Dive #250 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

A cloud of French grunts and black durgeons entertained us here.
Videocap by Rich Torkington in the USVIs 2006

Dive Journal: Following our aborted dive attempt from the house – see dive #238, I have been clammering about retrying it. The winds have calmed down at least a little bit, and I guess I’m just eager to see what’s out there.

Linda is not so sure she wants to try it again, but she bravely makes a go of it. We hike the hundred yards east to the sandy beach, and this time we are both successful in getting out past the breakers. We do a long surface swim sorta northeast to a mooring ball set in 40 feet of water, then submerge.

We’re still over scrubby sand flats until we finally reach the reef in about 55 feet of water. The bottom continues to slowly slope downward and the reef gets prettier. A dropoff occurs around 80 feet and goes to at least 130 feet.

There are loads of black durgeons around. I play with a Pederson cleaner shrimp for a while, and then spot a nice lettuce sea slug. There is a lot of fan leaf algae in this area, and more of the pretty spur-and-groove formations we’ve been seeing everywhere on the north side of St. Croix.

On the return swim, we go through a big school of young french grunts, peppered with black durgeons. I also catch sight of more nimble spray crabs tucked in with long spined urchins in the shallows.

Return through the surf zone is no big deal. Yes – success!