Flower Gardens National Marine Sanctuary
April 21 - 22, 2007
M/V Fling

By Mike Murphy

I just got back from the first Flower Gardens trip of the year, and it was a good one.  We were aboard the MV Fling for this trip.  The Spree was putting out buoys on the west bank of the Flower Gardens so we were limited to the east bank on Saturday.   This trip only had 14 people aboard so there was plenty of space on the boat.  The Divemasters of Mark and Mark were helpful and efficient as always.  The food was plentiful and good.

Saturday:: The 7 am dive was on the East Bank Buoy #1. The water temp was around 70 and there was a small current across the reef. If you stayed low next to the coral you didn't feel the current, although when hanging out on the side lines we were all like flags in the current.  The visibility was around 60'.  We saw a Tiger shark and a white tipped shark while going down the mooring line.  Not much else in the way of big fish.  We only saw one eel on the entire trip.

The second dive was at Buoy 1 again and we decided to go to the wall to look for some big fish and we got lucky.  A pod of about 15 Manta Rays was just cruising by when we got there.  We also had one other Manta that spend a good deal of time around the Fling.  He was there for most of our first surface interval.

Our third dive was a rig dive and these are always fun.  There was a little bit of current so you spent a lot of time hiding behind the legs to stay out of the current.  There was a little surprise when a silky shark decided to spend some time swimming between the legs of the rig with the divers.  When people tell you that the shark usually stay outside the rig legs the operative word is usually.

On the 4th dive I decided to sit this one out and let Dana lead the pod.  She has a trip lead coming up in June and this was a bit of a confidence builder.  She was able to lead the group down and back with all present and accounted for.  She will do well in June.

Unfortunately the night dive was cancelled as the Tiger Shark had been hanging around the boat all day and since they feed at night the decision was made not to bait the water with divers.

Sunday we had two dives off Stetson Bank.  One of my favorite places as you usually see big fish off the wall.  Unfortunately no big fish and since my dive buddy was diving Nitrox we didn't go deep.  There were lots of large schools of little fish.  The visibility wasn't as good as the water had a milky texture to it.