented one of the used boats for sale at Mid-coast Kayak with the intention of buying it if I liked it. I knew it was the perfect boat for me at a place like the Johns River.

As I said, I was luckly enough to get some fantactic close up photos of a seal in the Johns River.

Monday morning was perfect with sunshine, blue sky and the water like glass.

The seals were out sunning and playing and the lobster men were busy working their traps.

The lobster men had a crappy morning when they later got hung up on some rocks as the tide was going out. They had to wait another hour and a half for the tide to hit the low point and another two hours for it to get high enough to lift the boat.

It’s encouraging to know I will have a kayak that I really like when I go back at the end of July.

I recently discovered a stock photography Web site that I am impressed with. The site is istockphoto.com and is what I would consider a Web 2.0 Website. The stock photo inventory are from Website members. Perhaps this is why the photos are actually affordable! A large photo suitable for most print project sells for 10 credits, which costs $13.
I remember a great article about stock photography by Stephen. He discussed the pros and cons of using stock photography verses photos you take yourself. I found istockphoto.com when working on our spring appeal flyer. We were using anonymous patient quotes in conjunction with a photo of a nurse and child. For legal reasons, we did not want people to associate the quote with a photo of an actual patient from our photo library. In this case a stock photo was best. I’m just glad it did not cost a lot.
The other benefit of istockphoto is that photographers can upload and sell thier photos as stock photos. Like I say, it’s a true Web 2.0 site. It’s an eBay for stock media. You never know, it could be an additional source of revenue.
Has anyone else used this site? Do you know of similar sites?