Okay, I think something is wrong with me. After last week’s mini-season and an entire week of good visibility, I’ve found myself at times looking under bushes and curbs for waving lobster antennae. I’ve also been sub-consciously clearing my nose for a descent into the deep. Is something wrong with me? Am I alone in this?

Okay, first off, for all you divers out there, the visibility off Sebastian is freaking awesome right now! We dove on Wednesday and were greeted with top to bottom visibility all the way out to the sixty foot reefs! I’ve only been diving about 4 years, but I have never seen anything comparable to that out here.

Well, we did our first dive on Wednesday in the 60’ depths east of Sebastian and we could see fish as soon as we jumped in the water. Upon reaching the bottom, I spotted a flounder immediately and sacrificed him to the stringer. As I was putting it in my bag, I see two more flounder spook off. This is pretty much how the dive went. We were cruising along a reef with forty-foot viz, checking for lobster and spearing flounder after flounder along the way. Only caught one lobster that dive and it, or should I say she, was full of bright orange eggs, so back in her hole she went. After 45 minutes we ended up back on the surface with a dozen flounder. We could have had all the big sheepshead we wanted, but they looked so peaceful dining on crabs in holes on the reef.

Next dive a little later brought us out to a shrimp boat wreck in 114’ north of the inlet. On our descent we passed through a snotty thermocline, but it cleared up over the bottom and we were greeted with decent twenty-foot viz. On top of the wreck was a school of snook, all over 20 pounds, and they were the kings of the wreck. Surrounding the wreck were schools of baitfish in such great numbers that they actually blocked out the sunlight at times. Some giant amberjack stayed just barely in sight of us, keeping a watchful eye on their submarine home. We didn’t spear any fish on this dive, but we got some decent video footage of the wreck and its inhabitants. There were hardly any other fish around this wreck, maybe because the snook and amberjack keep the smaller fish populations in check. We were breathing regular air and could only stay down for about 15 minutes before we had to go up and decompress, but it was a pretty gnarly 15 minutes!

Last dive brought us down to a reef/ledge in 85’. We marked some nice fish on this spot so after a couple drops with bottom fishing gear yielded some nice red snapper, it was a done deal that we’d give it a look. We dropped down to the bottom and were greeted with 20 foot viz and some more red snaps cruising around. My buddy Paul shot a 10 pounder before I even hit the bottom. We cruised around the primitive looking, coral-encrusted ledge and found plenty of female lobsters loaded with eggs that I didn’t even bother messing with. Paul missed a shot on a big grouper and we saw some hero-sized gags milling around the reef, but they wanted nothing to do with us and kept their distance. I caught my first slipper lobster (shovelnose lobster) on this dive. I could barely see it except for its tiny purple and orange antennae sticking out of a rock. These things look exactly like rocks!

Well, I heard the viz is deteriorating due to these west-southwest winds, so when the seabreezes kick in and those easterlies start pushing in the cleaner, warmer water the conditions should get better. The lobster are certainly less numerous than they have been in recent years, but the large groups of females I’ve been seeing is very promising for years to come. Remember to be gentle with the ladies and release all females with eggs in any stage of development. Everyone one board diving for lobster must have a current lobster stamp and a lobster gauge with them at all times while diving.

Enjoy your diving! And stay sane in the Florida wave-less wonderland!