Hetland
Contributor
JHayes and I decided to head over to Ft. Pickens Saturday and burn a couple of tanks. It was a beautiful day, and we found fair winds and calm seas at the dive site. The water looked good, and even though we had planned to arrive early, we saw that a few teams were already setting up their gear on the beach. Before the day was done, there were at least 30 divers in the water, but we always seemed to be by ourselves, only encountering other divers at the flag tie-in spot, and in the shallows during entry and exit.
Once we got suited up, we hit the water and began our gear checks. The water felt a little cool for this time of the year, but viz was pretty good, averaging about 15 feet, with some 25's thrown in once we hit deeper water. Unfortunately, the water was filled with particulate, so, you could see a diver at 25 feet, but you wouldn't want to take a photo of anything more than a few inches away, and, most of the time, a few inches was too much too, as you'll see below.
High Tide was scheduled for 11:52am. Our first dive started at 8:30, and the viz was best at this point. We toured the usual areas, and saw the usual critters. Once again, there was a marked absence of blue and stone crabs. I'm just not seeing crabs at inshore spots like I used to. I suspect the disbursants or oil from the 2010 BP oil spill has killed them all off, but I'm not a scientist. I saw a single stone crab, and that was it.
Our first dive was an hour and eighteen minutes long. We had plenty of gas left, but the 70 degree bottom temp was beginning to numb my hands and feet. Shallower, it was a degree or two warmer, but a thermocline made photography impossible at those shallower depths.
We spent almost an hour on a surface interval, more to warm up than for any other reason, but we splashed again at 10:44 and spent another 45 minutes touring the first rubble field looking for critters to photograph. The viz had dropped off by now, and I could detect a slight incoming current at some points.
After our second dive, we got our gear squared-away, and headed to our favorite sushi restaurant, Fuji Steakhouse in Gulf Breeze (we've never been to the one in Pensacola). Unfortunately, they're not open until 3:00 pm on Saturday, so we went with "Plan B", which was Horizon, in Pensacola. They've got a pretty good all-you-can-eat menu, which includes Japanese/Chinese dishes and mid-level sushi rolls. The food was very good, and the service was excellent.
Once we got suited up, we hit the water and began our gear checks. The water felt a little cool for this time of the year, but viz was pretty good, averaging about 15 feet, with some 25's thrown in once we hit deeper water. Unfortunately, the water was filled with particulate, so, you could see a diver at 25 feet, but you wouldn't want to take a photo of anything more than a few inches away, and, most of the time, a few inches was too much too, as you'll see below.
High Tide was scheduled for 11:52am. Our first dive started at 8:30, and the viz was best at this point. We toured the usual areas, and saw the usual critters. Once again, there was a marked absence of blue and stone crabs. I'm just not seeing crabs at inshore spots like I used to. I suspect the disbursants or oil from the 2010 BP oil spill has killed them all off, but I'm not a scientist. I saw a single stone crab, and that was it.
Our first dive was an hour and eighteen minutes long. We had plenty of gas left, but the 70 degree bottom temp was beginning to numb my hands and feet. Shallower, it was a degree or two warmer, but a thermocline made photography impossible at those shallower depths.
We spent almost an hour on a surface interval, more to warm up than for any other reason, but we splashed again at 10:44 and spent another 45 minutes touring the first rubble field looking for critters to photograph. The viz had dropped off by now, and I could detect a slight incoming current at some points.
After our second dive, we got our gear squared-away, and headed to our favorite sushi restaurant, Fuji Steakhouse in Gulf Breeze (we've never been to the one in Pensacola). Unfortunately, they're not open until 3:00 pm on Saturday, so we went with "Plan B", which was Horizon, in Pensacola. They've got a pretty good all-you-can-eat menu, which includes Japanese/Chinese dishes and mid-level sushi rolls. The food was very good, and the service was excellent.
