Reef Report
Saturday, June 22
Sea Turtle Dive with South Florida Diving HQ Boynton

This was supposed to be a turtle dive... It didn’t disappoint! We had a full crew of divers this week diving the Boynton Beach reef. Both dives were in 50 ft of 84 degree water and were absolutely beautiful. Visibility on our first dive was 80 ft of blue water, the second dive was a messy 40, but still beautiful.

On our first dive we immediately ran into a huge loggerhead, followed by a half dozen more between the two dives, as well as a baby shark and some morays.Boynton has abundant soft coral and schooling tropicals, making it one of the best reef dives off the coast in South Florida.

-- Active Divers Safety Officer Dan Beery

Reef Report
Saturday, June 23
Sea Turtle Dive with South Florida Diving HQ Boynton

We had a full boat of 17 Active Divers on this nice day with sporty 2-4' seas and warm 85 degree water. Dive 1 took us to Boynton Ledges - depth 63 feet, while Dive 2 was at Cronin's - depth 65'. The visibility was a bit compromised at a dirty 20-30', but once you got ten feet above the reef you could clearly see an amazing amount of fish and all the colorful marine life that Boynton offers. 

I consider the ledges of Boynton reefs to be the best diving in South Florida, really a well-kept secret as it doesn't have the reputation of more famous dive locations like Jupiter, Pompano or Key Largo. However because the ledges sit at 55-70 feet they're deep enough not to be affected by hurricanes, while the presence of the nearby gulf stream keeps temps moderate to avoid bleaching. The result is extremely healthy soft corals attached to 10-15 foot steep ledges that house an abundance of marine life such as clouds of snappers, large green moray eels, lots of lobster, fantastically beautiful queen, French and gray angelfish, porkfish, trunkfish, trumpetfish, blue tangs, parrotfish, scrawled and white spotted filefish and the occasional large channel clinging crab. On this dive we were treated to schools of blue creole wrasses flowing along the ledge, with abundant glassy sweepers darting through the caves under the ledges. 

But of course the main event was what we came here to see - loggerhead sea turtles and we were treated to two absolutely huge ones on each dive, with some groups seeing up to five total between two dives. The large females were resting up on the ledges preparing to go to shore overnight to nest and lay eggs as they've been doing virtually unchanged for 110 million years, to hopefully ensure the survival of the species. 

It was a great day with fun had by all. And special congratulations to Linda Mitchell for earning her PADI Advanced Open Water and Nitrox certifications on these dives!

-- Active Divers President and Safety Officer Rachel Davis