Advertisement
My wife and I share a passion for scuba diving. We’ve made hundreds of dives in different environments, from varying depths down to 130 feet and diving at night.
Illustration: Gary Hovland
My wife and I share a passion for scuba diving. We’ve made hundreds of dives in different environments, from varying depths down to 130 feet and diving at night. Through this experience and extensive professional training, we’re now both certified master scuba divers.
To take advantage of our local South Florida reefs and avoid some of the issues we’d experienced on charter dive boats, we purchased a Sea Ray 190 OBX, a comfortable runabout with a rear sun pad and swim platform that make a good stage for diving. We even took our dive equipment to the showroom to verify that we could set up comfortably to dive off the platform.
On our first dive day out of Fort Lauderdale, we grabbed a mooring ball adjacent to one of the three parallel reefs, about 2 miles offshore. While my sister kept watch under the bimini, enjoying the birds, sun, and sea breeze, off we dove from our new boat. What followed was nothing short of spectacular – a relaxing, drama-free, and extended excursion with our underwater friends and vibrant landscape.
Following the dive, we enjoyed lunch and lively conversation, and listened to music while tied to the mooring. As we headed back through Port Everglades Channel and into the ICW on our way back to our marina, we witnessed jumping rays and dolphins, and waved to excited cruise passengers on their massive ships ready to set sail.
While we knew we would enjoy having our own boat, we underestimated the immense power that little boat has for unlocking the gates of paradise that await below whenever we feel the urge to explore. We’ve had many such wonderful dives since, but this all started the day we bought our boat, which we named Seas The Moment.