Diving right in...
I've been taking a scuba refresher course with Gary at Force-E in Pompano Beach over the past week and today I did my first 2-tank dive. This means that I used one tank of air on one dive and the second tank on the second dive. The first dive saw the ten divers (including myself and Gary) at the 'nursery' right off the Hillsboro Inlet. It's so named because many nurse sharks (large but relatively harmless) frequent the area. The reef was beautiful: tan corals, lavender sea fans swaying gently in the current; assorted reef denizens swimming. Gary found and caught a pufferfish and the minute he touched it, it inflated. He let me hold it for a second before releasing it. The reef system here ranges from 15 feet to 22 feet.
Then we moved further south to one of South Florida's shipwrecks, which is in relatively shallow water. The SS Copenhagen was used as target practice for a while and it now rests on the sandy bottom in about 20-30 feet of water. The original anchor is now home to many species of coral and a few tubeworms. Gary found a flat piece of rock and turned it over to reveal a brittle star, which he also let me hold. It has little spines and very bendable legs. I started swimming away because I became fascinated with a stoplight parrotfish, which is silvery gray, pink, and green. Gary called me back. We swam around for about 35 minutes on each dive. It felt really good to get back into the ocean again. This was my first dive since 1998.
If it weren't for the severe nausea I felt as the boat rocked in the water, it would've been perfect.
Then we moved further south to one of South Florida's shipwrecks, which is in relatively shallow water. The SS Copenhagen was used as target practice for a while and it now rests on the sandy bottom in about 20-30 feet of water. The original anchor is now home to many species of coral and a few tubeworms. Gary found a flat piece of rock and turned it over to reveal a brittle star, which he also let me hold. It has little spines and very bendable legs. I started swimming away because I became fascinated with a stoplight parrotfish, which is silvery gray, pink, and green. Gary called me back. We swam around for about 35 minutes on each dive. It felt really good to get back into the ocean again. This was my first dive since 1998.
If it weren't for the severe nausea I felt as the boat rocked in the water, it would've been perfect.