Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Miss Dania

There is a ship wreck off of Dania Beach, FL called the Miss Dania Beach and is ~5.5 miles south of Port Everglades. The wreck is part of the Broward county artificial reef program. The Miss Dania sits approximately west (maybe a little SW) of the Donal McAllister wreck. I haven't found much information about this wreck on the web but if I'm not mistaken it was sunk in 2004, is about 190ft long and sits in 70ft of water. We didn't have the GPS numbers for this wreck but after talking to another diver friend I got the numbers. While using the depth finder and going over those numbers I found it and got good solid numbers for the wreck.

We dove the Miss Dania wreck on Monday, September 13th. The current was pretty strong however the structure of the wreck provides some shelter so you can relax and checkout the marine life. What I noticed first and was happy to see were several Long-Spined Urchins. These urchins feed on algae and are integral to health of coral reefs. There were several urchins scattered around the wreck.

Penetrating the wreck is easy.
There is plenty of
head room to dive inside the cargo hold area and there is enough light to where you don't need a dive light (although it would help to have one). I got to use my new gloves that I picked up from Home Depot and they worked nicely. Gloves are a must have if you plan to go inside a wreck.

It was a great dive albeit short because I had to get back to the boat to help the divemaster. I look forward to diving it again and would recommend it to any diver looking to dive the wrecks here in South Florida.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Ocean Gratitude

I feel so fortunate to be around the ocean regardless if it's scuba diving, driving the boat or just sitting on the beach. There is so much life and mystery in the ocean all of which is both beautiful and humbling.

Beautiful humility... what a feeling.

It hurts, deeply when I see the oceans plundered... the trash in the marinas... the overfishing... killing of whales... slaughter of dolphins... oil spills... sewage outflow... This is madness! We are an insane species! The earth would be better off without humans. Humanity is, at this time in our history, a dis-ease, like a virus infecting the planet and all other life forms.

However we are here, for better of for worse and we are responsable for our actions. All one person can do is be impeccable. It helps when one fills their experiences with beauty and humility rather than self-centeredness.

To the impeccability of our actions, let us all stop wasting precious time.