It was the best of dives… full stop.

We had a great group of five for our exploration of Andre I, the site named after our co-founder, and the shallow site didn’t fail to show us all of the magic available to us. Unfortunately, we also saw some of the worst coral bleaching we’ve ever seen in Fort Lauderdale. Not only were we losing most of the hard corals, but even some of the soft corals were bleaching out.

On the good news side of things, several more experienced members commented that the fish life was much more abundant, with the return of a lot of the smaller reef fish, like damsels and juvenile angelfish being much more prevalent. The nice thing about these shallow dives is how long they last. Even the new divers among us were able to eke out a 60-minute dive.

The site has a maximum depth of 25′, but our profile was mostly around 20′ for the full dive. We stayed together and had a good time! And, of course, the brunch afterwards at the Sand Dollar Cafe was fabulous.