Destin Jetties, Wrecks, and Morrison Springs 6-26/27

[Corigan]

Well I just got back from a very interesting trip. This is going to be a long report, so read on if you want. I was scheduled to drive down Saturday night with Fran (my GF),and stay the night in Chipley, FL. I was going to go and meet SuprBugMan and Darcy and do some dives at Morrison Springs Sunday morning. Then I was going to meet up with my best friend Kyle and do some jetty dives off his aunt's boat Sunday evening. We were going to stay in his Aunt's beach house Sunday and Monday night. I also had Kyle and I scheduled on AM charters from Emerald Coast Scuba on both Monday and Tuesday. We were going to hit the jetties after our AM dives on Monday. So there was a brief layout of what the trip was supposed to be like.

So on my way down I get a call from Kyle. BAD NEWS. His mom had a stroke.One of the sweetest women I have ever met, and my prayers are with her. So Kyle is on his way to New Orleans to see his mom at the hospital. His mom has made it through surgery. Recovery is starting to take place. It appears she will have to re-learn to use her left arm and leg, but they expect a full recovery. Of course she isn't out of the wods, and all prayers for her would be greatly appreciated.

So I decide to that I would still meet up with Bugman and dive Morrisons Sunday morning.

1st Dive - Sunday 6/26 8:00AM. - I arrived at Morrison's early and met up with Bugman and his friend. (I'm bad with names, sorry). Then Darcy showed up and we got on the way. We were the first people in the water and the river level was 3.5'. I have never seen such nice viz at morrisons as it was 60-70' in the basin and 20-30' on the spring run. Normal 100'+ in the cavern. Water temp was the normal 66-68F. I got a good lesson on this dive. Kicking into a high flow cavern entrance with a reel is a PITA. I birdnested it as I lost focus while pulling and gliding in. I worked on untangling the nest at the entrance to the cavern, but all was lost. I eventually exited and then cut the line and collected what was left of my mess.. Good lesson from this dive. I never made it in the cavern, but really didn't care as I was involved in my lesson. So after that we cruised the basin run. Saw some really big slider turtles and a softshell turtle came right up to us to check us out. It was a great dive with Max depth of 65'. Dive time was 1 hr. My rig took a spill off the setup benches at morrisons. Fell right on my first stage. I had my HID attached and everything. I was positive the bulb was going to be toast, but it actually held up. Who says dive rite HID's aren't tough? I got to clean out sand of all my gear and regs and do many extra checks before I went diving. :/

2nd dive - Sunday - Morrison Spring - 10:30 - 33 Minutes, 88' - We decided before hand to cut this dive at 30 minutes. We had to head across town to destin to get fills and food before hitting the jetties. It is also full season down there so traffic was horrid. We ducked inside the cavern for a few minutes and then goofed off around the log and basin. Mat took a group shot of us hanging out on the log.

We went to Dewey's on the water for a great fish sandwich, even though service was slow since it is tourist season.

3rd dive - Sunday - Destin Jetties - 3:05 PM - 54' :50 Dive - We got to the jetties a tad bit late. I was glad I brought my AL80's along with me as well as my steels. I would of hated the though of lugging those steel tanks across the beach. It was a very long walk to the jetties on the beach. In full equipment this was definately not a treat. Once we got down there we met up with a few other scubaboarders (whose names I can't remember either, go figure). Viz was 25-30' on the jetties and it was loaded with life. Tons of juvenile fish, but the highlight were many toadfish and some pufferfish. The water was so warm it was 84F at 54'. I wore a T-shirt and jean shorts on this dive. Since it was a tad bit past hightide we hit a mild current at the bottom of the jetty.

So now here is where the fun begins. Besides the tragic events of Kyle's mom, everything else had been going pretty smooth. So Kyle had arranged it to where we could still stay at the beach house without him. Of course we show up, and nobody is there. I assume they were all still out on the boat, but information was hazy. I decided not to chance it. Fran wasn't feeling well, and so we needed a hotel room immediately. So now it comes time to find a room in Destin in the middle of tourist season. Lets just say my rear end still hurts after I finished paying for 2 nights of hotel rooms down there. I had to find someone to fill the other spot on the charter and luckily I called up SeaYoda and he came out to dive with me on Monday. Thanks again bud.

SY and I get to emerald coast scuba at 7 in the morning. We fill out all the paperwork and head to the Marina. Looks to be a great day, 1 foot seas, no surface current. You couldn't ask for any better than that. On the way out we were going to hit the Phenix wreck, but there were many fishing boats there. We then went out and dove the Eglin LCM-8. The diesel fumes on the boat were awful. I started getting a scratchy throat and feeling sick to my stomach. I moved all over the boat to try to get away from the fumes, but to no avail. I mentioned something to Seayoda about the fumes, and he even said they were bad.

4th Dive - 6/27 - Monday - Eglin LCM-8 Destin - 97' - :31 72F
This was one of those boats they used in WWII to storm the beaches in Normandy and such. The big rigs that had the huge door in the front to drop down. After it's use in WWII the airforce used it and added onto it. They put a floor over it to cover in the hull of the ship and added a wheelhouse to the top. After it's life as a training boat for the air force it was then sunk as an artifical reef in 100' of water. I felt lazy and decided not to wear a wetsuit on this dive either. The water was warm at the surface. We hit a nasty thermocline at 50' and the temp dropped to 71F. Seayoda and I both were just in swimming trunks, and I can tell you it was cold. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Once I got the bottom of the line I had to stop a second or two to slow my breathing down. Two-Three breaths later and then I was trying to find the wreck. Yes, the dive shop just dropped the anchor off the front of the boat. No deck hand to go down and tie-off, no conditions reports of depth, viz, and currents, not much of anything. I saw what appeared to be a shadow in the distance (then again I've seen mirages 2 foot in front of my face with Jason B.) and swam that direction after taking a heading. Yes it was the wreck, thank goodness. The wheelhouse had been ripped off by Opal, which made this a cool dive. You could see into the engine room and such with zero penetrations from the holes in the top where the wheelhouse was ripped off. The coral was just getting started, but there was some decent life around the wreck. Some really big queen angelfish were inhabiting the wreck and had no problems letting me get close to them. This was a fun dive. Bill was diving Air, and I was on 32%, so he was cranking up his NDL time quite fast. We finished the dive with no problems.

Once I got back on the boat the Captain and deckhand wanted to change my gear over to a seperate tank. I told them don't worry about it 3x's and explained I like to setup my own rig to make sure it is done right. I then turn around and see the boat captain hauling my rig across the deck, with my 7' hose and primary second stage banging the deck the whole way. I ran over and picked up my hose and gave the Captain a big eat S&$# look and he appoligzed. In all fairness so I don't sound totally negative, the Captain was a nice guy. He gave us quite a bit of history about the wrecks, and even took us to a further out dive site (LCM-8) that would usually cost extra money for better viz.

So we make our way to our second dive which is to be the Miss Louise. It is a tug that sits in 60' of water and is usually used as a training dive for OW checkouts since it is only a mile off-shore. I gear up and do all my final checks. Then I notice a deckhand is checking my air to make sure it is on. I guess maybe I should say he was checking to make sure he turned my air OFF. I knew that my air was on, and then I felt him cranking back there. So I hit my reg and watched the SPG needle drop and yelled, "Who turned off my AIR?" I made sure it was loud enough that everyone on our boat, could hear it. The captain then saw me flash another look that basically stated, "Your Greenhorn is an idiot.." I explained to them that I'm lucky I don't trust them and did a check after they screwed with my gear. I wonder what they thought of that statement as I was jumping off the back of the boat. So anyhow -

 

[Corigan]

5th Dive - Miss Louise Tug - :46 55' - 20-30' Viz on the tug and the water was warm (80F) all the way to the deck. This wreck was covered in corals and marine life. I didn't even have to move to see plenty of it. Remeber my last dive where the deck hand (the guy who likes to turn your off off before you jump off the boat) just dropped the anchor and made it to where we had to find the wreck. Well this time he just dropped the anchor, right on top of the wreck. I'm not kidding, I dropped down the mooring line and the anchor was in the middle of the damn wreck. I was pissed just thinking about it. Atleast have the guy dive down and tie off with a reef anchor or something. So since we had to go out to the far site, you could tell the captain was wanting to limit this dive. We were the first on the wreck, and the last off. I came up still with half a tank of gas left. This dive was great though, and full of of feeder fish. Lots of angelfish, big spadefish, snappers, many grouper, some flounders on the bottom, and a big 200LB Jewfish that keeps his home on the wreck. The jewfish was cool and didn't grunt at me.

So we head back to dock. During this time the deckhand has to open up the hatch the engine. He climbs down there to apparently do some work or check something on the boat. Once at the marina I tell them that I am scheduled to go on the boat with them tommarrow. The greenhorn then proceeds to ask if I wanted them to take the tanks back to the shop, fill them, and have em ready by the morning. I said sure and went on my way. Kyle called me up and was racing back to Destin so he could make the charters in the AM on Tuesday.

SY and I ran over to the jetties to catch high tide and got in a great dive.

6th Dive - Destin Jetties - Monday 6/27 - 2:30 - 60' - 1 hr 7 minutes BT. - After the huge trek across the beach SY and I did a nice long dive on the jetties. Saw all the same characters as the previous day and the viz was the same. Since it was a weekday there was quite a few less boats, divers, snorklers, and people on the beach. This made for a much nicer dive. 84F from top to bottom of the jetties.

I wake up on Tuesday and there are storms all over the radar, it is pouring outside, and plenty of storms in the gulf. Seayoda calls me up and asks if I have heard anything from the shop. I haven't heard anything so I try to call, no answer. So I drive down to the shop and some people are loading up tanks to take to the marina in pouring rain. I ask them if they are still planning on going out, and they say yes. I then say ok and ask for my tanks so I can analyze them before they are taken down to the marina. After finally getting the girl to find my tanks she then tells me they wearn't filled. I proceed to tell her that the deckhand and captain both stated they would be filled, and brought them here and everything. She then proceeded to tell me that if they didn't have 12 tanks of nitrox to fill they wouldn't fill them. That only 2 tanks is too few for them. I couldn't believe it, if I would have taken my tanks to scubatech 5 minutes down the road, I could have had them both blended, analyzed, and out the door in 20 minutes (I know since I had gotten 4 fills from them the previous few days). So then she asks me if I wanted to rent tanks. This was the final straw. I laughed and said.. "Uhm, no." This is what I heard.. "Do you want to rent tanks since we are incompetent and didn't do our jobs." So now I've had my air turned off, gear drug across the deck, anchors dropped on wrecks, diesel fumes making me very sick, and now my tanks wearn't even filled. I learned something with this experience, get your tanks filled yourself. Don't rely on some charter to get it done. My mistake. Driving around Destin was insane as it would take an hr to get 3 blocks. Having them deal with the tanks was going to save me hours of time, that is why I decide to let them do it. So by this time I'm really irritated and I walk in the shop. I'm looking at the radar and there are bright red and orange thunderstorms all around the gulf. There is a little sliver of daylight by the outlet and they are going to go for it. All I saw was a place that didn't want to cancel a charter because they might loose money. Seayoda flat out canceled and didn't come down. I can't blame him, I cancelled as well. I didn't feel the risk was worth it, and personally I feel the store is incompetant. The girl that told me my tanks weren't filled told me this.. "We'll I don't know who told you that, but we didn't hear anything about filling the tanks." So yet again, another problem with the shop, the boat isn't communicating with the store. It could have turned wicked out there. Kyle having not been in saltwater, nor having had any experience with these people decided to go on the charter. Even some of the guys in the store that worked there were doubting if the charter should be ran. Tim that worked there was very nice, and didn't charge me for cancelling on them the morning of the charter. This was one good thing I do have to say about Emerald Coast Scuba. I don't have much nice things to say, but I've just told the facts, and even told what I thought was nice about the operation. Kyle stated they just ran through some showers but that everything was nice out there and he had some good dives. They made the right call on the weather, but after seeing how they had handled everything else I had no problem missing 2 dives.


So this trip was a big ClusterF#@$. I have never wanted to come home so badly from a trip. I will have to think very hard before going to Destin or any other gulf town during the height of tourist season. Kyle then drove back to new orleans, and we helped by letting his GF come back with us. I had to leave some of my gear with kyle since my car was already packed before I had to add another person and luggage. So I got much less dives than planned, but still had plenty of good dives. Unfortunately all the experiences topside were entirely messed up. I went to the back porch in Destin, waited 2 hrs for a seat, sat down, and had our waiter dump a drink all over our table, seats and floor. No big deal, but this is what amazed me. She then says nothing, turns around and walks away like nothing happened. She didn't even offer an appology. Then the waiter at the wait station behind us got hit with the drink splattering and he cleaned it up. Then our waitress comes back and asks to take our order, like nothing ever happened! She still hasn't even acknowledge that beer was thrown all over our table. I stiffed her. Seems like whereever I looked this trip I never caught a break. On the other hand, the food at the back porch was awesome and some of the best fish I have had.

I had some great dives, and had a great time diving with all my friends that I have dove with in the past in the panhandle (Seayoda, Bugman, Darcy). Too bad everything else was all messed up.. :/

I wasn't going to post this report over here, since I really don't like posting experiences where there are negatives in them. After reading the thread about the diver that was on the ibis, I decided to post this up here. I guess if everyone posts factual representations of their trip, then people an make their own conclutions about the charter operators.

Matt

 

[SeaYoda]

Thanks for the report. I'm glad you came down. Sorry about all the mess ups - I've never gotten that bad of service at The Back Porch. I guess it all depends on who's working at places this season. Did you log another dive for getting wet?

On the Aquanaut, I'm used to Tom being the captain, Bo being the DM, and Dan (I think that was the name of the tall bald guy) being the first mate. I did not go out with them last season (because I like ScubaTech's boat better) so the two guys we had were new to me. They tried twice to route my Maximus over my arm (it goes under with a swivel) and I was surprised that the captain drug my reg across the deck especially after you said he did yours that way. I had to re-rig my BC on the tank (I like to be a head banger not a butt dragger but not for that reason) the band was almost at the rounded top of the tank. ScubaTech would have been there to let us know what they were going to do about the weather and why. I have a lot of confidence in captain Nancy at ScubaTech. The new guys just didn't seem to have it together enough to trust my life to them. After hearing the rest of the story from you, I think I made the right decision not to go. The gulf can get hairy even close to shore so better safe than sorry. I'm glad Kyle had a good dive. I will still use Emerald Coast but I'm disappointed that things are not like they used to be. ScubaTech definitely has the edge in the boat dive department in my book.

Attached is a pic of the anchor chain draped across the sea life on the deck of the Miss Louise. Boy I hate that. The anchor line was not much help in locating the LCM either since it went straight down - that's the first time I've seen one do that. A pic is attached looking down the line while we were still in warm water above the thermocline. I can still feel that temperature change BRRRRRR!

 

[Corigan]

Thanks for the report. I'm glad you came down. Sorry about all the mess ups - I've never gotten that bad of service at The Back Porch. I guess it all depends on who's working at places this season. Did you log another dive for getting wet?

LOL! I had a good time. I really liked Destin, and definately want to come back. I'm thinking some Nice Offshore diving in the later part of the year when it isn't full blown summer down there. Just hanging out with bugman and ya'll is worth the trip. I always have a good time when we are out diving and goofing off.

Attached is a pic of the anchor chain draped across the sea life on the deck of the Miss Louise. Boy I hate that. The anchor line was not much help in locating the LCM either since it went straight down - that's the first time I've seen one do that. A pic is attached looking down the line while we were still in warm water above the thermocline. I can still feel that temperature change BRRRRRR!

Thank you for posting your report as well SY. I didn't want people to think I was making this stuff up! I didn't see your second stage getting drug across the deck. If I had seen that after mine had already gotten the same treatment I would have been furious.

The picture of the anchor line lying all over the wreck/coral pretty much sums it up. The anchor was stuck into it somewhere too. I hate to think of all the marine life/coral that was under the anchor. Atleast there is photographic evidence of what I am saying is true. Apparently after talking to Kyle today he had a different captain/first mate than we did. I wish I was decent with names I might have been able to remember their names.

I had a great time diving, and next time I am down there we will go on some more charters. Of course it will be on a different boat..

Matt

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Still got 6 dives in, not too shabby

Thanks for the reports. It really sucks that you had so many problems on your trip, atleast you got some good dives in. I normally use ScubaTech in Destin, and after your reports, I don't think I'll be changing ops. I've always been happy with them anyway.

I'm still jealous of your Goliath encounter and the dive on the LCM-8. I've dove the Miss Louise several times and have heard of the resident Goliath, but had never come upon it.

Patrick Davis(one of my best friends) dove with us at Morrison. We met up with philmotreck(ScubaBoarder) and Bill Lewis(diver local to me) at the jetties on Sunday. Just filling in your missing names

We hit Morrison on the right weekend though, river levels sloped up again after the rain cranked up. Had some fun dives. I'm sure I'll see ya next time you drop into the panhandle.

I'm glad Kyle was able to fit in some dives. Best wishes to him and his family concerning his mother.

 

[kylepreid]

Thanks guys for all your prayers for my mom, she is getting better, but it will be a long road for recovery. This past month has been hell, my girl had 6 kidney stones removed, my adopted dad has throat and lung cancer, and now my mom.For some reason it just wont let up. I wish this trip would have gone better, but what can you do? Some times life just seems to throw some curve balls at you, and you hope you can still atleast get a base hit. I did get to enjoy atleast 2 awsome dives, thanks to matt, but it still wasn't enough. We will make another trip soon, and I dont care what happens, im f*&%ing diving, even if I cut off my arm, im diving. Thanks again guys, and Matt I owe you one.

 

[jviehe]

Great report, very interesting.

 

[WaterDawg]

Sorry to hear about your mom Kyle. Hope she gets better soon.

 

[kylepreid]

Sorry to hear about your mom Kyle. Hope she gets better soon.

Thanks waterdawg I really appreciate it.

 

[Trever]

Hey Kyle good luck with your Mom, it sounds like things are looking good considering. When I was in Destin I did my boat dives with Scuba-Tech and rented my tanks for the beach dives from Emerald Coast. I probaly rented 10 tanks there and 2 of them had leaky on\off valves. I think that EC is in a transisional period. I still like the people there and thier prices on equipment seem a little better than Scuba-Tech. The Captain for Scuba-Tech is very enviromental friendly and a good guy, not always real friendly though. Scuba-Tech has a new First Mate, you can kinda tell he is new but very friendly and very helpful. I think I will stick with Scuba-tech for boat dives. Take Care Guys.