Flower Gardens National Marine Sanctuary
March 6-7, 2004
M/V Spree

By Jean Anne Booth

We boarded the M/V Spree on Friday night, March 5th. After a slightly late start due to late planes for passengers from Colorado, we got under way on the 110-mile journey to the Flower Gardens at around 11:30pm. Seas were supposed to be rough, and calming through the weekend, but we were in following seas on the way out, so the journey wasn't as rough as forecast.

Saturday morning dawned dimly, with a fog so heavy that we couldn't even see the M/V Fling, who was moored only a few hundred yards away. Finally enough of the fog burned off that the crew let us go dive, and what a dive it was! We were moored at the West Bank, bouy #5; water temp was 70degC; visibility was an excellent-for-spring 50'; and there was a slight current all the way down to the reef at 70'. The surface was still somewhat rough, but the waves were more swells than waves, so that made conditions much easier. We did two dives here at the West Bank, and all you really needed to do was just hang by the mooring bolt to see lots of action! I saw several lone eagle rays and then a squadron of 5 and thought that was great -- until I heard about the diver on the Fling who had a picture that showed 10 eagle rays, with more behind the ones in the front of the picture! The usual cast of characters was abundant: grouper, amber jacks, creole wrasse, chromis, barracuda, rock hinds, and the occasional scrawled filefish. No hammerheads reported on these dives.

We moved about 2 hours away to the East Bank of the Flower Gardens (bouy #5), where we did 2 more dives. Surface conditions continued to improve throughout the day, and the sun was shining warmly. The water temp was 70degC; visibility was about 35'; and there was a very healthy top current in the upper 25'. All the divers used the side line to the mooring line to get down to the reef on these dives! These dives yielded at least glimpses of hammerheads for most of the divers on the boats, with some folks seeing as many as 20 in a school. Also, eagle rays were abundant, and some divers also caught a glimpse of the two currently-resident loggerhead turtles in the area. Because we'd gotten a late start on the day, the fourth dive was a twilight->night dive. There were no reports of tiger shark sightings, but all the divers were cautioned to dive closely together ("in a people ball") to ensure that there would be no interactions with tiger sharks. The urchins were out, and many divers saw morays as well; one diver reported seeing a reef octopus.

Early Sunday morning, the captain moved the boat over to Stetson Bank, 70 miles offshore. At 7am, we were diving from Bouy #2, and hanging right off the edge of the wall ("the Pinnacles") of Stetson. Visibility was an astounding 75' (that is awesome viz for spring!); water temperature was a chilly 68degC, with a thermocline at 75' and probably other thermoclines further down. The surface was just slightly choppy, with absolutely no currents running. What a perfect day! Most divers saw more eagle rays
(some said they saw mantas, but my bet is that they were eagle rays); a few saw hammerheads near the king mackerel running over the flats of Stetson. Morays are abundant, and enormous angel fish (French, Queen, and Townsend) are everywhere. There were lots of jacks and Amberjacks as well. On the smaller end, I spent some time with my favorite little fish, Sailfin Blennies. These 2" little black fish pop up out of their holes and raise their big sail fin as they jump up and down, trying to attract a mate. For the first time, I found a Sailfin Blenny that was speckled, not black - it was colored brown with red spots. Of course, I'd left my camera on the boat - what was I thinking? After 2 great dives at Stetson, it was time to go home, returning to the dock at about 5:30 p.m.