20200613_Swiss Cheese Reef

As often happens, the evening forecast calling for thunderstorms was replaced early the next morning by one calling for cloudy skies with no mention of thunderstorms. Martha and I agreed to meet Leo and Luis
in the parking lot behind Tower 4 to dive the Swiss Cheese Reef this morning. The sea was relatively calm but visibility was only about 8 feet. We geared up and got in the water about 8:15 am and descended descended at 8:30 am somewhere near the beginning of the first reef and East of the first berm. 

We swam East to the Wrap Around Ledge then continued over the Rubble where I spotted a Bandtail SeaRobin (Prionotus ophryas).

This French Grunt (Haemulon flavolineatum) was on the Eastern edge of the Wrap Around Ledge.

From the Wrap Around Ledge, we swam East to the Rock Line then North to the Tire and from there we headed East again across a large sand flat to the Cresent Moon Rock. These Spotted Goatfish (Pseudupeneus maculatus) were encountered as we crossed that sand flat. 

After the sand flat, we swam Northeast over a rubble covered area and looked for some Barrel Sponges which would indicate we were close to the Staghorn Coral Reef.  

We swam North along the Swiss Cheese Reef and found a few bright green Rock Hind (Epinephelus adscensionis) among the rocks near the end of the Reef. We turned the dive when Martha hit 1500 psi and swam South along the reef line. Somewhere we lost Leo, who later explained that he had interacted with some 7 foot, 200 pound dolphin while we were otherwise engaged.

We continued South along the reef line to the Sectioned Rock, where we turned West and enjoyed the Grunts on the Staghorn Coral. We had about 800 psi when we got to the buoy line so we killed some time exploring before heading in.

We surfaced at 10:22 am for a dive time of 113 minutes at a maximum depth of 19.0 feet. My Actual consumption rate was 22.15 psi/minute; my Surface Air Consumption was 15.23 psi/minute and my Respiratory Minute Volume was 0.39 ft3/minute. We each got out of the water without incident.