Perdido Jetties Trip Report 8/03/11 - 8/04/11

[noahsan]

I decided to make some good use of my 4 days off and drove down to Perdido, AL to do some snorkeling around the Jetties. This was my first ever snorkeling trip, so as you can imagine I was very excited and had no idea what to expect. I was simply amazed at the amount of fish and sea life that I was able to see! I was only a few feet from the beach and I was watching schools of fish swim and feed on the rocks from the Jetties, I was amazed because when I used to go to beaches I always thought they would be nothing worth seeing underwater so close to the beach, I thought you had to be in the middle of the ocean or 100 feet below scuba diving to see this kind of sea life. Needless to say I am hooked!

Unfortunately my digital underwater camera I bought had not arrived yet, (A Sealife Mini II) so all the pictures I took were from a crappy disposable waterproof camera. So the pictures are not great, hopefully next time I will be able to get some great photos!

One weird thing I noticed, and maybe some experienced divers can explain this, I went diving on two days, at the same time of day, one day the water was a beatiful blue/green color and crystal clear, the next day the water was brown and piratically no visibility. I have since learned that High Tide is the best for visibility, but I was amazed at how fast and drastically the water had changed!

The picture of the bird was kind of a sad story, she had a broken wing, so a park ranger was caring for her, I really hope that it makes a recovery, it was such a beautiful bird!

 

[Puffer Fish]

During the summer, tides change roughly an hour later each day, until they get to evening and then jump back to morning. That jump back is the absolute best time to dive, as there is almost no tide. During the winter, high tide is a night and it does the same thing, only jumping back to sunset.

So you must have gotten the tide right the first day, and got the outgoing tide the next day.

 

[Snuff]

Is there any diving there, or just snoring?

 

[JEC11718]

Only snoring if you lay down on the sand and close your eyes! After a ice cold Corona!!!

 

[Hetland]

I've been to that area maybe three times, always at the peak dive time, and always in terrible, terrible conditions.

I did see my first eel there, and WJefferies has spotted seahorses there. Also, other folks have had better luck with conditions than I have seemed to have. I think it's one of those places like the Whiskey Wreck, where you have to either dive it a whole bunch, or just get lucky to have good conditions.