A Fossil Fest to be Remembered

The last few summers of BRFC had always featured BRFC Digrfest in SC with trips to Cooper, Edisto and some land hunting. But this time myself, T$, DW and ScubaPaul decided to don our finest SCUBA gear at world-famous Venice Beach, Florida. The plan was 4 days of diving off the Venice coast and hopefully multi-post-dive Mexican celebration grub. Day 1 and Day 2 were at different locations not far off the beach. On my first dive, I realized this was the first time in 15 years I had more than 2 feet vizo and no current! Oh yeah, first time in the ocean too! It took me about the first three dives to get the hang of hunting at this location. I did get one nice meg on dive three, but this was only the appetizer! I almost put the kaibash on the next day's collecting by neglecting Florida maritime law; all hands and feet in the ride when in no wake zones...our fine Captain Digr was given a written warning and the chance to purchase new flares....I thought I was going to walk the plank; I'm just sayin...

Day 3 was the dream day for paleo-adventurers of all ages....On dive 1, I had bagged a trip-making, case worthy meg, then ran into DW who had bagged a mammoth tooth. His collecting prowess inspired me to hone my collecting skill.... I found that neutral bouancy about 3 ft above the bottom made for premium collecting while scanning back and forth across an area. On the last zag, I spied a monster dark mammoth tooth laying out! What a fossil bounty! This tooth weighs about 7 pounds and my bouancy control was challenged. On the second dive of day 3, I had paleo-deja vu with another nice meg and a smaller, but complete mammoth tooth. Day 4 would prove to be my most prolific meg day in Digrfest. I swam on a spot loaded with phosphate, whale bone, smaller teeth everywhere, and on my next serrated-hover I spied two whole megs laying out; one a 3-7/8 incher and the other 2-3/4 inch superhero! Truly a rack of worthy of the finest BRFC paleo-gravy!