Thursday, 3 January 2019 Dive on the Fish Camp Rocks

Martha and I met Rikard and Vilma at the Hotel and drove to Tower 17. My favorite parking space was available. Rick tried on the retail Zuma and it fit well enough he wanted to use it. Unfortunately, the regulator I borrowed from Matt leaked air from a small O-ring where the second stage married the hose. Martha volunteered to forego the dive so he could use her regulator and she sat on the beach while we geared up and headed for the water.

We headed out at 100 degrees, keeping the Life Guard Tower between the two buildings across A1A. I had the two divers close in and we descended. The water was milky, but it was a slight improvement over their first dive at the Swiss Cheese Reef on Sunday, 30 December 2018. Because I was guiding them, I did not take my camera, especially when Martha would not be along to watch them.

We headed East with little current but got set slightly to the North. Spotted the two smaller Green Coral Heads just West of the Fish Camp Rocks slowly explored the site. Lots of French and Spanish Grunts. Found some large Jacks on the taller coral heads on the East end of the site. Vilma spent a lot of time with her feet over her head looking under corals. Rik stayed about 8 feet off the bottom. We went through the site once and then headed North to the Big Coral Knoll.

We ended up on the West end of the Knoll and swam around the Knoll clockwise. Not much life on the Knoll this morning. We made one circumnavigation and then headed back to the Fish Camp Rocks. As Vilma was hanging near one of the coral heads on the East end of the Rocks, a 5 foot Purple Mouth Moray Eel slithered down the coral head and frightened her. Her reactions scared the eel, which quickly swam East and under the coral head. Saw a single lobster in one coral head with a couple of Spotted Scorpionfish. Rick signaled that he was cold, so we turned the dive and headed for the beach.

We stayed together pretty well until Rick motioned that he was out of air. I offered him my alternate air source and he took it, but I could not get him to make a solid mechanical connection with my gear. He dangled on the end of the regulator hose. Vilma lost sight of us in the confusion. I had hoped to spot her but had no luck, so I signaled to Rick to surface. Vilma was patiently waiting there for us. We decided to swim in on the surface.

I ignored the flag until I got into shallow water and had to quickly reel it in and secure it before exiting the water. The sand was packed, but there were several larger waves that slammed me from behind. I slowed down and kept my weight centered over my feet while Vilma and Rick just walked calmly out. Our maximum depth was 21 feet; bottom temperature was 75 degrees; dive time was 39 minutes my RMV was 0.54 ft3/min, but some of that was breathing with Rick, too. Still, I used a lot of air.