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Gilbert Lodge   Since 2004

                 Gilbert Lodge Blog
         The life and times of Mark and Paula Persons

Friday morning, February 25, 2011, e-mail from Deep Diver Paula:   Spent the morning at the "Valley of the Turtles."  Didn’t see any turtles.  It was a dive of 100 ft for about 40 minutes.  Saw a couple of large grouper fish.  There are far too many of the lion fish.  They are a predatory fish that eat everything.  Really devastating the reefs of the small fish.  Saw three in one area and probably two more just on the one dive.  Kept trying to go into deco (impending decompression) from my dive computer so had to come up quicker than I would have liked.  Started on a guided tour by Splash with Matt and Janelle from Cincinnati along with another father and son.  Finished the tour with just two of us.  Did see one trigger fish.  Leslie and Splash saw three drum fish but I missed them.   Had a barracuda that hung out by the safety stop line.

Second dive was much nicer.  Was at Lone Star Ledge just in front of Seven Mile Beach.  Saw a nurse shark under a ledge.  Very silted-up so not a good shot.  However lots of schools of fish and nice ledges for poking around in.  Saw a number of queen angel fish, schools of French grunt fish and huge parrot fish.  Will spend the afternoon on a dive and then call it a week of diving. 

Love and miss you.  XXXOOO  Deep Diver Paula

Only 20 days until St. Patrick's Day.