Coming up!
Jonathan and Zach investigate three wrecks in one dive!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
The Blue Heron Bridge in Riviera Beach, Florida is one of the most famous muck dives in the
world.
But it’s not the only dive in town.
Just offshore lie fabulous coral reefs and wrecks to explore--and today we’re going
to check them out.
Riviera Beach is located on the eastern shore of Florida, bathed in the warm clear waters
of the Gulf Stream.
Our adventure begins at Pura Vida Divers.
I show up first thing to check out the shop, and sign my waiver.
Then I’m off to the dive boat with divemaster Andrea Whittaker.
Down at the dock, Zach and I load our gear on the boat.
Then we take a few minutes to set everything up before we depart.
Soon we are on our way to one of the great dive sites, just offshore.
Andrea is not only a divemaster, but a talented underwater photographer.
So she knows where to take us for some good shots.
Finally it’s time to suit up.
Andrea and I hit the water with our cameras ready!
Zach is not far behind.
We are diving a site called the Governor’s River Walk.
It’s three small shipwrecks with a chain leading the way from one to the next.
Three wreck dives in one dive!
On the first wreck, we find a Goliath grouper hiding inside.
All the wrecks have tons of fish schooling around them.
Andrea is leading the way, looking for great shots.
The wrecks are covered in coral, so they have a lot of color, if you have lights to make
the color pop.
Andrea grabs a shot of me and Zach.
Next she trains her lens on a barracuda.
There are sea fans and swim-throughs.
And if she gets really desperate, there are always divers willing to model.
We pass over a small reef on our way to the last wreck.
This one is smaller, but it has a lot of color.
Finally, it’s time to end the first dive.
Andrea sends up an SMB—a surface marker buoy---or as most divers call it, a safety
sausage.
This allows the captain to keep track of us while we drift with the current doing our
safety stop.
Woo, that was great!
We have a nice surface interval while captain Scott moves the boat to another site.
We switch tanks and then it’s time to dive again.
Alright Capt!
Set us up!
Dive dive dive!
Go have some fun!
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This site is a nice reef called Juno Ledge.
It’s a pretty popular site.
There are overhangs and drop-offs filled with fish.
You have to keep an eye peeled, because sometimes interesting subjects conceal themselves with
camouflage.
But not this guy.
A scorpionfish sits in a sponge like it’s a couch.
He looks pretty comfortable.
And Andrea gets a great portrait.
Andrea also points out a nurse shark swimming by.
The shark makes a close pass but doesn’t stick around.
A lionfish is an invasive species in Florida, but it’s still a beautiful fish to film.
The long spines are quite venomous, so this is a fish you don’t mess around with.
We continue along the reef, looking in the various cracks and holes for hidden subjects.
I come across a pair of gray angelfish.
Gray angelfish like to work in pairs, so you very rarely see just one.
I also find a Blue Angelfish, which is common here on the reefs of Florida but not very
common in the rest of the Caribbean.
We find a filefish, which swims with its pelvic and dorsal fins, rather than its tail.
The reef has some really nice healthy barrel sponges.
A big overhang has a huge school of snapper.
We make it down to about 80 feet, so it’s not long before we need to head up.
Once again Andrea deploys the SMB.
Woo, what a great dive!
So many fish.
It’s hard to believe how much healthy marine life there is just a short distance from the
Riviera Beach skyline.
There are colorful wrecks, healthy reefs and a ton of fish less than a mile offshore.
The east coast of Florida is an often underappreciated dive destination, and it just goes to show
that there are amazing wonders to be seen all over the Blue World.
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