Underwater Photo Of The Day

[ricki]

Summer weather seems to be here finally bringing a fair amount of rain and little useable wind. Had to happen sooner or later. So, between short bouts of thermal winds on to other things, like diving. Headed down to the Keys for some wreck scooter free diving (may put together a video on that) and a quick reef dive with my good friend Capt. Slate at Atlantis Dive Shop.



Scootered into a grotto awash with minnows, and what should I see?





A lurker, belting out opera? Or, was he getting a dental job from a neon gobi?





Any guesses as to what this big fella is? PC or the original name will do. I can recall when these were pretty common down that way and docile as big dumb dogs. Then butthead poachers took them out along with the tame loups. Here's an idea, a poacher spearfishing contest!? That is with the poachers being taken for prizes. Seems fair.





Motoring out the far side of the cave and up





The obligatory Keys sunset, another great day!


Photos by Rick Iossi

(A repost from the Photo of the Day from 2008)

[ricki]

FINALLY made it back out to the Tenneco platforms after almost 4 1/2 years. Big thanks to Goldcoast SCUBA Divers and their real active diver meetup group for arranging this long overdue trip!

We went out with Capt. Mark and Mateo on the Sea Experience II out of Bahia Mar in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. A great operation with friendly capable staff.



Capt. Mark cons the Sea Experience II while some of the Meetup group including Tom on the starboard with the rest of the guys aft, hang out on the way to the platforms.


We were concerned NAVY operations including ships from other nations in some "mysterious" maneuvers in the area might have barred our access to the platforms. Luck was with us though and operations in that particular area had been suspended for a while.



Time to hit the water. Shot only video with two GoPro HD cameras, one equiped with an Eyeofmine.com UW corrective flat port housing to improve image quality. This auto shot was done using the corrective port, some difference! So, did several still shot captures from some of the video clips. It looks like you need a lot of light and good viz. for such clear results with the corrective housing. All of the underwater shots are captures from the eyeofmine.com housed GoPro HD camera while the topside shots were from an ordinary GoPro HD housed camera.


Seas were very calm with building side shore thermal winds but the squalls building them were still far inland. Even better there was no current for the first dive and just a little for the second. The top of the platform we were tied to came up to around 60 ft. with the bottom at 110 ft.. Visibility was limited to where you really couldn't quite see the top of the tower from the surface. This complicates drops for scooter free diving. Got some useable video anyway.



John Blake of Scuba Outfitters had brought some diving student over from Naples to checkout the platform. Heading down.

Met Piotr all the way over from France with his family for holiday. He has been diving all over, it was fun to swap diving stories.


Running off the edge of the upper platform deck to drop over the side towards the bottom. Lots of life on the platforms, fish love the place.



Running across below decks. It is an interesting artificial reef and the only platform sunk off South Florida at present.



Here's a short cllp of a scooter free dive into the mid deck area of the platform. As always, you can get killed doing this so take proper training, use appropriate gear and procedures for scooter free diving. This was shot with the regular GoPro housing with out corrective port.




Here is another processed video showing descent, ascent and bottom traverse beneath the platform at 110 ft. on a breathhold dive.







Coming back up the side of the platform towards old Sol portrayed in classic GoPro underwater fashion.



Back to the dock. Looking forward to heading out on the Sea Experience again and hopefully one of these days catching the Tenneco Platforms in about 100 viz. in blue water for a reshoot!

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