Leo's Mapping Project on the Little Coral Knoll

Met Leo on the beach at Tower 15 at 7:30 am.  We measured off 400 yards along the beach and then Leo did his free style 400 yard swim in 11 minutes and 22 seconds.  Luis got there to see him cross the finish line.

After a short rest, we geared up and got in the water to begin Leo's mapping project.  We swam out to the Big Rock and descended.  I took the 100 ft tape.  Both Luis and I had flags.  I did not take my camera, but Luis took his.  Leo and I began measuring the distance from the Big Rock to the Little Coral Knoll.  I held the end of the tape and he took the reel, so he would know when he was at 100 feet instead of just caught on a sea rod.  I sighted down the tape to see that it was on a 150 degree bearing and then pulled twice on the tape.  Leo would sight the tape, as well, and pull twice if everything was okay.  If we were not on the correct bearing, I would pull three times and then swim to Leo to work it out.   Same for him.

Swimming 150 degrees put us to the West of the Knoll and we shifted our bearing to hit the SW corner of the knoll.  I tied my line to that corner and we measured distance along the natural edges of the knoll.  Then we swam over to the Porthole Rocks and measured the bearing back to the flag at the corner of the knoll: 40 degrees.  Next, we attempted to measure the distance, except we missed the knoll and were well North of the Tower when we surfaced to learn of our error.  We swam on the surface to retrieve the flag, and Luis, who had already gone in to the beach, said that caused some concern among the life guards.  We however, were just fine.

It took a while to swim to the flag, however, and my computer ended my first dive and began a second when I descended to get the flag and then swam towards Leo.  I was just starting to the surface to see if I could find him when I saw him coming to me.  That worked out well.  We went back to the beach at a slow and steady pace. We each had plenty of air.

Leo and I decide to make a second dive, but I had a tank with only 2500 psi.  A shorter dive seemed just fine, so we went.  We swim out to the swim buoy and watched as a police boat come by checking us out.  The LIfe Guards must have called them.  The Police went by and Leo and I descended and swam to the Big Rock.  We then headed off at 150 degrees.  Leo was taking pictures.  I left my camera in the truck.  Spotted a baby Nurse Shark, which I would have liked to photograph.  Otherwise, we missed the knoll and wandered around, a lot like our last dive.  I called the dive early, even with my short tank.  I'd had enough.