"Wade G. Pemberton" wrote:
>
> Jeff:
>
> > 100' in Florida?  Where?  One of the springs? :-)  I've seen 30-40 maybe
> > at Panama City (once, but it can be horrible too), and a little better
> > in Lauderdale, but 100'?  How far offshore?
>
> Off West Palm Beach, probably 1/2 a mile.
>
> The Gulf Stream is quite close, and it's very clear water.

I believe it, just haven't seen it.  My two Lauderdale dives were late
summer (September) so there was quite a bit of plankton and such.  The
best viz I've seen on the east coast was at the USS Vermillion, about 20
some-odd miles off the coast of Myrtle Beach, SC, just far enough to be
in the Gulf stream.  Vis was well over 50 feet and the water was quite
toasty as well (at 100+ feet).  The Vermillion is upright, but varies
from ~80 at the top of the bridge to 140 at the bottom.  Well, now that
I looked up the log entry, it was 145 at the bottom and 72F.  Dove with
Scuba Syndrome who did an excellent, excellent job and went the extra
mile for support (hanging stage/bailout bottles and so forth).  But the
boat is 460' long, don't expect to see it all at once :-)  This was in
June of 1994.

Jeff