Dive Reports

It was a gorgeous morning for a dive with flat seas and a gentle current. We dove off of Fort Lauderdale’s Loggerhead Park and played in this brilliant soft coral jungle for more than an hour. The site itself is easy to access right off of 27th Street, but you have to get there early to find parking. The park itself is equipped with picnic tables that are perfect for setting up gear, as well as beautiful rainbow-colored Adirondack chairs that are great for bubble watchers —almost as if they knew that a group of #gaydivers was coming. We were four divers: Christopher, Joe, Andre and Matt, and everyone found some special memory to take home with them. Unfortunately, the Park did not live up to its name and we did not see any loggerhead turtles. Who knows, maybe they saw us and laid low. We learned later that there is a big storm coming in this week, and you can see the reef get quiet when that kind of weather is moving in. One dive professional said they were expecting 6 foot seas by mid-week. As with all of our favorite reef dives, there were the usual flashy angelfish

Our Sunday morning dive was timed with a 10:30 high tide at Blue Heron Bridge. It was the best time of day for photography, and the bridge did not disappoint. In addition to the seahorse, which stole the show, we found a school of big, beautiful Queen Angels, Blue Angels and Townsend’s Angels all mixed together, enormous starfish, a horseshoe crab, sharp tailed eels and more stone crabs than you can shake a butter swizzle at. As you can imagine, though, the Seahorse stole the show. Seahorses have fascinated people for millennia, and no less so scuba divers. They are out there! But finding them is the trick, and it takes a very special eye to find them. Our own Andre Saade found this fellow on our February 16, 2025 dive at Blue Heron Bridge. Eagle eye indeed! When you look at these zoomed in images you may say “well, obviously that’s a seahorse.” But pull back 5 or 10 feet and it’s just another piece of algae or detritus that collects around the Bridge dive site. Because they are such poor swimmers, they rely solely on their dorsal fins to propel themselves and their pectoral fins to steer, they

Andre and I took a trip to Bimini, Bahamas the first week of January. Not technically a club trip, it was still amazing and worth telling you about. First of all, you should know that the seas were rough, the current was tough, the water was cold, and the island had very few choices for things to do above water. Having said that, there is nothing like the experience of being in the water with two 14′ plus hammerhead sharks! It was exhilarating! And that was our first day of diving. If you’re interested in learning more about shark feeding dives, check out this other article on our site. All of the dive sites were shallow, and the action was intense. In addition to the Hammerhead dive, we also dove on two wreck sites, a reef and had an encounter with Black Fin Reef Sharks. It was amazing. If you choose to go to Bimini to dive, we would recommend staying at the Bimini Big Game Club, Resort & Marina primarily because it’s just about the only place to stay on North Bimini. Add in the fact that Neal Watson’s Bimini Scuba Center is located on premises, you get convenience

What a great day for a beautiful shore dive in Fort Lauderdale today. Someone once said that whatever you do on New Year’s Day is what you’ll do for the rest of the year, so of course we went diving. The weather was perfect, the water was a slightly chill 78 degrees, and the current was minimal. The critter spot of the day definitely belongs to Andre S. who found a Lesser Electric Ray. Who knew we had something like that in Fort Lauderdale? According to Reef Fish Identification they can deliver a mild electric shock if touched (14- to 37- volts). New member Tom S. was robbed of the critter spot trophy when he videoed a beautiful turtle on our way in. Any other day, Tom! Be sure to scroll down and watch both short videos. Unfortunately, we also came back with a lot of trash we picked up on the dive. Among other things we found a huge plastic sheet that tangled in the soft coral, a Zebco rod and reel snarled on the coral, a snorkeling mask and a shoe. Out Scuba’s mandate is to practice ocean conservation, so we gathered it all up and brought it

How do you describe a dive with low visibility, lots of trash in the water, rough conditions and a less than graceful exit from the water…? It was great! Andre and I ran across several old friends on the reef, including a small moray eel and a humongous scorpion fish, plus a ton of angelfish. The angels were all there: queens, french, and greys. The only angels missing were the rock beauties. We gathered plastic and paper garbage as we could, but the winner of the day was a dangerous grappling hook that André found. If you’re going out, be careful, the jellies were all around. Unfortunately the surge on top of the reef was terrible and conditions on shore had deteriorated to the point it was a messy exit. Regardless, it was a great day diving with our gay scuba club.

We had a great day of diving Saturday onboard Shark Bait with Aqualife Divers. Thanks to DM Skip, Capt Tom and Carlos for making the cold air bearable and the warm water inviting. The two wrecks are highlights of diving off Fort Lauderdale, but the poor Mercedes has seen better days. Her mid section has collapsed, the stern is tipped over, but the bow is sitting upright. (We all know the pain!) Other divers on Shark Bait reported seeing a Goliath Grouper, but it must have seen us coming and took off before we caught a glance. Even though we didn’t get any big hits on the critter butcket list, it was great to hit the water on a day when the air temperature made the water temperature seem like bath water. We all agreed that the better experience was diving the Captain Dan. Many parts of the ship are still intact with enticing swim-throughs and more coral growth than you can imagine. Of special interest to many was the presence of the non-native orange cup coral, also called the sun coral. It is one of the corals that does not depend on sunlight for nutrition, and is a voracious