June 15, 2008 - Dania Beach "Eurojacks"

Hello everyone.

Another amazing week of diving comes to an end here in Paradise with a shore dive in Dania Beach, FL with my friend Joanie and her friend Susan. This time we are in search of the "Eurojacks", a series of concrete forms resembling toy jacks which have been placed off of the beach to prevent erosion. The secondary function is to provide an artificial reef structure for fish and other sea life to live on.

The three of us arrive at the Dania Beach Pier around 8:45am and discover that there are now 4 of us as Susan has invited Erica to come along as well. We gear our gear assembled and now we have to walk about 500 yards north of the pier to line up with the jacks. Not an easy hike with full dive gear, but we all made it ok. We get in the water (which was dead calm this morning), and begin our swim out to the jacks. Along the way I found a Starfish, and we found a couple of patch reefs with juvenile fish on them.

Once we find the "jacks", we swim along the entire length marveling at the placements and how so many different species of fish are able to use this artificial structure as a home. We saw Puffer Fish, Angel Fish, Snook, Gobys, Blue Heads, a small Sea Turtle, and so many juvenile fish it was hard to keep track! On our swim back to shore we also saw about 7 or 8 VERY large Tarpon (about 6ft long) swim right under us! Once back on shore, we have to walk back towards the pier and our cars. Joanie's husband, Andy, brought us a small picnic breakfast of bagels and fruit and we got to relax a little and talk about what we all saw on the dive.

A beautiful day of diving with friends and meeting new dive buddies on a new dive site (to us anyway) here in Paradise!

The Video Dude