“It is the best muck diving in the country,” Skip Commagere said. Not a very complimentary description for the newest underwater trail in Palm Beach County, Florida. Muck divers are a special breed of underwater photographers. They seek out places that harbor weird ocean creatures. Spots that are protected from currents, waves and storms where underwater shelter provides niches for juvenile marine organisms to grow to adulthood. The term muck diving usually means these divers are willing to search the depths of backwaters and bays where the bottom is often mucky.
This is not the case at the Phil Foster Park Snorkel Trail under the east end of the Blue Heron Bridge where the bottom is clean white sand. It is a public county park provided with lifeguards and ample free parking.
“Blue Heron Bridge was a local secret spot. Only old time locals knew about it,” Commagere added. There are few off the beach diving sites with free parking. Divers can pull up to the curb at the east end of the Bridge, back into a free parking spot, unload their gear and suit up at handy wooden picnic tables, usually unoccupied except during weekends. Fresh water showers enable divers to rinse their gear after a dive.
“In 2008 the recession thing hit. Diving is expensive. It may cost $65 for a boat trip plus the cost of filling tanks. Many divers are family people. The husband may dive but the wife doesn’t. In the recession it’s difficult for the husband to say, ‘Honey, I’m going to spend $85 to go diving today but you stay away from the Mall.’ We started running free Blue Heron Bridge dive trips. We created this monster because we promoted it,” Commagere laughed.
For the owner and founder of Force-E dive stores to make a statement like that is extraordinary in and of itself. It shows a commitment to promoting an activity and offering scuba and snorkel divers a free alternative to spending money on boat trips.
“It has become a great dive site. Divers see strange creatures. It is also a relief valve for dive stores in Georgia and the Carolinas. They bring their students to South Florida for check out dives. The problem in South Florida is that boat diving can get blown out by weather. Driving down from out of state and then having to cancel dives is not a happy prospect. Some dive stores were checking out their students in fresh water springs and not coming down here to dive in the ocean just for that reason. The Blue Heron Bridge is a sheltered spot and allows them to dive. This is important to the economy of our area. They stay in hotels, go to restaurants, shop, spend money. The bridge is a little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” Commagere is enthusiastic about the dive site, enhanced now with the County’s creating an artificial reef just off the public bathing beach.
There is a lifeguard protected area of the beach and a protected swim area. Divers are asked to make their entries off the beach outside the lifeguarded area so as not to interfere with swimmers. That is simple enough since there is plenty of room to spread out along the beachfront that faces south toward Peanut Island. Palm Beach County Commissioners, the Parks and Recreation Department and the Department of Environmental Resources Management pooled their expertise to install 600 tons of limestone rock off the beach.
Created in August 2012, the artificial reef consists of an 800-foot long snorkeling and diving trail. The layout consists of 16 piles of boulders and 6 concrete structures that weigh 2 tons each. The reef modules are made from Portland cement and have been lowered precisely onto a geotextile fabric placed on the sand to prevent the heavy reef building material from sinking in. A large panel at the site gives details and a map of the artificial reef area.
Prefabricated reef modules were designed with ledges, holes and niches for underwater life to find habitats. Sand and recycled glass powder was added to cement used for the structures. While it takes time for marine organisms to attach to underwater objects then grow and sustain life, the underwater habitats are already home to fish, lobsters and octopus. Derelict vessels that sank in storms littered the shallow sandy bottom. Many still remain where they sank. Long lines, chains and anchors from itinerant boats that provided floating homes for their occupants also provided places for life to cling to.
There are seahorses, difficult to find in the open ocean off Florida's Atlantic coast, baby octopus, even the most elusive frogfish. An unusual creature that looks exactly like the reef or coral itself, the frogfish remains perfectly still underwater. It has a lure on top of its head that it waves to attract prey. When an unsuspecting fish comes close, the frogfish rapidly propels itself toward it and gulps down a meal. Juveniles of many species inhabit the sandy bottom.
With tide change, currents wash ocean water from the Atlantic Ocean into the Intracoastal Waterway from nearby Palm Beach Inlet. Phil Foster Park is on the Intracoastal, sheltered by the bridge. Tides change every 6 hours. Currents move to and from the Atlantic Ocean. Divers use tide tables to time their diving for slack tide. Visibility is best during high tides. Divers can fin against the current but, with tide changes, underwater visibility is decreased. Photographers prefer clear water. They generally enter before high tide and have an hour or more to explore the reef. Depth is only 6-10 feet at the artificial reef. The County has made the area off limits to boaters. A dive flag is mandatory and respect for people using the public swim area is appreciated.
"The County understands how important the bridge is. By putting down those structures it relieves pressure on the bridge itself when there are a lot of divers in the water. The Blue Heron Bridge gets more divers than just about anywhere else in Florida. There is marine life on pilings: under the little bridge at the eastern side, around the bridge on the northern side. Suzan Meldonian has written a book with color photographs just about the bridge," Commagere explained.
“In the original plan contractors were supposed to remove the old bridge pilings when the new bridge was built. I asked them to please leave them. I went and pleaded with the Department of Transportation to save the marine life that was attached to the old pilings. The photographs convinced them. Underwater photographers from all over the U.S. and many from overseas spend a week at the Blue Heron Bridge looking for weird creatures. Actually 3 or 4 new species have been discovered there already.” Skip Commagere’s enthusiasm is catching.
Plam Beach County’s newest artificial reef snorkel and dive trail is convenient and easy. Depths are only 6 to 22 feet. The deepest areas are around the west side of the main bridge itself and under the small east end bridge. A place where novice and experienced underwater enthusiasts can see nature at close range without cost.
For more information visit www.lwli.com, www.pbcparks.com and www.force-e.com. Force-E also organize free night dives at the bridge and will give free night parking permits to divers since general parking at night is not permitted at county parks.
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