Night Dive on the Duane

A conversation with Stephen Frink at the party sealed the deal for our decision to go further south. He said that there’s more to life than just diving, and the Lower Keys are a beautiful place. He was right. I’ve never done the drive down the length of the Keys. Our other alternative was West Palm Beach, but at this point we were feeling a little dived out and Alex was getting a little annoyed at being cooped up in a hotel room. But first, we had one more dive in Key Largo…

Day 9

Did some sightseeing around Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada. Got us ready for the night dive on the Duane. We met Marriard, SoFlaRoger, GlenDivesAlot, Kidsdream and forgive me – two others who’s names I cannot recall L!!! At Divers City in Tavernier. We boarded the Diversity bumped along to the Duane.

Dive #14

USCG Duane

Max depth: 101 ft

Bottom temp: 81 degrees

Bottom Time: 34 minutes

Vis: 50-60 ft.

No current really to speak of. I was the third diver down the mooring line. While waiting for Michael I saw a free swimming goldentail eel high tail his skinny butt into a pipe, turn himself around and stick his head out, checking to see if the coast is clear. The sizes of the parrotfish on the wreck were HUGE. I’ve never seen your basic parrotfish the size of a small child! When Michael descended, I pointed out the eel, and then we began to explore the wreck. I’ve never dove the Duane during the day but it is stunning at night. It's completely covered in orange cup coral. Not all of it was opened yet, but it was still beautiful. Around midship, Michael got my attention and there’s a hawksbill turtle just hanging out.

I was careful not to shine my HID light directly in his eyes but I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He was huge and he was beautiful and he tolerated us hanging out and looking at him. It was around this time I noticed water in my regulator again. Purging did nothing this time and it was only getting worse. Not exactly what I want to be happening at 100 or so feet. I switched over to my pony and signaled to Michael it was time to go up. We were near the radar tower and were hoping there was a mooring line there. No such luck so we made our free ascent + a 5 minute safety stop. As there was very little current, we didn’t drift to far from the stern of the wreck and the Diversity picked us up within minutes of our surfacing. Turned out the diaphragm in my regulator curled up on the end, kind of like a contact lens, letting in water. I was upset that I missed the rest of the dive, I hear there was an octopus over by the stern, but I was happy the way Michael & I were able to handle a potentially bad situation.

We said our goodbyes and went back to the Marina del Mar – getting our gear to dry as much as we could and our stuff packed for our trip to Sugarloaf Key.