Looking for lemons on Juno Ledge

[ricki]

An active local meetup group sponsored by Gold Coast Scuba out of Lauderdale By-The-Sea, http://www.meetup.com/goldcoastscuba/ has come up with a lot of interesting varied dives. Had just one more last weekend. Lemon sharks are congregating for breeding off northern Palm Beach County. You may see a couple perhaps more on drift dives up that way. We went out on Sandy's Sunday, Ocean Quest Scuba , departing from Riviera Beach Marina with the goal of seeing some Lemon sharks and other large interesting marine life up that way. We did two tanks including one on the twin west facing ledges off Juno. The other was some place not too far away referred to as Shark Junction I think. Bottom in both cases was in about 90 ft.. The current was light, the water a balmy 72 F and vis. around 60 ft. horizontally. Here are some photos from along the way. Apologies for the poor image quality in some cases, the light was pretty low late in the day at depth.

http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/manatees_IMG_3840.jpg
Just before we left the dock and manatee and her calf swam between the boat and the seawall. Would have loved to have jumped in to get some closer shots but we left within minutes of their swim by.




http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/group_IMG_3854.jpg
Most dives are done by drifting in this area given the frequent strong currents.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/eagle_IMG_3860.jpg
The north county dives are known for larger marine life. We had at least two large eagle rays, several sting rays, sharks, a bunch of turtles, etc. during the two dives.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/school_IMG_3851.jpg


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/mr_fish_IMG_3934.jpg
Don't recall seeing one of these fish before. After communicating with my old professor Dr. Courtney and his colleague, Chris Koenig, I learned it was a gag grouper.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/ray_IMG_3878.jpg


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/turtle_IMG_3976.jpg
Nice loggerheads in these parts.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/bull_IMG_3966.jpg
A grainy low light shot of a bull shark swimming by. I shot most of the other shark encounters but the image quality was usually fairly poor due to low light.



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/one_two.jpg
Near the end of the second dive. It was late in the day, close to 5 pm and it was pretty dim with some cloud cover. I was shooting with available light and there wasn't much available. I was using a new camera, a Canon G12 and so tried using a large ISO, 1250. I would never bother go much above 400 with other cameras in the past as they would pixelate to where the shots were largely unuseable. This was is pretty grainy but you get the idea. A lemon shark is lying on the bottom while two loggerhead turtles including one real big one swim by. Lemons have the distinction like nurse sharks of being able to actively breath water over their gills while stationary. Most sharks, free swimmers, must constantly move to push water across their gills unlike these guys.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/3_IMG_4002.jpg
Safety deco stop


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/boat_IMG_4022.jpg
There's Mike helping returning divers on board.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album574/grp_IMG_4029.jpg
On board and heading back. Lots of happy divers. I must have sighted lemon sharks about seven or eight times.


.

[ricki]

So, a year passes by and within a week we head back up to see the lemon sharks again. The dive was setup again by http://www.meetup.com/goldcoastscuba/ and with the same boat, "Sandy's Sunday". We did two dives, the first on some wrecks and the second a drift down the westward facing Juno Ledges.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/2_G_002.jpg
A lot of the regular active divers in the group show up for the trip including both Steve and Brian from the meetup sponsoring shop, http://www.goldcoastscuba.net/ .



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/3_G_003.jpg
The first spot is quite close to Palm Beach Inlet, about 12 minutes out. So, we gear up and get ready to hit it. As it turns out there is a ripping northward current on the order of 2 kts. and poor visibility less than 30 ft. or so. The bottom is about 72 ft. deep. We hit the wrecks strewn with some heavy hemp cables and then proceed to drift over sand a while to the north.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/4_IMG_1989.jpg
I think this is Kim taking some of her normally excellent photos. We did the dive in the afternoon so the sun was lower particularly on the second dive a couple of hours before sunset. So, between the low light and poor viz. shooting conditions were poor.




Here's a HD2 GoPro video from the dive. I had the GoPro running in a chest harness but wasn't very optimistic about getting useable video out of it given the dark, turbid conditions. I was surprised by what it captured blowing away the still quality from my more costly Canon G12 setup.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/5_s1_IMG_2014.thumb.jpg (http://vimeo.com/35511416)
CLICK IMAGE TO LINK TO VIDEO




http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/5_s1_IMG_2014.jpg
Visibility improved slightly on the second dive but the temperature dropped to 68 F. That is cold for SE Florida oceanic water! I saw sharks four times on the second dive, this being one of them. Ended up trying to clean this up in Photoshop with limited success.



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/6_turtle_IMG_2028.jpg
We saw a few loggerhead turtles although none as massive as that one from last year pictured above.



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/7_spades_IMG_2009.jpg
We drifted into some massive schools of spadefish milling through the water column or in grottos closer to the bottom.



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/7a_shark.jpg
Another shark, have to say these look like Caribbean Reef sharks to me and not lemons. Input? This shot is a screen capture from a GoPro video.



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/8_turtle_2_IMG_2039.jpg
This turtle posed out in the open on the bottom for Meta to take some nice strobe shots.



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/9_s2_IMG_2025.jpg
Another shark with some major Photoshopping.



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/10_turtle_3_IMG_2048.jpg
Turtle-wrasse



http://www.fksa.org/albums/album04/11_boat_IMG_2082.jpg
And, here's the boat to pick us up after the second dive.


Hope to see a swarm of lemons one of these times, so might head back before a year passes to try my luck again.


.