History of Diving Museum, FREE Presentation March 19, Dive Memorials, CLICK for details
19 Mar 20148:19 PM
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By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost Travel Journalist
Pro team Member
Sue Cocking chronicles the Guy Harvey Outpost travel and adventure experience in regular blog posts on GuyHarveyOutpostNews.com.
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(Tavernier, FL) The five-foot-long green moray eel glides out of its coral reef cave and heads straight for the ballyhoo that Captain Spencer Slate dangles from two gloved fingers. The eel quickly …
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![](mailto:?subject=Capt. Slate’s ‘Creature Feature’ Dive – New Location, New Thrills&body=<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/slate.jpg"><img class="alignnone wp-image-2903 size-large" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/slate.jpg?w=660" alt="Slate" width="660" height="256" /></a>
(Tavernier, FL) The five-foot-long green moray eel glides out of its coral reef cave and heads straight for the ballyhoo that Captain Spencer Slate dangles from two gloved fingers. The eel quickly gulps the bait then allows Slate to cradle it in his arms and stroke its slick sides. Slate holds the eel out to a ten-year-old diver sitting nearby who gives it a pat, and it returns to its cave.
"A sweetheart, a doll," Slate says later of the eel, who he has named Wasabi.
Slate has been making friends with eels, sharks, barracudas, Goliath groupers, and numerous other Upper Keys reef denizens since the late 1970s. His twice-weekly 'creature feature' feeding dives on Fridays and Sundays conducted from Captain Slate's Scuba Adventures Dive Center, a Guy Harvey Outpost outfitter in Tavernier, regularly draws a sell-out audience.
On a recent Sunday, two families from Fort Pierce-- both with newly certified scuba diving ten-year-old daughters-- travelled to the Keys for the third time to participate. Both girls thoroughly enjoyed the dive, and declared they would share photos and videos upon returning to school.
"They were cute!" one girl said of Wasabi and Lester, another green moray befriended by Slate.
Slate escorted his guests to the first dive at Davis Reef, a shallow, scenic coral ledge about 25 feet deep where Wasabi makes her home. Slate dropped to the bottom carrying a PVC canister filled with chum and bally hoo, quickly attracting a school of yellowtail snapper and grunts that followed the scent trail.
The captain stopped in front of a shallow cave near a large Southern stingray that rested half-buried in the sand and kept a wary eye on the food fest. The swarming snapper and grunts were so thick around the chum canister that the divers could barely see Slate. The divers settled down in the sand to see what would happen next.
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/10924171_770345289702868_1772420048942809884_o.jpg"><img class="alignnone wp-image-2907 size-large" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/10924171_770345289702868_1772420048942809884_o.jpg?w=660" alt="10924171_770345289702868_1772420048942809884_o" width="660" height="339" /></a>
Wasabi appeared pretty quickly after Slate took out the first bally hoo. Her jaws flexed open and closed as she approached the bait, then devoured it. She held pretty still for all the public displays of affection by the humans, then went back to her cave to digest the meal. She never snapped at anybody.
The stingray, tired of the hoopla, slowly dusted itself off and swam away.
Slate let the schooling fish have their way in the chum slick for a little while, then got out another bally hoo for Wasabi. She re-emerged from her cave, ate her snack, indulged the divers, then departed.
None of Slate's guests has been injured by his featured creatures in decades, but he has. Following numerous nips to the fingers requiring multiple visits to a hand surgeon over the years, Slate began wearing chain-mail gloves. Even today, he has very little feeling in his digits. Trying to feed barracudas bally hoo clasped between his teeth, Slate has suffered split lips, a black eye and a severed nerve in his cheek.
"Like getting a haymaker from Sonny Liston," he said.
A Goliath grouper he fed regularly at the wreck of the City of Washington off Key Largo once swallowed his arm and part of his head in its haste to score a meal.
He just laughs off the injuries and vows to keep hanging with the sea life.
"You know me. If I find an eel, I am going to make a buddy out of it," he said.
On the second dive with the group from Fort Pierce, Slate headed to nearby Pleasure Reef where he is trying to cultivate a more solid friendship with Lester, another moray. Lester responded a bit slowly to the offered bally hoo and didn't want to hang around too long for the requisite love fest. But he didn't display any hostility, just shyness.
During that dive, the guests also spotted a large nurse shark and a sea turtle passing by. Nobody was scared -- just excited.
That's the whole purpose behind the creature feature, Slate said -- showing visitors that residents of the underwater world are not out to get them.
"I've done this my whole life, so people will respect them and get over the idea they'll eat you alive," Slate said.
That message certainly went a long way with two very exhilarated ten-year-old girls.
Sue Cocking chronicles the Guy Harvey Outpost travel and adventure experience in regular blog posts on GuyHarveyOutpostNews.com/. For 21 years, Cocking covered the full spectrum of outdoors adventure opportunities in South Florida and beyond for the Miami Herald, including fishing, diving, hunting, paddling, camping, sailing, and powerboat racing. She is a certified scuba diver and holder of an IGFA women's world fly fishing record for a 29-pound permit. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/capt-slates-creature-feature-dive-new-location-new-thrills/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Billfish Invitational Day 1 – Scuba Diving?&body=During this week’s Billfish Invitational tournament, Fred Garth, Editor-In-Chief of <a title="GHM web site" href="http://www.guyharveymagazine.com" target="_blank">Guy Harvey Magazine</a>, will be filing a series of dispatches from tournament headquarters at the Bimini Big Game Club.
The day began with sunny skies and nice reggae music playing at the open air <a title="About the Big Game Bar & Grill" href="http://www.biggameclubbimini.com/bimini-bar-grill.htm" target="_blank">Big Game Bar and Grill</a>. I munched on eggs and bacon and slurped down mucho coffee after a big night of festivities at the <a title="Billfish Invitational web site" href="http://www.billfishinvitational.com/" target="_blank">Billfish Invitational</a> opening celebration. (Note to self: avoid Appleton’s Reserve Rum in the future – stick to virgin Coca Cola).
We set out after a hearty breakfast for a few scuba dives with <a title="Guy Harvey Inc. web site" href="http://www.guyharvey.com" target="_blank">Guy Harvey</a>, his son Alex, Steve Stock (GH Inc, President), Frank Johnson of <a title="Mold Craft web site" href="http://www.moldcraft.com" target="_blank">Mold Craft</a> and sculptor <a title="Kent Ullberg's web site" href="http://www.kentullberg.net" target="_blank">Kent Ullberg</a>. Fishing boats headed out into a glassy sea and negligible winds – 12 boats in all – to try their luck with the wily billfish. A full report on that will come later tonight or tomorrow.
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/stevekentguyalex11.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-737" title="Scuba Diving at the Billfish Invitational!" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/stevekentguyalex11.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="366" /></a>Left to right: Steve Stock, Kent Ullberg, Guy Harvey and Alex Harvey
The weather is absolutely and positively PERFECT with zero wind or waves. The scuba trip was also stellar. Saw lots of cool critters – turtles, rays, grouper, permit, and the rest of their slimy brethren. But no sharks. However, Guy Harvey is not the kind of dude to be disappointed. He gathered four mahi-mahi carcasses yesterday for a chum fest this afternoon on the shark dive.
That report as well as fishing results will be coming later, that is, unless the song of the Appleton’s Reserve fills the air with its sweet music before I can jump into the blogosphere. We will see what wins – rum or blog. Place your bets!!
Garth Out! https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/billfish-invitational-day-1-scuba-diving/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Goliath Grouper Diving Season Peaks in South Florida&body=<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/goliath2.jpg"><img class="wp-image-2934 size-medium" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/goliath2.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="197" /></a>Credit: Alan Egan
By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost Staff Writer
scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com.
[Jupiter, FL--] If you have ever wanted to get up close and personal with schools of fish the size of Smart Cars as they check out the action in their underwater singles bars, now is your best opportunity.
Scores of Goliath grouper weighing hundreds of pounds are gathered at their annual spawning sites on reefs and wrecks in southeast and southwest Florida. They started showing up in August and will likely remain through early to mid-October.
By far the best viewing is on artificial reefs 60 feet and deeper from Boynton Beach to Jupiter in Palm Beach County. On a Sept. 12th dive on the 60-foot-deep MG 111 off Jupiter, Ryan Kobylski-- divemaster with Jupiter Dive Center-- counted 80 individuals hovering inside and around the wreck.
"This is the hot time," Kobylski said. "This is when they're all fired up."
The large, gentle, mottled-brown fish mostly ignore divers or move away when approached. But if you sit still on the bottom or hover stationary in the middle of the water column, they may swim up to you. When upset or frightened, they emit a sonic boom from deep in their throats. With lots of divers around, the MG 111 often sounds like an underwater bass drum concert.
Scientific tagging data shows Goliaths come from hundreds of miles away to reproduce on southeast Florida wrecks in late summer. Most are gone by mid-October, but a few stick around.
The giant groupers have been protected from all harvest since 1990 after their populations crashed due to overfishing by both hook-and-line and spear guns. Now, after 25 years of closure, stocks have bounced back-- prompting some commercial and recreational anglers and spearfishers to call for a resumption of harvest. That won't happen anytime soon, however, because state and federal fisheries managers don't expect to complete a new Goliath stock assessment until the middle of 2016. If the numbers show that the fishery has reached a sustainable level, then a limited harvest could be considered.
Over the past decade, some dive operators-- especially in Palm Beach County-- have come to rely on bountiful numbers of Goliaths for a substantial portion of their summertime income, as tourists travel from all over the world to interact with the huge creatures. Those business owners staunchly oppose lifting the harvest ban.
And, just recently, another potential impediment to a future harvest has come to light: high levels of the heavy metal mercury found in many of the largest Goliaths.
Dr. Chris Koenig, a Florida State University fisheries scientist who's been studying the species since the 1990s, says mercury levels are so high in fish over four feet long as to weaken and maybe even kill them. And that means people who eat them risk mercury poisoning. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration says no one should consume fish with levels higher than one part per million; Koenig and colleagues have detected up to four parts per million of mercury in many Goliaths they've examined.
"Commercial fishing is out of the question and recreational fishing is foolish," Koenig said. "Why would you want to kill something you couldn't eat?"
The problem with opening a fishery for smaller Goliaths in the two-to-three-foot range found mostly in shallowEverglades estuaries is removing fish before they've had a chance to spawn. Coupled with the massive cold-kill of juvenile Goliaths in early 2010, recovery of the species could suffer serious setbacks.
So for now, the best way to handle Goliaths is to enjoy their company underwater while they're around and release them quickly and unharmed if you catch them on hook and line.
******
Sue Cocking chronicles the Guy Harvey Outpost travel and adventure experience in regular blog posts on GuyHarveyOutpostNews.com/. For 21 years, Cocking covered the full spectrum of outdoors adventure opportunities in South Florida and beyond for the Miami Herald, including fishing, diving, hunting, paddling, camping, sailing and powerboat racing. She is a certified scuba diver and holder of an IGFA women's world fly fishing record for a 29-pound permit. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/goliath-grouper-diving-season-peaks-in-south-florida/){kind=link}
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