ScubaLady
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Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 12:29 am

Okay, so I am down in Key Largo diving this week. I''m thinking that I won't bore VDH with another travel log and then today happens. Here I am with my dive buddy, Kelly, who is having her first session in the big water. We got here yesterday and the viz was bad; I measured it at 21'. I am feeling so bad for Kelly.

Well, we headed out this morning for a dive on the Duane. I've had better visibility on her, but a dive on the Duane is always a good dive. Being first in the water I had some time to kill, so I cut a finishing hook out of the mooring line. A little challenging, but it was a first for me and fun to know that a future diver wouldn't get a nasty surprise.

Then, we have a great second dive at Molasses with improving visibility.

On our third dive, we meet our new boat buddy, Mitch. Mitch has just returned from Iraq and will be heading out to Afghanistan in August. He is a new diver, so this was a treat for him. We made sure he knew how much we appreciated his sacrifices so our families could live in a free nation. Thank you to every man or woman who reads this post and has made such sacrifices. I live free because of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Our third dive is on City of Washington. I had a dive there in November doing the ESPN shoot and recalled the Goliath Groupers. I was hoping we would see one. Sure enough, we see one in the first ten minutes. I encouraged Kelly and Mitch to sit on the sandy sea floor with me. We had a large metal plate lying just to our starboard, but we are facing away from it, looking at the grouper. The grouper gets interested in us and comes a little closer. She checks us out (by the way, I think all cute fish are girls). She gets spooked and swims off after a minute or two, but turns around to look at us. So, we lie down on the sand and will her to return. Sure enough, she does. We stayed very, very still and she swims within six inches of all of us. We are lying pretty close together, and she swims between us; touching up against us and looking in our eyes. She does this for about ten minutes and we are loving it. Just about then, we look up to see two huge morays have come out from under the plate and they are checking us out. We've got a grouper rubbing against us and two morays within a foot of our group. We shimmed around to face the morays. We settle down and are very still again. The port moray comes out to about eight inches from my face. This was really cool as he's the largest moray I have ever seen (by the way, I think all scary or ugly fish are boys). Then he turns to check out Mitch. Here is Mitch on his fifth dive ever and he's lying in the sand with a huge moray looking right at him. Mitch's eyes are smiling so big. He looks over at me and I can't keep it in. I glanced just past him and Mitch turns to follow my eyes. Right there on his left is the Goliath grouper again and she's about six inches from him. He did great. An ever so slight jump gave him away, but who could resist? He's got a huge moray ten inches from his face and a Goliath grouper six inches from his ear.

What a wonderful sight!!

Finally, we move away, just because there's more to see. We cruise around for a bit and just as our time is winding down, Kelly signals me. Under a ledge is our Goliath grouper. I love to have my fins up, so I slide down with just my face under the ledge looking at my old friend. I went ever so still, and was looking into the most beautiful brown eyes. Then before I knew it, I learned she was a he. He, and I kid you not (I have witnesses), put his mouth on my regulator.

I was kissed by a Goliath grouper on the City of Washington.

Mitch, Kelly and I had one of the best dives of our lives. I was so very thankful. Our fourth dive was on the opposite end of the Elbow Reef and we saw a lovely small sea turtle. Then, we headed over to the Benwood to kill time, waiting for the sun to set as we were doing a night dive. This was to be Mitch's first night dive ever and Kelly's first night dive in saltwater. We get about two thirds through our dive and Mitch spots a nice sized sea turtle. We swim after him and, at first, he moves away from us. But, fresh off our grouper experience, we settle into a nice slow swim just following him. He doesn't swim away, which surprised me. Then, for the next ten minutes he proceeds to swim thru us and with us. Finally, we just made a little horseshoe shape around him and he started checking us out. At one point, he swam right at my face and I thought to myself, "kissed by a Goliath grouper and a sea turtle in one day? What is a ScubaLady to do?" About eight inches from my face he turned away, but not before I got a wonderful eyeful of one of God's amazing creatures. Way cool!!

Tomorrow we do two dives and Mitch will be joining us. We are hoping to dive the Spiegel Grove.

What a day! :D :)
Vintage Diving...the fun never gets old.

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ivan's mermaid
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 6:52 am

Wow, that sounds like great fun. One among us was able to maintain status quo with a moray between his legs and 20 sharks feeding right in front of our faces. I know I have the picture of Herman but can't find it right now. I hope that someone has it and can post it it's great.
I like the fact that all pretty fish are girls and nasty ones are boys.
I'm wondering how you get so much time to go on so many dive trips Scuba Laday?
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ScubaLady
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:18 am

I'm wondering how you get so much time to go on so many dive trips Scuba Laday
Well, first, I try to be a happy, fun buddy, so my buddies will want to dive with me. Second, I work with my buddy's schedules. They know if they give me dates in advance I will block the calendar. Third, they all know I am a consultant, so I may need to squeeze in conference calls from hotel rooms at night, when traveling in the scuba buggy, etc. Third, I am always checking emails at surface intervals and at night, so my clients needs are taken care of as well. Captain Don is always teasing me about my phone checking. He says "Stop that, you're on vacation" and I reply, "No, I'm diving on my lunch break." :lol:

My next goal is to get a diving boat and, maybe, eventually transition to a live aboard equipped with an office. I will reach my final goal when I am screwing my wet hair into a professional looking bun, slapping some lipstick on (this here pig), and donning a suit jacket before sitting down to a video conference from the boat during a surface interval. :lol: :idea: :lol:

If I can picture it in my head, I can usually get it done, and I am laughing at the mental image of a video conference in wet neoprene.

Here's the big question, if the camera and I are rocking in concert, will the image appear stable on the other end and not give away my location. :?
Vintage Diving...the fun never gets old.

ScubaLady
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:36 am

I hope someone can find that picture of Herman. I just shared your post with Kelly and she immediately blurted out, "Now there's a man with some balls, literally."
Vintage Diving...the fun never gets old.

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Robohips77
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 2:57 pm

Now I love reading these posts and I really wish I could be there for these Interpretive moments. Having been a 'Crick Dick', 'Tree Pig', 'Meadow Masher' aka a Park Ranger most of my life please just remember "Don't feed the Bears" you ARE in their house and they let you be there :D :shock: !. I think I have the pic of Herman and will share tonight. The other story that went with this one was the one from the other group diving with us on the Bahamas trip was a nice Police Officer from Columbus and he too was kneeling in the same location had that exact moray come between his legs except...... that the nice Shark decided the Moray looked like dinner and immediately went for the moray between the nice police officers legs. Well being a well trained police officer he did just as the Highly Trained Divemaster Guide briefed and "DID NOT MOVE" while the sharks were swimming among us. AS the DM guide said later that evening at Dinner. J. C. Man sometimes you have to Frickin move!!! She grabbed him by the tank valve and pulled him up out of the way of the hungry predator. Now that is funny. These are all great "FISH" stories and having been a Crick Dick most of my life I love every single one of them!!!!Have a great time. PLEASE get Karl to give you a sample Ikelite Video camera.
First dives? 1967 and I never lost the fever.

swimjim
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 6:20 pm

Great report Scubalady! Sounds like the only thing you guys missed was the green flash at sun down. If you can arrange that for Mitch, that would really make his trip I bet. Hope you can make Portage next year. I'd like to sit around with you and the other cast of characters that attend and listen to sea stories. I'll bet you've got some really good ones. Let me know what needs to be in the cooler! :wink:

Jim

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JES
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:47 pm

ScubaLady wrote:I hope someone can find that picture of Herman. I just shared your post with Kelly and she immediately blurted out, "Now there's a man with some balls, literally."
Or should we say "lucky to still have them". :wink: :lol:
NAVED Master Diver #108
'Anima Sana In Corpore Sano’

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Robohips77
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:10 pm

Yep Portage was great this year as between the stories and the Music performed by our very own Gary Reece it was a great time. I am glad I attended for only three days later I snapped that titanium in my hip! :( . Jim I am keeping the Triples and will hold you to depositing them in the water for me. Of course I realize that an adult beverage will be expected for your servitude. :D
First dives? 1967 and I never lost the fever.

swimjim
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:15 am

Robohips77 wrote:Yep Portage was great this year as between the stories and the Music performed by our very own Gary Reece it was a great time. I am glad I attended for only three days later I snapped that titanium in my hip! :( . Jim I am keeping the Triples and will hold you to depositing them in the water for me. Of course I realize that an adult beverage will be expected for your servitude. :D
You got it Robo!

ScubaLady
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:21 pm

Don't worry, Roger, we were extremely respectful about being in their space. When we returned to the boat, we discussed how much we felt that we were on display for them and wondered how much they "paid" to check out the divers. It was a super cool feeling. We just paused our dive, then went extremely still in their space and let them do to us what they wanted; get in our faces and rub against us. It was, by far, one of my best dives.

On Wednesday morning we did a dive on the Spiegel Grove. It was Mitch's first deep dive. Our divemaster had four new deep divers, so I got to play the pick up role and just cruise behind to make sure everyone was okay. That was fun for me.

By the way, Mitch is from Cincinnati and will be joining us at Blue Springs this spring/summer, if all goes well.

Next we did a dive at French Reef. We found a sea turtle dragging at least 50' of 200 lb. test line. Our dive master got about 30' cut from him. Then, when he went by me I got another 9 or 10' off of him. I wished I'd had my gloves on so I could have worked up the line a little better to get all the line off of him. Finally, we got rewarded with the best sight. A loggerhead turtle that could have laid across a king sized bed (and still would have hung off a little) came out and swam right by us. It was the biggest turtle I have ever seen!

What a wonderful trip!
Vintage Diving...the fun never gets old.

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Robohips77
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Re: Kissed by a Goliath Grouper

Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:34 pm

Sounds like a great rip. The SG is a really great dive. Much current on it this time of year? When we were on it this past April I was like a flag in the wind on our dive going down the line but once close to it the current seemed to trail off. Great dive and great video. That was a Big Loggerhead!
First dives? 1967 and I never lost the fever.

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