Buddha marks the start of the dive at Davis Reef Videograph by Rich Torkington in Florida Keys 2002

The conditions this morning are just perfect, calm and clear and fish everywhere! We proceed a short distance from the boat and come across a jolly golden Buddha, who serves as a good luck symbol for the dive and a great navigation marker. At the start of the dive Linda rubs the Buddha’s belly for added good fortune.

Davis Reef consists of a wonderful cliff drop-off of about 3 to 6 feet that extends roughly straight in an SE-NW direction. The marine life in and around that ledge wall is just excellent.

There are huge schools of fish everywhere! The grunts are especially spectacular, including French, white, bluestriped, Spanish, porkfish, black margates, and a new one – smallmouth. There are tons of schoolmasters and loads of yellowtail snappers. The snappers especially swarm the boat when we arrive, brought in by some fish food spread out by Sarah.

There are 5 or 6 other divers with us today, and they quickly thin out on the reef so that we are essentially alone. While I am filming, a feisty sergeant major attacks my camera, sporting the bluish hue of a male guarding eggs. It is an especially relaxing dive, easy and plenty to see. We spend a lot of time exploring each recess and crevice in the ledge, locating plenty of hidden critters, lobsters, moray eels, cleaner shrimp, etc.

Linda spies a juvenile spotted drum, and we are fooled for a minute, think it is a juvenile jackknife fish – hard to distinguish. At the turnaround there is a great big scorpionfish and a red grouper. Near the dive end there is a big green moray eel.

An exceptional dive, easy to navigate and therefore relaxing, loads to see, long duration at shallow depth. The whole family really enjoyed this one.