Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi gang,

Quick post here! Not only did we have a great dive at the Spiegel Grove, Benwood, Hole in the Wall and Fire Coral Caves in the morning on Saturday, the afternoon was tremendous diving out at Conch Wall in the afternoon. Nice conditions and all, but the dolphin graced us with their presence once again! While on the dive at Conch Wall, drifting along.. Who shows up? The Dolphin! Again! This time they hung around and interacted with the divers! Adriana (one of the RRDC Instructors) said “they swam in extremely close proximity to us for what seemed like 10 minutes.” Donald Bridges managed to snap a picture of two dolphin that were swimming with him! Check it out below! Thanks for sending it to us Donald!

Who needs those dolphin centers?! You can swim with the dolphin on Rainbow Reef dive trips!! Ok, Ok, so we can’t guarantee dolphins! And the dolphin centers are pretty neat… But it seems as though the Rainbow Reef Dive Guides have become “Dolphin Magnets.” I guess it just goes to show you that you never know what you’ll see when you get under the water. Hope you’ll join us soon!

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi all,

It’s hard to believe it’s March! We’ve been having some really great weather lately. In fact, I think I was pinching myself to see if I was dreaming. We can’t normally get conditions as good as we have in the summer more than about a dozen times in the winter, but it seems like more days than not have just been outstanding. Today was no exception! We had very light wind from the north, no waves, no current, and more than 80 feet of visibility on our Spiegel Grove dive this morning. The water is even warmer than usual! My computer said 75, and Tom’s said 77! If that’s not good enough, the Tropical Voyager called in over 100 feet at Molasses Reef this morning.

We had a special guest aboard the Tropical Explorer’s trip to the Spiegel Grove this morning. Ok, all of our guests are special, but this one is Lizzy’s Mum, all the way from the UK! She came over to visit Lizzie (one RRDC’s Instructors) for a few days and do some diving! We also had Donald Bridgets, Sonny Sarkar, Clyde Fontes, Philip Fontes, and one of our weekend regulars from Miami, Manny Nunez. They were treated to a great dive at the�Spiegel Grove, and we stopped at the�wreck of the Benwood�for our second location. The�Benwood was unchartacteristicly wonderful, we had about 65 feet of�blue water.

I shot a lot of great video today, but I can’t�show it all to you! You’ll have to settle for 7�of the best minutes�direct from the Spiegel Grove, staring all of the above divers!

Ok, so check out the VIDEO!!! (requires Flash) and see it for yourself. After that, come dive it with us!

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi gang!

We were diving out on Conch Wall today, and it was a wonderful trip. We saw a very large nurse shark, Kirk estimated it at 10 feet, but he might have been suffering from narcosis! Saw a nice school of spotted Eagle Rays, and many other fish that live all over the wall. Overall, there was just enough current to push us along so we didn’t have to swim, we just floated down the reef. For those of you who don’t know, Conch Wall�has a depth range from about 50-110 feet. It’s a pretty sharp drop in some areas, and others it’s sloping down pretty steep. It is by far the best drift dive we have in the Keys! The visibility was running about 50-60 feet, but it doesn’t look quite that clean on the video. The video is also missing some color (it will look a little green), my filters are set up for about 30 feet of diving, so it can’t really get the reds back in when we are down at 70 feet. As you’ll see it’s a great dive because it’s just packed with coral and fish. The top of the wall is in about 50 feet of water, and it bottoms out at about 105 feet. The rest of the crew on board today was Captain Bill, Melissa was first mate, Kirk was DiveMaster, and Tom was teaching an AOW class. So join us for about 5 minutes of what Conch Wall has to offer, and be sure to watch my silly impression of “The Matrix” underwater at the end!

Oh right?! The video.. so if you don’t want to just read about Conch Wall, then be sure to click here for the VIDEO!!! (requires Flash) and see it for yourself. Come dive it with us!