The East Wind Is Not Your Friend

The beach was busy this afternoon. We had to park North of the 14th Court traffic light, which is also a little North of our mark for the Big Coral Knoll. The winds was probably 5-10 knots from the East and the surf was 2-3 feet. We entered the water and set out at 90 degrees. The visibility was only a few feet on the sand and not much more on the reef. We stopped at several rocks and I got a good shot of some juvenile Sweepers. We missed the knoll, however, and swam to the Eastern Edge of the reef. I watched a Guitar fish swoop down the ledge and head out onto the sand, but I could not follow him in the low visibility.

We spent an hour and a quarter warming up after our first dive before we got back in the water for a second one. We went a little further South along the beach, this time, hoping, again, to swim to the Big Coral Knoll. The wind had died down some and the surf was less, but visibility was about as bad as before and we swam to the Eastern edge of the reef before turning around. We did find a Blue Hamlet at the edge of the reef and I got some nice photos.