Another beautiful dive with Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures in West Palm Beach

We headed down on Friday January 6, 2012 and stayed the night at a hotel so we could be bright and early for our dives set for Saturday morning.  Of course, we had the go out for some cocktails and a bit of dinner.  Pina Colada was my choice of drink.  Yummy!

Arriving at the shop around 7:30am, we needed to sign all the required forms before we could get head out for the day of diving.  "The Deep Obsession" is usually our boat of choice.  Our Captain was Jim Harris and crew was Lindsay, Susan and Fran.  We left the dock approximately 8:30am and we were set on a course for "The Corridors".  Upon arrival, all of us got set and ready to dive, dive, dive.  85ft dive and sinking down to our first wreck "The Mizpah" with 50-60 ft visibility.  Two students were doing one of four Wreck Certification dives and this wreck is the perfect one to get to see first.  Goliath Groupers make this wreck, one of the best to get to see first, along with many other fish including; Snapper, Angelfish and a Hawksbill turtle.   Drifting along 'The Corridors" we came upon the next wreck in the line of four.  Multiple variety of fish make this wreck their home and we were glad to get see them.  As we swam along, everyone had different consumptions of air so two by two, everyone went up for our surface interval.

With everyone all accounted for after role call, we proceeded to wait out our surface interval and rehydrate with fresh pineapple and drinks.  It was a beautiful sunny day in West Palm Beach and 76 degrees.  All the students were discussing everything they had seen on that dive.  Two groups from Discover Diving went into the water.  I headed up the first group with the experienced Advanced Open Water divers and Ryan headed up the second group with some of our Open Water students getting there first taste of an ocean dive, needed to get their Advanced Open Water Certificate.  Everyone had an awesome first dive.

As the hour passed, it was time to gear up and drop into our second dive of the day, "Middle Reef".  Lots of ledges and places for sea life to hide.  Before we dropped in, we set up buddy groups, in hopes that we would all have someone to dive with.  Once again, my group dropped in first.  Visibility was dropping to about 30-40ft so once we got into the dive, everyone quickly split up.  It was just AJ and I drifting along.  We passed several spotted eels and a scorpion fish who thought he was cleverly disguised.  Finally caught up with Jack, taking pictures of a 8ft Green Moray Eel swimming around his area.  I had never seen one so big before and he or she was a beautiful sight.  Hopefully, someone got a picture of it so I can post it here.  We ascended and everyone was accounted for once again. 

All of us had our own stories to tell of that dive and we found out one of our students Steven, in the second group, shot a snapper after Ryan stunned him.  That same green moray eel we saw on our way past, was were they shot the snapper.  The moray was very interested in the snapper as well and swam right around Steven's legs.  Probably wanting a free meal. ha ha ha

We made it back to the dock by lunch and unloaded all of our gear.  It was a spectacular day and as always, Abernethy's crew was just as spectacular.  Be on the look out for many more of these dive trips getting set up with them.  They are definitely our go to dive shop for West Palm Beach.  A couple of our divers wanted to stay and do the afternoon dives so Ryan decided to join in on those dives as well.  It has been a while since we had such a great day for diving. 

Happy Diving!