DR: Venice Beach, Florida
David Navarro
got lots of soccer camps this summer, she could only stay for 3 weeks.
Fortunately, my local dive shop has an "accelerated" program for
certification. They even allowed me to sit in the class with her and be her
dive-buddy in the pool and OW sessions.
Our first "father-daughter" dive after her certification was at Venice
Beach, Florida on July 3rd.
I do beach dives there a lot, as the fossiling is pretty good. I'm building
a nice collection of shark's teeth.
Our first dive was at 8:30am and the seas were glassy. Almost no waves of
any kind. High tide was close to noon, so there was a mild incoming current
as the tide began to rise.
We swam out on the surface for the first 50 yards before going down. Once
we got to the bottom (about 17 feet this close in to shore) and I made sure
everything was okay, we headed towards the fossil beds. Visibility was
about 15-feet at this point. As we got closer to the fossil beds and reef
it started to cloud up. Probably about 5 feet.
I picked up several small conk shells along the way and showed my daughter
the hermit crabs and conks living inside of them. We also say a few very
small crabs which I also grabbed and showed to her. She thinks they're
creepy so she kept backing away from me whenever I tried to show her
anything "living". <grin>
When we got to the fossil bed, I started fanning the bottom to clear away
the top layer of "silt". That made the water even more cloudy and with a
"really mild current" is wasn't settling very quickly. Usually, I'm out
there with a dive buddy who's also interested in fossiling, so I'm real
patient about letting things clear. But my daughter was very *impatient*
and kept tugging at me to "move along" so that she could see more stuff. I
found a couple of small teeth, but spent the rest of the dive just playing
tourist with her as she explored.
We ran into one small devilfish and lots of very small crabs. The max depth
is around 22-feet that time of the day so you don't use up air as quickly.
She collected a bunch of nice clam and empty conk shells. And she kept
messing with the small fish that followed us everywhere (pretending to try
and grab them). She had the same look on her face that I'm sure I had when
I went out for my first dive. It was very cool.
After 50 minutes, I finally got down to 700 psi, so we started switing back
towards the beach. About 75 yards or so from the beach, visibility started
to clear up and we could see all the hermit crabs walking on the bottom.
One of my favorite games is to reach down and turn them around 180 degrees
so they was in the direction they just came. We surfaced about 10 yards
from the beach and waded back.
Since she had no interest (actually "patience" is probably a better word) in
fossiling, I decided on the second dive we'd head out to the reef where we
could see all the coral, crabs, fish, etc.
Our surface interval was about 1 hour... She wanted to get some sun and
flirt with some of the boys on the beach. Since I still have a problem
thinking of her and boys in the same sentence, I went back out and snorkled.
I swam out about 300 yards to the reef, just to be sure I remembered where
it was, and took a visual reading so that I could find it by compass after
we started our second dive.
When I got back, the lifeguard gave me a warning about swimming out that far
without a dive flag. He saw that we used a dive flag when we went diving
earlier, but I didn't realize they were also required for snorkeling. They
had already ticketed several divers for not having one (including one
instructor from Bradenton who took out 4 students without a dive flag).
The second dive, we hit the water directly in front of the lifeguard tower
and surface swam about 50 yards again before my daughter decided we needed
to swim the rest underwater. <grin>
I decided that it was time to test her underwater navigation, so I had her
lead us to the reef after we reached the bottom and checked everything. (Of
course, I had my compass out to make sure she was leading us in the right
direction, which she did.) Along the way we ran into a couple of large
crabs that had just "molted" or something. There was empty crab shells
nearby and they were both very "soft", not hard-shelled. Felt kind of
wierd. They were both alive, but very docile and didn't struggle much to
get away.
I'm a pretty strong swimmer, and I use rather large fins, but as a soccer
player, my daughter has very powerful legs and she kept getting ahead of me
as we swam. I had to keep grabbing her leg and fins to keep her from losing
me.
Once we got out to the reef, visibility was pretty poor again... about 5
feet. It took her a couple of minutes to get nuetral boyancy, during which
a boat came in too close to where we were diving. The noise from the
engines kept getting louder to the point that it sounded like it was coming
"down" to get us. I checked my dive flag to make sure it wasn't tangled up
with either one of us in case it got hit by the boat. (The harbor patrol
saw it get too close to my flag, in fact they said it swirved to avoid
hitting my flag, and stopped the boat to give them a warning.)
We were closer to high tide, so max depth was around 28 feet on the reef. I
figured viz wasn't going to be that great, so I brought my big flashlight
out with me. WOW! The improvement on colors was astonishing, even in
daylight. We kept pointing out everything we saw to each other. Various
colored corals, sponges, crabs, 1 lobster, several starfish (which we picked
up and examined), and tons of very colorful fish. It's positively the best
time I've ever had diving (even better than lobstering).
She's coming out to visit again in October. I'm arranging a trip to the
keys for a few days for that visit. By then, my wife will have finished her
certification (she just finished her second pool dive) and it will be a very
nice "family affair".
Overall, I enjoy diving at Venice Beach. This is my first year diving, and
I'm told the viz is the worst its been in years, but since I prefer to go
fossiling, all I need is 1 foot of decent visibility and I'm happy. When I
want to "play tourist" I go down to the keys or Lauderdale.
Although, a friend of mine owns a 48-foot sailboat with a small dive
platform and we're heading to some place in the gulf called "the towers" in
August for a lobster trip. Two night dives and four afternoon dives over
two days. About 30 to 40 miles offshore. I'm told that visibility is
outstanding and the lobsters are huge and mean... just the way I like 'em.
I'm 35 years old and only got certified last march. I've been "kicking"
myself ever since for not having done it a lot sooner. I've been bugging my
wife ever since to get certified so that we can share the experience
together. After diving with my daughter, I see that I was right. The
experience is much sweeter with family.
After seeing the look on Linda's face when we got out of the water after the
second dive and how excited she was, my wife finally got off her butt and
into class. After just two pool dives, she's decided that it's pretty cool
afterall. I highly recommend getting your family involved if you can.
--Dave
Chris
My wife and I just did our first Gulf dive off of Venice Beach on one of the
charters. Vis was only about 2-3 ft as it was just last weekend and all the
rain you had. I did find a few sharks teeth and some other things as well.
We were at about 27 ft at the deepest. We will be back with another couple
in a few months as the diving was very good.
Chris
David Navarro <da...@basicguru.nospam> wrote in message
news:MPG.15c6236ea...@news.earthlink.net...
Ed Daniel
Sounds like a nice experience for you and your daughter! I wholeheartedly
agree with you about getting the family involved. My wife certified while
we were dating, but after children, dive trips were few and far between.
When my son hit 14 and daughter 12, I signed them up for classes. They of
course (as all kids do) did geat!
This is the only "sport" activity that we ALL enjoy. Other sports, we seem
to go our own ways since no more than three can agree on a single activity
save for diving.
Since the kids were old enough that we did not want to pack into one hotel
room, and the Keys would be a great place for them to have as a regular
place to dive (shallow, etc.); I found a timeshare on the secondary market
(very cheap). 2500 square feet, two car garage, etc makes a perfect diving
base! Years that we dont use it, we trade and recently went to Tobago on a
trade.
My 14 yo daughter wrote the following in her journal after one of her first
dives while we were there:
"The waves lapped gently 'pon the shore as we waded into the bay. Fishing
and
diving boats were docked in a hodge-podge fashion amongst the receding
waves. I was introduced to Steven and Big Doug, the divemasters. Handing Big
Doug my fins and mask, I climbed aboard the small, twin-screw boat, looking
for a dry place to sit. 'Ah, put your nose back down,' I scolded myself, and
sat down on the middle bench where I could get a good feel of the waves.
Out boat, StoneCutter, leapt and nose-dived through the shots the sea sent
our way. Three-foot waves rose and fell, taking my stomach with them. We
eventually arrived at the beginning of our drift-dive down Flying Reef.
Slipping into my buoyancy control device (BCD), I pulled my mask over my
face, perched on the side of the boat, and flipped overboard.
I bobbed around beside the boat, slowly regaining my head. At a signal from
Big Doug, I emptied the air from my BCD and descended. A cool wetness
surrounded me as the water rushed to cover my head. The wonders of the deep
amazed me as it had 18 times before.
Stevens's once-sky-blue fins before me shone as though illuminated in black
light. Lime green tube coral and twisted coils of periwinkle spattered the
bottom with color. Stoplight parrotfish and squirrelfish darted by. Big
Doug, usually so awkward on land, was swift and agile. As was I. My
maneuvering capability was amazing - like flying. I swam to the head of the
group in time for Steven to signal something of interest. A sinuous,
alive-green head was moving with the current, snaking from side to side. Its
mouth hung open, waiting, displaying two sets of vicious, glittering teeth.
It was a moray eel, the long body thicker than my arm, or my father's. We
circled around for a good look, giving it a respectful bearth. The current
tugged at our buoyant bodies and, eventually, we turned away.
Soon after the moray, Big Doug sighted a buried stingray. He stirred it
gently with a hand, causing it to break cover. Silvery underside rippled in
waves as it sped away, not giving us a second glance.
There were many beautiful fish, and two more stingrays. One ray's tail ended
quickly in a stump instead of tapering out into a deadly weapon. The other
floated past like a fallen angel, descending upon the earthly plane.
Too soon, the dive was over. I ascended and pulled myself, dripping
saltwater and dog tired, into the boat."
"David Navarro" <da...@basicguru.nospam> wrote in message
news:MPG.15c6236ea...@news.earthlink.net...
David Navarro
eda...@cinci.rr.com says...
> David,
>
> Sounds like a nice experience for you and your daughter! I wholeheartedly
> agree with you about getting the family involved.
My daughter lives with her mother in Tennessee. Soon after she got home
from her visit, she called me and asked when we were going diving next.
<grin>
My wife and I are trading out this years timeshare for a trip to the
Bahamas. We've both always wanted to go and my friend who owns the local
dive shop has been there lots of times. He's recommended a number of great
diving spots for the two of us to visit. It will be our first vacation
without my daughter in several years.
I'm planning a trip up to Tennessee in a couple of weeks for a visit. I've
contacted a dive shop in Johnson City and they're helping me to arrange a
lake dive with my daughter and wife during the visit.
> My 14 yo daughter wrote the following in her journal after one of her first
> dives while we were there:
Very, very cool. She writes very well.
My daughter (and wife) want to get into underwater photography so they can
document all the great stuff we see. We've already got some nice digital
cameras and a nice digital video camera. Now it's time to take out a second
mortgage on the house so that we can afford housings. <grin>
--Dave
Ed Daniel
"David Navarro" <da...@basicguru.nospam> wrote in message
news:MPG.15d00ca2c...@news.earthlink.net...