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!