Speedfreak241, you need to figure out where you are snorkeling and share.
We tend to snorkel Bahia Honda when we are just going out for a good time and not collecting. There are more than enough cool places to collect the same things you see at Bahia Honda, so no need to test the rules enforcement at the park. LOL!
We find April - June is pretty good weather and the water is getting warmer and the air isn't too hot. July - Sept can be OK. The water is nice and warm, the air is hot and afternoon thunderstorms are fairly common. But there are days of flat, clear water. Oct - Nov are also pretty good. The water is slow to cool so it's comfortable, the air is cooling off some and afternoon thunderstorms are much less frequent.
We are so ready to get back again.
The last 2 weekends we have done beachwalk/collection on Sanibel Island (west of Ft Myers/Cape Coral). The strong west winds associated with rare cold front passage create the right conditions for lots of things to wash up on the beach. Two weeks ago I got to play with a small sharpnose shark that was struggling to get back out into deeper water. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would catch a shark, even a small one, with my bare hands! We also found small reef octopus, lots of big horse conch, hundreds of dead urchins and pin shells. BTW, I walked the shark out into waist deep water and it swam away just fine. Some of the other animals we find on the beach also get returned to the water in hopes that they will survive.
As you can see by my clothes, it was cold (by SW Florida standards) and I had on a dive skin pants under my blue jeans!
This weekend I found a purple Gorgonian that is flat like a sea fan (but it isn't one), is about 16" wide and 12" tall. It has been in my 75g hexagon Gorgonian tank for 36 hours and appears to be in good condition. I'm hoping that the polyps will come out today, now that it has had some time to acclimate. I'm sure spending hours on the beach in sub 50 temps is a shock to it's system... I was to mine as well! Here is a smaller one that my wife took a photo of on the beach.
These beaches are normally pretty good for shelling and there are lots of snowbirds doing that, even on really cold days. I probably had 10 to 15 people each weekend come up to me and ask about what I was looking for when I was tearing open the sponges that had washed up. We were the only people doing that, so we were obviously up to something, especially with a big bucket and a bubbler.
I find it enjoyable to share some of the local knowledge to the curious visitors. Almost no locals asked (and probably very few out there in the cold), but the people who did ask me were from California, Texas, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Vermont, North Carolina, Canada and Germany! This is what the beach looks like the day after a strong west wind causes big waves for 24 hours or more (very uncommon here).
BTW, when almost everything on the beach is dead or dying, we open sponges and find porcelain crabs, small serpent and brittle stars, pistol and peppermint shrimp and occasionally other critters. I got a few American Warty anemones and a handful of Green Lip Muscles as well. All are home and in various tanks acclimating. It makes the $6 bridge/causeway toll and $4/hour parking toll (we did 3 and 4 hour stays) well worth the visit. And just to be perfectly clear, my wife and I both have Florida saltwater fishing licenses so we are doing this all completely legally. :thumbsup:
