Anyone else a scuba/ocean lover? EPIC vid of this weekend's shipwreck dive.

andrearamirezo91

andrearamirezo91

Avid Member
So I completed all my requirements for the advanced scuba certification this weekend! Our course culminated with a night dive (spooky but wonderful!) and an EPIC 130 ft shipwreck dive. This place is known for it's strong currents, bull sharks, and the occasional great white appearances. It's also one of the most popular and famous dive sites in the Florida keys. (For those of you who want to know or are familiar with diving in the Keys, we went to the Duane Wreck)

This is the deepest dive I have done so far, and I can say that it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever done. Not gonna lie, jumping in the water and seeing deep blue everywhere you look is nerve wracking.. you're just waiting for that big black shadow to pop out of nowhere :eek: It's a whole different world down there. Something I wish everyone in the world had the opportunity to witness.

My sister took her gopro with her so I'm lucky enough to have a lot of footage of the experience. I'd love to share this with everyone and encourage you guys to watch this short video. It's magical. (I'm the only one in the video that doesn't have a full black suit (y))

 
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todd2010 said:
Wow. Way cool. I kept waiting for MegaShark though also in the video!
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There's a 14ft great white female that lives around the area... I was terrified of running into her but honestly a little disappointed I didn't see her once it was over lol. We did see a 9-10ft hammerhead last week by Pompano beach. He did a couple circles around us and then just swam away. It was awesome! That's the one things that I love most about diving. You never know what you'll encounter down there. Every time is different. Such a thrill.
 
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Great video! I'm also a diver, and was just over at the Phil Foster Park, diving the Blue Heron Bridge this weekend. I've dove in Pompano (I go with Scubatyme), and also have dove a lot in the Keys, including the Duane, Bibb, and Speigel Grove. Congrats on your Advanced Certification - and I'm jealous, because I've never seen a hammerhead (or a great white), but really want to!
 
absolutbill said:
Great video! I'm also a diver, and was just over at the Phil Foster Park, diving the Blue Heron Bridge this weekend. I've dove in Pompano (I go with Scubatyme), and also have dove a lot in the Keys, including the Duane, Bibb, and Speigel Grove. Congrats on your Advanced Certification - and I'm jealous, because I've never seen a hammerhead (or a great white), but really want to!
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We went with Scubatyme the day we saw the hammerhead! We were doing a drift dive at the sanctuary reef. Sadly we couldn’t stay at the Duane for as long as we wanted to because one of the diver’s computers broke basically as soon as we reached the wreck, so we didn’t know how much air he had left. :unsure: I’m dying to go back though, and I also really wanna go to the Spiegel Grove. So jealous of all your experience! And I’m dying to see a whale shark. We’re organizing a trip next year to Mexico to go swim with them.
 
Congratulations on your certification. Maybe you will see this one day. It took me years to actually see any sharks underwater.
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This was in Honduras.
 
They look bigger than they were. They were probably 6-7 feet max. I don't have the picture here but I have one with a dozen in the frame and I swear it wasn't photoshopped.
 
JacksJill said:
They look bigger than they were. They were probably 6-7 feet max. I don't have the picture here but I have one with a dozen in the frame and I swear it wasn't photoshopped.
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That's still a whole lotta teeth if you ask me :D:ROFLMAO:

I always thought I'd freak out the first time I encountered a shark but being in the water has such a calming effect on me that it's never been a bad experience. This has turned into one of my favorite things to do. I really wish everyone could experience it at least once or twice in their lives. It would give people a whole new sense of respect and admiration for the ocean. What's happening now with the oceans in Florida truly breaks my heart.
 
You guys are having some terrible algae blooms. It's a shame.
We have our struggles here on the west coast as well.
 
andrearamirezo91 said:
We went with Scubatyme the day we saw the hammerhead! We were doing a drift dive at the sanctuary reef. Sadly we couldn’t stay at the Duane for as long as we wanted to because one of the diver’s computers broke basically as soon as we reached the wreck, so we didn’t know how much air he had left. :unsure: I’m dying to go back though, and I also really wanna go to the Spiegel Grove. So jealous of all your experience! And I’m dying to see a whale shark. We’re organizing a trip next year to Mexico to go swim with them.
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I love Enzo and Adam (if he was the dive con) - they are friends of mine! I've been diving for 6 years, and am a Master Diver (for those non-divers, this is a certification level, I'm not bragging :D). Enjoy the journey diving, and getting to see all these amazing creatures. I've dove the Atlanta Aquarium, which was my only experience with whale sharks and manta rays, but both are on my bucket list to see in the wild. Now I like to focus on finding the small and interesting critters that are uncommon. If you have a free moment, and are on Facebook, check out Reef Portraits. That's my husband's underwater photography page. He's not selling anything, or making any money off of it, he just loves taking photos and sharing our love for the underwater world.

As for sharks, I love them. There's nothing like seeing them in the wild, and most are VERY skittish and will just swim away from you. They are beautiful creatures, and worthy of respect, but they've got a bad reputation due to Jaws and other books/movies like that. Peter Benchley has said publicly that if he had realized what his book had done to foster fear and hatred towards sharks he would have never written the book, and he is very active in shark conservation. I was diving in Belize for a week and their reef sharks would come very close to us (most had a tag on their dorsal fins and I could read the numbers as they swam by). I have pink fins and 2 took an interest in them during a dawn dive - they were about 6' long and I was doing my safety stop, so I had to actually kick out at their faces to get them away from me, but other than that I've never had a scary experience with them.
 
absolutbill said:
I've been diving for 6 years, and am a Master Diver (for those non-divers, this is a certification level, I'm not bragging :D).
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:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

That certification level is worth bragging, if you ask me :rolleyes: I did meet Enzo but briefly. However in that short period of time I did notice how much all the regulars seemed to love him. I was impressed with how good diving in Pompano was. Counting the days till I can be back in the water! If only the hobby wasn’t SO damn expensive :unsure:
 
He's a really nice guy - we've been diving with his boat just about the entire time we've been certified. We live in Naples, so we can be over there in under 2 hours, do a couple of dives and be back late afternoon. It's much more convenient than the Keys for us. I just did my 342nd dive this weekend and still log them all because I'm pretty Type A. And yes, the hobby is ridiculously expensive, but completely worth it :D
 
I got my certification done early this year and can't believe I didn't get it years ago. Here I've gone to Catalina twice and four times in Santa Barbara. It is a nice outing going diving!
 
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