We had epic conditions and a great group of friends that went out with us on 8/16/2025 to discover the reef at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and explore beneath the old Anglin’s Fishing Pier. Our group photographer complained that the water was a little bit murky, but we chalked that one up to the heat and the phytoplankton bloom that was going on.

We had Keat Ooi, Jim LaBrie, Matt Constantine, Huss Anan and Christopher Duncan along on the dive, and it was the first time that many of them had ever experienced one of Fort Lauderdale’s most iconic shore dives. One of the things you’ve got to love about this site is that with its shallow depth (maybe 20′ if you try hard) you can get a lot of time of off a tank of air. We ended the dive after 55 minutes (time on our meters was running out) and some divers still had 1500 PSI in their tanks.

As we were diving over the doughnut hole reef some member reported seeing a couple of nurse sharks cruising through the middle of the group, and of course the resident stingray made his/her/their appearance. Though we missed seeing the schools of Lookdowns under the pier we did get paced by several schools of small barracuda and the usual French and Grey Angelfish.

For reef fish lovers, we also saw a large pair of mated butterflyfish, and for those who collect trophies one of the ugliest scorpionfish in the area. Plus, there were huge schools of juvenile fish hanging around, especially Sergeant Majors and French Grunts.

We wrapped up the morning with a brunch at Peter Pan Diner on Oakland Park, and everyone told their stories from the dive, one of our favorite parts of being an Out Scuba member.