This is both an introduction and a newbie's-eye view of a first ocean
diving experience.
It wound up being a bit longer than I intended; if you find it boring, skip
ahead to the
sightings, near the end.

Introduction.
I'd like to take a minute to introduce myself. My name is Pat Burke; I'm a
48 year old
male, married, no children. I was certified at the end of August 2000. My wife
was
certified in the mid-eighties, got to do a Keys dive (John Pennekamp), but
then had a long
layoff. When I decided to get certified, she took a refresher course.
Over the years, we've enjoyed snorkeling and free-diving, and I think that
experience
was invaluable in making the switch to SCUBA relatively painless. Two things
immediately struck me about SCUBA: how cool it is to be able to breathe
underwater, and
how cumbersome it is compared to free-diving.
Anyway, prior to this trip I had done 40 dives, all freshwater, mostly in
the local quarry
(though we did dive Ginny cavern and Blue Grotto at Easter- way cool!). I've
been
(mostly) lurking on the ng for about a year.

The trip.
We departed Sevierville, TN at 4:30 PM on Fri., July 6, and drove until
midnight,
stopping about 30 mi. north of Valdosta, GA. After breakfast the next morning,
we hit the
road about 9:00 AM, and got to West Palm Beach about 3:00 PM. Not being
familiar with
the area, we wasted some time finding Singer Island; it turns out you can take
Blue Heron
Blvd. from I-95 and it will take you right to the island.
We had had a recommendation for Tropical Isle Resort on Singer Island, and
after
looking at a few other places, that's where we wound up. They're located right
on the
Palm Beach Inlet, across the street from the beach.
We were very pleased with our stay there. The price fit our budget
($55/night for an
efficiency), the managers were very nice and accommodating (they said they get
a lot of
divers), and the rooms were nice, with kitchenettes and coffee makers. One
minor
inconvenience, the beds were twins; to make a double you had to push them
together. No
big deal, but exercise caution- if you get too rambunctious you may wind up on
the floor
.
I really liked the location. It was a reasonable walk to the beach, and I
especially
enjoyed watching the ship and boat traffic going in and out of the inlet.
There's a raised
observation deck by the pool, and access to the roof of the building.
Interestingly, they had a saltwater pool. It was kinda weird, chlorinated
saltwater, but it
made it real easy to float on your back and relax. Also good if you need to do
a last-
minute buoyancy check (though the deep end is only 6 ft. IIRC).
Most days, we went out for breakfast and had a lunch/supper of sandwiches
in the
room. We tried several breakfast spots- Southern Kitchen, Denny's, IHOP,
finally settling
on Buddy's Cafe on Singer Island; they seemed to have the best combination of
decent
food, decent prices and decent turnaround time. IMHO, there's a crying need in
Palm
Beach for a Waffle House .
We own 2 tanks, and borrowed 2 more for the trip (all AL 80's). We got air
fills at 3
different places: SeaPro on US-1, Divers Supply on US-1, and Force-E on Blue
Heron
Blvd. SeaPro took the longest (about 15 min.) and cost a bit more ($3.50/fill),
but it was
well worth it- we got about 3100 PSI after cooldown. The others netted out to
about
2900 PSI. (Also, you can get a 10-fill card at SeaPro for $25). Next time,
however, I think
we'll leave the tanks at home. Rentals are available on the boat for $7 each,
so I don't think
the savings are really worth the hassle (after all, we're on vacation!).

The diving.
The shop where I certified recommended Diving Solutions (
www.divingsolutions.com
), and that's who we used. They are located in the Riviera Beach Marina. We
were very
pleased with their operation. They were friendly and courteous, cheerfully
helpful if you
needed/wanted help, and stayed out of the way if you didn't.
Their "office" is located right at their slip in the marina. Tanks and
rental gear are right
there, and that's where you sign up and pay. This is a very convenient setup,
but I don't
think they take plastic and I'm not sure about their check policy, so we just
brought cash.
At the time we were there, we had no problem getting a spot on the boat without
reservations on a weekday. Weekends they seemed to be filling up. There were
12-14
divers on the boat each day we dove.
They have three boats. We were on Spellbound all three days we dove; an apt
name,
because that is how I felt about the whole experience!
All the dives were led by at least one DM, who carried the float ball. (This
is drift
diving- the boat doesn't anchor, but follows the group as they drift along in
the current).
This required that the group stay more or less together, which was fine for us,
being our
first time out. But more experienced divers who want to go their own way would
be better
served going with an operation that lets each team carry their own float. We'll
probably
check into that next time (and check out Boynton and other areas), but for
new/inexperienced/casual divers this seemed like a good way to go.
The boat had a rear platform which, when lowered, sat just below the
waterline. To
enter the water, you would step onto the platform, turn around and just fall
off backwards.
Alternatively, you could do a giant stride, but the water tended to catch your
fin and cause
a faceplant. I tried it once, then went back to the backflop. Exiting the water
was
accomplished by swimming onto the platform, crawling to the rear deck, then
standing up,
aided by the rear rails (and the DM). This was a very easy way to get on the
boat, but after
a few days our old knees were kinda bruised. Before we go back, I'm going to
try to find
some neoprene kneepads.
On the down side, the group tended to cluster (C/F) near the lead DM. After
being
jostled by various appendages (mostly flailing arms/hands), we realized it's
much better to
fall back a bit. You can still look at what the leader pointed out as you come
to it, and
when there was a trailing DM he/she found other stuff too. My one criticism of
the
operation is that there was no mention made in the briefings about staying off
the reef. I've
read accounts of how bad some divers' skills are, and I've now seen it with my
own eyes.
There was at least one diver drifting along, vertical, fins dragging every
square inch of
reef they passed. It makes me glad I was "brought up" in a quarry- if you
scrape the
bottom, you stir up lots of silt and screw up the visibility, so you quickly
learn to stay off
the bottom.
All the dives were in the 50-60 ft range. We were instructed that table
users should
ascend after 30 minutes, computer users after 40 minutes, or at 750 PSI,
whichever came
first. I was relieved to find that buddy teams were allowed to ascend without
making the
whole group come up. I'm still a bit of an air hog, and I had been concerned
that I might
prematurely end others' dives if the whole group had to ascend together. As it
turned out,
we outlasted most of the other divers, getting almost 40 min. of bottom time
per dive.
Our weighting requirements surprised me a bit. We've been using 5mm
fullsuits for
freshwater, with my wife using 20 lbs of lead, me using 14 lbs. We bought 0.5mm
fullsuits
for this trip, and I guesstimated she would need 14 lbs, me 11 lbs. She opted
to add a
couple of pounds, and went with 16 lbs. Well, we were both underweighted. She
had
some trouble submerging, and I had to fin a bit to maintain my safety stop. We
borrowed
3 lbs each from the boat for the second dive, and the next day she used 18 lbs,
I used
about 14 lbs. I had noticed that I was a little fin-heavy, so I bought an ankle
weight to try
on my tank valve. It worked great, my weighting and trim seemed just right.
So, the diving. What can I say, it was awesome! Almost immediately after
descending
on the first dive, we saw a large stingray being shadowed by a cobia (I think).
Right after
that, a big Loggerhead turtle. That set the tone for all that followed. The
variety of coral
and critters was overwhelming! You could spend an entire dive (or dives) on one
small
area of reef (current permitting) and just study the detail. The first dive
site was called
Flower Garden, but that name could apply everywhere we dove! It seemed that
every
square inch of the reef was alive. We bought an inexpensive ID book, but still
only
identified probably 5% of what we saw- there was simply too much to remember.
(I've
already started lobbying for an U/W camera ).
Drift diving was slightly different from what I expected. I had envisioned
lazily drifting
along, hardly ever moving a fin. In reality, on these dives anyway, we spent a
considerable
amount of time finning across the current (which was running more or less to
the north).
Not that I'm complaining; it's a great way to dive, and to cover a lot of
ground on a dive.
The current gave a sort of feeling of flying, and it was a cool sensation to
sometimes be
finning in one direction, while moving sideways at a right angle to that
direction.
The weather was fairly cooperative. It was generally partly cloudy in the
morning, with
afternoon showers and thunderstorms. We left the marina at 10:00 AM each day,
and
were back around 2:00 PM, so we only got rained on once (the last day, on the
way back
to the dock). Visibility ranged from 50-70 ft. The clouds probably cut back on
the amount
of light at the bottom, I'd like to see it on a clear day sometime. Seas were
mostly calm,
maybe a foot of chop, except for the last day, when they picked up a bit. The
current was
also stronger on the last dive of the last day; up until that point, it was
running less than 1
knot according to the DM.

Sightings.
We dove 3 days, 2 tanks each day. Dive sites were Flower Garden, Breakers
Reef, Bath
& Tennis, Paul's Reef, Teardrop and South Breakers. My favorite was Paul's
Reef,
because of the varied terrain of the bottom, but they were all great.
We saw, in no particular order: Nurse Sharks, Southern Stingrays, a Spotted
Eagle
Ray, Green Morays (one about 6 ft), a Spotted Moray, a large Porcupinefish in a
hole,
Loggerhead Turtles, Barracuda , Spiny Lobster, Sea Urchins, an Arrow Crab, a
decapitated octopus arm, a Stonefish (great camouflage!), a big Trumpetfish, a
Remora
(my wife said it followed me for awhile), tropicals too numerous to mention (or
ID), and
beautiful corals of every description. But the coolest single sighting wasn't
on a dive. We
dove Mon. through Wed. and were pretty well worn out, so we decided to just
hang out
Thursday. We were snorkeling on the beach when someone said there was a
stingray in
the water. I asked where, and the guy pointed. We went under, saw the ray
swimming
parallel to the beach, and set a course to intercept it. We got to within about
20 ft. of it
before it flew by, but it wasn't a Stingray, it was a good-sized (about 10 ft.
wingspan)
Manta Ray! What a great way to end a great trip.

To summarize, this was without doubt the best vacation we've ever had. It's
what I had
envisioned when I decided to take up SCUBA diving, and I can't imagine a nicer
introduction to diving in the ocean. I guess there are even better places in
the world to
dive, and I hope to see some of them, but for now WPB will do just fine, and
this trip will
always be a cherished memory. I just wish we were close enough to make a long
weekend
trip more feasible, but there's always Panama City for that (we're going there
on Labor
Day Weekend). And of course, there's always the quarry- hey, we've got
Bluegills,
Catfish, submerged statues, a truck tire and algae!

Best regards,
Pat Burke