SeaCat
Hey, my Halo is smoking
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2003
- Posts
- 15,378
Last week my parents came down to visit with my wife and myself for the last time until next fall when they head south again. We decided that this would be a great time to check out one of my favorite snorkeling spots. (Sorry no pics. It's hard to get good pictures while snorkeling.) Both my father and I were looking forward to this as we haven't had the chance to do any diving together this year.
Where we were snorkeling isn't far from where I live. It's a small cove off the Intercoastal that is frequented only by locals. Conditions are usually good there even when they are so bad in the open water that only nutcases like myself go diving. On this day the conditions were just about perfect. 80°F water temps, calm and the water was like glass. We set up our place on the beach, which didn't take long. As we were doing this we got to listen to a young pup telling his friends just how great he was. How experienced he was in the water and how he had been diving for too many years to count. My father and I just looked at each other and grinned. Then we hit the water.
Now how can I describe shallow water snorkeling and not seem overly dramatic? In some ways it's more work than diving, you are limited to how deep you can go and how long you can stay down. On the other hand it is more relaxing. You're more a part of the environment and you can get closer to the critters without scaring them. We were just drifting along and relaxing. Enjoying ourselves and the scenery underwater. Every now and then we would stop and look around to make sure of where we were and every time we did we could see the youngster swimming along nearby.
After being in the hour roughly an hour we came across a great sight. Hundreds of Florida Fighting Conchs were in a fairly small area on the bottom about twenty feet beneath us. We dove down to check them out several times then moved on, we didn't see any empty shells and we didn't feel like the work needed to clean out some shells. We had moved on a bit when we noticed the young guy diving in the spot where the Conchs were. I looked at my father and we both grinned. We knew what he was doing, he was loading a couple of shells in his pockets to bring them back to shore. We decided to follow him in and watch what happened.
(The Fighting Conch is a smaller Conch, roughly four inches long. It has a hook it extends from it's foot to move or to sweep food closer. this hook is about an inch long and harmless, although it can be starteling when you first see one.)
A couple of minutes later the guy was heading for the beach and the conchs woke up. They didn't like where they were and started trying to get free. We could tell this happened when the guy stopped swimming then started screaming. (Remember he had placed several shells into his pockets. Maybe thinking they were empty. Now they were moving around in his pockets trying to get out.) This guy did a Houdini getting out of his shorts then just about walked on water getting back to shore.
My father and I were laughing so hard I almost drowned.
On our way back to shore I stopped long enough to snag his shorts on a stick, (Who knows what all he left behind in them.
) When we reached the shore I dropped the shorts next to where the guy was wrapped up in a towel and hyperventilating before heading for our spot.
All in all it was a fun day.
Cat
Where we were snorkeling isn't far from where I live. It's a small cove off the Intercoastal that is frequented only by locals. Conditions are usually good there even when they are so bad in the open water that only nutcases like myself go diving. On this day the conditions were just about perfect. 80°F water temps, calm and the water was like glass. We set up our place on the beach, which didn't take long. As we were doing this we got to listen to a young pup telling his friends just how great he was. How experienced he was in the water and how he had been diving for too many years to count. My father and I just looked at each other and grinned. Then we hit the water.
Now how can I describe shallow water snorkeling and not seem overly dramatic? In some ways it's more work than diving, you are limited to how deep you can go and how long you can stay down. On the other hand it is more relaxing. You're more a part of the environment and you can get closer to the critters without scaring them. We were just drifting along and relaxing. Enjoying ourselves and the scenery underwater. Every now and then we would stop and look around to make sure of where we were and every time we did we could see the youngster swimming along nearby.
After being in the hour roughly an hour we came across a great sight. Hundreds of Florida Fighting Conchs were in a fairly small area on the bottom about twenty feet beneath us. We dove down to check them out several times then moved on, we didn't see any empty shells and we didn't feel like the work needed to clean out some shells. We had moved on a bit when we noticed the young guy diving in the spot where the Conchs were. I looked at my father and we both grinned. We knew what he was doing, he was loading a couple of shells in his pockets to bring them back to shore. We decided to follow him in and watch what happened.
(The Fighting Conch is a smaller Conch, roughly four inches long. It has a hook it extends from it's foot to move or to sweep food closer. this hook is about an inch long and harmless, although it can be starteling when you first see one.)
A couple of minutes later the guy was heading for the beach and the conchs woke up. They didn't like where they were and started trying to get free. We could tell this happened when the guy stopped swimming then started screaming. (Remember he had placed several shells into his pockets. Maybe thinking they were empty. Now they were moving around in his pockets trying to get out.) This guy did a Houdini getting out of his shorts then just about walked on water getting back to shore.
My father and I were laughing so hard I almost drowned.
On our way back to shore I stopped long enough to snag his shorts on a stick, (Who knows what all he left behind in them.
) When we reached the shore I dropped the shorts next to where the guy was wrapped up in a towel and hyperventilating before heading for our spot.All in all it was a fun day.
Cat
