a spotted eagle ray flies across soft coral on its way out into the white sandy bottom

Ryan's Beach and Aquarium

Brett and Jess arrived yesterday and joined us on our dives today. It was so calm yesterday and I hoped it would be as good today, so they could enjoy some of this sweetness. It was. And they did. Both of our dives were along Molasses Reef today. Our first spot was at a place they call Ryan鈥檚 Beach. I suspect it has another name, because when they said it, the rest of the crew laughed. It鈥檚 probably something like Valerie鈥檚 Beach, but I can鈥檛 seem to look it up anywhere. ...

May 21, 2015 路 3 min 路 jtalbot
a scuba diver takes a giant step off the back of a scuba boat into the ocean

USCG Duane and Aquarium at Molasses Reef

It rained again last night. I worried that the water would be rough again today, but it wasn鈥檛. We bought some dramamine yesterday and took some before bed. We took another round this morning before heading out. I鈥檓 not sure if it was the drugs or the calm waters, but we were both fine all day. We did our second deep dive today. We decided to do all our deep dives before Brett and Jess get here. I don鈥檛 think Jess enjoys going deep and there鈥檚 certainly no need to go deep to see anything other than wrecks. The wreck we saw this morning was the USCG Duane. I took the camera down inside the enclosure for the first time. I brought the big flash because I knew there wouldn鈥檛 be a lot of light at depth. That full rig is pretty heavy. Speaking of heavy, I took 18 pounds of weight today, which proved to be way too much. It鈥檚 easy to compensate for too much weight, but there鈥檚 no way to compensate for having too little. Tomorrow I may try a little less. ...

May 18, 2015 路 3 min 路 jtalbot