Dive Trip Report to:
Pepper Park
Purpose:
Beach Dive
Neptunes Adventures
Your source for affordable, custom diving adventures.Hey everyone, we had a good time in Ft. Pierce this past weekend. We dove the 4th ledge off of Pepper Park and saw lots of tropicals, lobster and some gamefish . Patty and I came across a big lobster molting, he was about halfway out of his shell. The weather the day before was lousy so only 6 people made it out. Thanks for the diving and the good fun to Dave, Patty, Pete, George, Robin and Carla. Robin and Carla had to end things early and head back to Orlando, but after the dive the rest of us went to Dave and Patty's house and sat on the dock, watching the boats go by, then cooked up some hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill. It was cold in the morning but became warm and sunny and just an all around great day. Or was that the rum?
We'll be doing a repeat in 2 weeks, just a little north of Pepper Park, on the wreck of the Urca de Lima . George and I came up with a plan to dive a lot of the beach sites and near shore wreck sites during the summer. There're literally dozens of neat beach dives all along the Treasure Coast. Oh yeah, do ya'll know how the Treasure Coast got its name? Sunken Treasure!
The Urca de Lima , also known as the Nao de Refuerzo and later as the Wedge Wreck, for the wedges of silver found there, was the flagship of Spains ill fated 1715 treasure fleet from the New World. Eleven ships, heavily laden with treasure set sail from Cuba on July 24, 1715. They never reached the open ocean, they were struck by a fierce hurricane in the Canal de Bahama, off the coast of present day Ft. Pierce. All the ships were forced aground on the shallow limestone ledges and all but the Lima broke up and sank. She went aground just north of Ft. Pierce inlet, but didn't break up. She was later burned to the waterline to keep her from the English. All eleven of the ships remains are scattered along the coast from Ft. Pierce Inlet to north of Sebastian Inlet. Not all have been found and nowhere near all of the treasure was ever recovered. Again, I consider all shipwrecks caused by acts of God to be Maritime graves and I discourage artifact collecting. I was thinking after the dive, we might all go check out the McLarty Museum, south of Sebestain Inlet. It's on the original camp site of the wreck survivors and was the site of the first salvage operation. Pretty neat place.The Keys dive trip is coming up fast, May 21-23 . Price is $275 per person, double occupancy or $250 per person, triple. Non-divers pay only $200 and are welcome on the boat. Maximum number of people for this trip is 9. The rooms have two double beds and a double sofa-bed, kitchen, big bathrooms and cable TV. We'll do two tanks in the morning Saturday, one more in the afternoon and a one tank night dive, then two tanks Sunday morning and one in the afternoon, for a total of seven dives. If we have a real diehard group we can increse this to 9 dives. No, ya don't have to do all the dives, but the boat will most likely stay out all day long, coming in to fill tanks and grab a lunch. You'll need to bring two tanks per diver, I'll take care of the air fills. This trip will be done once a month throughout the summer.
I'm putting together a trip to Roatan in August , $750 per person, dives, accomodations and food included, for those of you interested. There's also a great event in Cozumel in October, Splash Week. I'm not running this one, but I think I might go. It's $999 per person, includes airfare, 8 days and 7 nights accomodations, dives, all food and all drinks. Yeah, airfare and an open bar.
Does it get any better than this? I think not.
Last Updated: 10-July-2002