Mad Monk's SCUBA Trip Reports Mad Monk's SCUBA Trip Reports





Pompano Beach, FL July 1996




Lodging - We stayed at the Holiday Inn on A1A. There are two sies of the hotel as well as some condos. We always tr to stay on theintercoastal side because there are rooms with a kitchenette (no need to go out for breakfast and lunch unless we choose to do so) and the boat docks right behind on the intercoastal. Makes it an easy trip to the boat. Out the door down the stairs, step on the boat. Rooms were about $75/night. Clean and right up to Holiday Inn standards. Nothing fancy but the les I spend on hotels, the more I have to spend on diving.

Diving - Dove with Se Horse Charters run my Mike Halperin (305) 783-9300. Small boat 12-16 divers max and does at elast a two tank dive ever day with a three tank on Thursday and two trips daily on the weekend. Will also do a two tank night dive if enough divers (6-8) are interested. Mike runs a nice operation that caters mostly to locals so you may see some hunters along though he does try to discourage them. Unless the dive is on a wreck, t will be drift diving in the Gulf Stream on realtively shallow (mostly between 50-75) reefs. Lots of fish of all sizes and nice reefs. The wreck of the Ancianet Mariner (didn't do it this trip) is done frequently and is covered in fish and schools of barracuda.

Sites we dove:
Captain Dan
Max depth - 99 Water Temp - 86 Viz - 60 feet Bottom Time - 20
Extremely heavy current cut this dive short. You could eithere hang on the anchor line and get tossed around or tr and stay in the lee of the wheelhouse or down in a hold to keep out of the current. Might be nice to go back when the wind wasn't blowing quite so hard.

HoJo
Max Depth - 60 Water Temp - 86 Viz - 65 feet Bottom Time - 60
Look at the shore and there is Howard Johnson's. Nice reef on the lee side with lots of fish. Saw a hole in the reef with a moray being (it appeared) guarded by two red-banded shrimp. An interesting picture but this was the day m Motor Marine II decided to break a tooth.

Copenhagen - Pompano Dropoff
Max Depth - 29 Water Temp - 86 Viz - 70 feet Bottom Time - 53
Wreck of a coal barge from around the turn of the century. Mostly flattened but still some structure standing. Lost of coal lying on the bottom and man holes in the deck plates (lying on the bottom) that are now fish condos. Just drift along a few feet off the bottom and watch to see who pops out of the holes. When you run out of wreck, there is enough reef to run you out of air with plenty of fish and other life.S

Sea Ranch
Max Depth - 65 Water Temp - 86 Viz - 60 feet Bottom Time - 48
Booking current. Now I know what flying is like. Lots of life on the reef but we were moving so fast it was hard to se and to remember. Mostly spent the time trying to avoid flying into the reef. But it was fun.

Shark Reef
Max Depth - 56 Water Temp - 86 Viz - 75 feet Bottom Time - 49
What shark? Where? I didn't see any shark. I did see lots of fish and lobsters walking about on the reef in the middle of the afternoon. They must have known that the bug hunting season had been postponed and they were safe. Seemed like they were thumbing their noses at the hunters.

Mike's Twin Ledges
Max Depth - 60 Water Temp - 86 Viz - night Bottom Time - 53
Neat night dive. Saw turtles, lobsters, squid, all sorts of nocturnal animals.

La Bonte
Max Depth - 40 Water Temp - 87 Viz - night Bottom Time - 65
Fantastic night dive. Turtle, two nurse sharks, lots of squid including one no bigger than my thumb. Lots of worms of various kinds, shrimp, scallops swimming. Really neat.

Mike's Twin Ledges
Max Depth - 56 Water Temp - 86 Viz - 80 Bottom Time - 43
Found the three stooges sitting out in the current. Three large lobsters taking in the morning sun sitting side b side on top of the reef. Several cowfish and both matur and juvenile drum. Damn I wish I had brought the Nikonos instead of the Sea and Sea.

Lighthouse Ledge
Max Depth - 63 Water Temp - 86 Viz - 75 Bottom Time - 44
Pretty standard Pompano reef. Lots of lobster and fish. Saw a couple of morays and some more drum.

Food:
Lots of restaurants around. Standard american fare.

DOT chuck@chopf.com send some E-mail to Chuck



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©1995 Construction started on Sep. 20, 1996 by the MadMonk