Skifletch Dives Molasses Reef

[SkiFletch]

Well, here are the long promised pictures of my Dive trip, hope all you guys enjoy

Spent the weekend diving with Ocean Divers and their great dive boat

Due to the fact that he had not been diving recently enough my uncle was unable to dive with us. He snorkeled though and the reef was pretty shallow, good enough for snokeling for sure. I was paired up with a great guy from Holland by the name of Rutger

And a few shots of me

One of the dive sites we went to was called "The Winch Hole" on Molasses Reef. This site was so named because of an old 19th century winch that lies amidst a hole in the reef structure. Apparently there were other parts of the old wreck around the site, but I never saw them:

I mentioned that there were many fish not common to our hobby there, here's a few pics of them. The reef was absoloutely teeming with life and fish, hopefully you'll get a good idea from some of these pictures. The solid yellow fish are Grunts and the ones with the yellow lyretail are aptly called "yellowtails"

And here's a great closeup of one of the Yellowtails

Also very common on the reef were these Chubs

And of course these Snapper were everywhere too

Gah, gonna have to wait to post all the pictures, apparently there are too many

 

[SkiFletch]

I took a few good "reefscape" shots that are pretty far zoomed out and show a lot of the cool rock formations

As I mentioned before, brain corals dominated the LPS landscape. You'll notice that many of them have sponges growing within their skeletons. A very neat relationship. Some of the larger brains were bigger than me...

Here's a fantastic landscape shot with a damsel in the front and a nice brain coral in the background

I got plenty of shots of my reef favorite, the parrotfish. These are princess, stoplight, and midnight blue parrots

And a good closeup of these strange Tangs which I've not yet identified and of course a princess parrot

Also common on the reef were a few elkhorn and encrusting montipora species

 

[demonmagus]

nice pictures, looks like fun

I want to learn how to dive now

 

[SkiFletch]

And the final installment. Some more fish highlights, check out this Filefish, French Angelfish, and my alltime favorite, Queen Angelfish

Not to be out done was this gorgeous southern stingray. He was hiding in the sand and I would have never known he was there had I not spooked him

Some more cool inverts included these tube sponges that were everywhere

And someone wanted to see the long-spined urchin. Well he was hiding, but was really big, probably as large as my head

My uncle was surprised that I caught a shot of this four eyed butterflyfish, apparently they're not that common up in the keys

And then there were the big guys. The first pic here is of a Nassau Grouper and the second one is the Jewfish Grouper that is common to this area of the keys. The nassau was about 2.5' long and the jewfish was well over 3.5' hiding under a gorgeous reef shelf. Why a fish that large has to hide, I'll never know...

And finally, last but not least, when diving in the keys Great Barracuda had better not scare you. We saw lots of little individual guys swimming around 2-3' and multiple schools of 20-30+ 3-4 footers.

Hope you guys enjoy all the pictures. If you have any questions dont hesitate to ask. Do me a favor and dont reply to this post directly, cause we dont want to re-post a billion pictures

 

[Allen]

Spectacular Photos and there is not a heater, skimmer or powerhead in sight as it should be

 

[callum_parsons]

wow what to say ski breath taking
iam gettin diving license later this year i really cant wait now

 

[simong6]

i really need to get myself back in the water, the last time i dived was in the summer in Turkey with www.europeanseasports.com it was absolutely fantastic, i ended up doing my Advanced OWD with them!

came home and started my Rescue Course, now have my emergency first repsonce and i'm just waiting for the water to heat up then finishing off!

 

[Redstratplayer1]

I am only 14 so i have no way to get the money to have a reef tank and get a scuba license ($800 in my area)


Lucky you
I went snorkeling in mexico and went about 35 feet down was really cool but hurt like hell and i of course couldent breath.Thank god i can hold my breath for 2 minets.

 

[Mr.September15]

Who wears short shorts, he wears short shorts

Nice photo's. We should ask Mr.Miagi to take pictures of the Great Barrier Reef

 

[bobf]

You're a lucky guy Ski, living close enough to visit places like that! Quality pics too - what kind of camera was it Ski?

Very inspiring and certainly makes me wanna give it a go - the reefs around the Manchester (UK) coastline ain't too hot this time of year though, not since the dinosaurs went anyway!.

Guess for now I'm just going to have a go at finding my swimming goggles and stick my head in the tank again!

 

[Mr Miagi]

Nice photo's. We should ask Mr.Miagi to take pictures of the Great Barrier Reef

One day, one day. Im not really that close the the GBR though, lol. I did go snorkeling yesterday, but nothing like this! I hear Elkhorn is illegal to collect? Or just hard to come by in the hobby? I love it, gorgeous stuff.

(Sorry, had to replay to this post, didnt know where else).

 

[ikon]

awesome pics..i cant wait to go snorkling in the keys this weekend.

 

[Redstratplayer1]

Me likey pics

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, I live a few thousand miles from Florida and I still got down here, get up there to the GBR Mr Miagi . In all seriousness though, thats one thing I want to do before I depart this world, dive on the GBR. Gonna be a few years before I get the chance, but I can't wait for wen I do get it.

To answer some of your questions, the Camera we used was a Nikon 8.1 MP not sure of the exact model. My uncle has a special underwater housing that the camera fits into and allows you to press all the buttons through a big plastic shield. Works great and obviously took some fantastic pictures. Its kinda hard to take the shots underwater cause you have to consider current, surge, your bouyancy, and then taking the picture. Its a lot to do . Too bad the video camera housing can't go deep enough.

Elkhorn Monitpora is illegal to collect in most areas of the US and Carribean for sure. I'm not positive if it grows elsewhere and if it can even be collected there though. That elkhorn monti in the picture was at least 10 feet tall, a gorgeous species. I guess once they grow they're nearly indestructible but they dont frag well. You never see small elkhorn montis, only giant ones... Probably why they're protected.

Also I forgot to mention, if anybody wants a hi-res pic of any of these shots, send me a pm with your email addy and the link to which pictures you want and I'll be happy to do so. Most of the fullsize shots are in the 2000 pixel range and around 2mb.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

wow amazing pics, i'm so utterly jealous!

we'd both love to go diving, we've said before we wanna learn before we get hitched so we can go somewhere like the GBR diving for our honeymoon