Panama City Beach Dive Report 10-15

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Steele

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About 10 of us from Columbus, GA drove down with our LDS (Chattahoochee Scuba). We met at Panama City Dive Center at noon. I have to say, the people at PCDC are super friendly and I can't wait to visit them again.

We head out to the marina and got our gear loaded onto the Panama. Captain Doc was incredibly nice and his deckhand Brian was extremely attentive. We loaded about 30 tanks aboard and Captain Doc gave us a well organized briefing on the boat. Afterwards, our gear stowed, tanks and coolers secured, we headed out of the marina.

Dive #1 - 1400 – Accokeek wreck site (USN Fleet Reserve Tug)
About 15 minutes into the transit Brian ordered us to into our gear. We were about 2 miles from the first site. Seas were 1'-2' max and water temp was 81F. We slowed to a stop and Brian front-rolled off the bow and tied us off to the wheelhouse. He reported excellent viz, the location of where we were tied into the wreck, the direction of the wreck facing, and numerous types of animal life.

This being my first time in the ocean (I've dove springs and quarries only) I was a little apprehensive. The crew was aware that many of us were newbies to boat diving and extra care was given during the briefing of how they expected us to enter and exit the water.

We were a little slow getting our gear on, and the crew helped facilitate our entry with some light-hearted banter and got everyone moving along quite nicely, paying attention to how we were geared and making sure we were set up for the slight negative entry they recommended.

After my buddy and I checked each other over I approached the side exit with fins in hand, reg in, mask on, a small amount of air in my wing, and hoses tucked. I kicked my feet back one at a time as Brian fitted me into my fins. I’m wearing a steel LP-95 for a tank. Man I love that tank. I think I’ll buy a pair of 119’s from my LDS soon. I like the fatness and the way my wing doesn’t wrap around it with little air inside.

My buddy entered and was waiting at 20’ for me on the anchor line. Trying to control my breathing I felt my heart-rate increase slightly and with my regulator making that god awful racket out of the water, I took giant-stride for man-kind into the gulf.

As the air escaped from the trapped areas of my gear I started a slow descent heading toward the bow only slightly pulling myself along the line to the anchor line to save air by not swimming so hard against the current. Speaking of which, the current was almost negligible and I eventually was able to gain enough confidence to let go of the rope and just eyeball it to the 20’ mark where my buddy sat trying to clear his ears.

I got neutral and stayed horizontal next to my buddy while he was clearing and practiced a few frog kicks, both forward and backward. To my surprise I had little trouble. Those pool sessions really paid off. By the time my buddy was finished clearing, my heart-rate had slowed to near normal and my breathing had resumed its regular rhythm… kinda… heh, I’m still totally stoked and saucer-eyed at being in the Gulf. [smack smack… salty… hmm, didn’t expect that. Hehe, I forgot.] Wooo!

After another buddy check, we descend to the wreck. The Instructor with us had a few skills to go over with a couple of students and we decided to stick with them for a few minutes to get acclimated. Woah, What the...?? There’s a long silvery lookin dude with big teeth cruising outside the wheelhouse. Hm. So THAT’s a barracuda! He looks mean! There were some smaller silvery dudes with him, but I’m not sure if they were the same kind of fish. Sorry, I didn’t pay my money to PADI yet for my Fish ID C-Card and am unable to correctly identify fish. :05:

We break away from the students after a few minutes because they were silting up the area pretty good. Out of the cloud of silt we head forward along the waterline of the Accokeek. The hull is full of sea critters like barnacles and stuff. They looked kinda sharp to the touch so I took extra care not to scrape myself along it. I’m paying attention to the hull, and every now and then I see some more alleged-barracuda just moseying along about 15-20 feet away. They paid us no mind, and I felt quite at ease with them.

As we cross under the forecastle heading back aft we’re about 10’ above the sand and I keep seeing these little round brown things about 2½ inches diameter on the floor. Curious, we drop down and scoot the sand away from one. WOAH! A frikkin sand dollar! HUGE. The biggest we saw were a good 8 inches. There are about 10-15 of them all around us and looking closer we were able to find a few white ones. We assumed these were the dead guys because all the fuzz and stuff is gone and they seem more brittle to the touch. We scoop up a few of them and goody-bag them. GGRRRAaaaaar! Pirate Booty! Can you take the live ones? Is it frowned on? Sure, I’m gunna killem dead with a fire-ant mound and a bucket of bleach (I figure the same way you do hog/deer heads), but is it okay? (PS – PETA affiliates or supporters: I already know your answer, so no need to voice your concerns, thanks. :07: )

So after messing around with the sand dollars we continue aft on the deck at about 70’. A friend called them sea biscuits… that’s a royally stupid name by the way. They don’t look like a biscuit for chrissake. Maybe a Sea Pancake, a Sea Diskette or a Sea Frisbee, but a biscuit?!?! C’mon.

We’re up on the deck floating with the current along the inside of the railing. Huge holes are cut in the deck plates, where I assume the generators were located at one time. Lots of Spade Fish (again, with the names… I mean OBVIOUSLY these are not SPADES!! I mean who named these fish? Frikkin’ Hoyle?) The official scientific name is Black Striped Skillet-sized Small-Mouthed Angel-Fish Fish with Big Eyes!

There were AT LEAST a billion of these Black Striped Skillet-sized Small-Mouthed Angel-Fish Fish with Big Eyes swimming around. I sat in the middle of about 11,428 of them as they swam in place facing the current. Cool.

My buddy said there were only about 25-30 of them, but I’m positive it was at least 406 these Black Striped Skillet-sized Small-Mouthed Angel-Fish Fish with Big Eyes.

There was one part of the railing that was cut off at the joint and a small blue and yellow fish about ½” long made his home there. All you could see was his little mouth poking out every once in a while when he thought we weren’t looking. But we’d fake him out and act like we were watching the Black Striped Skillet-sized Small-Mouthed Angel-Fish Fish with Big Eyes but would really be looking at him sideways. He’d come out and swim in a circle then back himself into his little hole like he was parallel parking a Yugo or Chevette.

The only really big fish I was able to see was a huge grouper or something like that. He looked to be a good 5 feet long with a fat mouth and Droopy the Dog Eyes. He was snooping around the shadows aft of the wheelhouse. Only one other person saw him and he called him a Jewfish. Hmm. Whatever. Well, I defer to him, because I know for a fact he paid for his PADI Fish-ID card. So this big giant Jewfish was creeping around in the shadows and I almost swallowed my regulator when I saw him because I almost ran into him chasing a couple Black Striped Skillet-sized Small-Mouthed Angel-Fish Fish with Big Eyes.

Okay, time to go. My buddy and I are about 1200 psi and the current has picked up a bit. The viz has dropped considerably due to silt and I want a leisurely pace to the anchor line and a nice slow ascent. We make our stop, and eventually swim to the ladder back aft of the boat.

Once again Brian the deckhand is right there and helps us aboard.

Dive Time 26 minutes. Back on board with about 800 psi. Yea, yea… Hoover. But I am an excitable type person.

I babble for the next 1 hour and 21 minutes during the SI about that sneaky little blue and yellow fish.

In the mean-time everyone else gets back on-board and we crank up the engines and head off to the Black Bart! I’m at work writing this and need to get some work done. I’ll continue with Dives 2-5 later. :05:

In the attached image, you can see the Accokeek and our dive boat with positions for the dive highlights. You can tell that is me in the picture because of how big my eyes are and the LP-95 on my back. Also, check out that frog kick technique. Uber.

View attachment 23442
 
Great report. I love the Accokeek. That little blue and yellow fish is a Damsel Fish, probably a juvenile. If you stick your glove near their house. theyll come out and fight you even though youre 100 times their size. The skillet fish mightve been African Pompano.
 
Dive #2 – 1604 – Black Bart

After a quick head-count and everyone aboard after the Accokeek dive, Captain Doc got underway for another dive site. We were concerned about the wind earlier in the day as it was 15mph sustained out of the NW. However, as the day wore on past noon it dropped to a reasonable level and the seas were reported to be quite calm. As stated in the previous report, we were seeing 1-2’ swells and it was picture perfect.

We spent about a little less than 90 minutes for a surface interval and were eventually tied into the Bart. I’d like to point out the Captain put us dead on the wreck with no maneuvering other than to slow down and stop. Once again, Brian rolled off the ship and was back topside before we knew it with a great report on the wreck conditions. He told us to expect 30’-40’ viz with little current on the wreck with a heavier current on the surface. A slight negative entry was again recommended due to the current just at the surface. They wanted us to get down to the anchor line as quick as possible.

Being the seasoned boat diver I am now with exactly 1 dive under my belt (not to mention unofficial non-paid Fish ID’er), I was confident in my pre-dive setup and gear except my weighting. I was kind of heavy last dive and realized I could probably get away with losing a few pounds and not having to inflate my wing as much. Even though the water temp was 80F I switched out of my ½ mil Pinnacle skin for my 5 mil Pinnacle. Yea, more buoyancy, but I think I was severely overweight and not all of it from my gut.

I got a few looks from the people wearing shorties and lighter exposure suits. I don’t care. I like my 5 mil and am comfortable in it. If I get a little warm, I vent some water through the neck and I stay cool. Besides, I’m a fat guy and that ½ mil squeezes my privates into a not very flattering package. :wink:

So with my gear ready and my buddy standing by to check me over, I sit down and slip into my harness. I catch a glint in my buddy’s eye and a slight smirk. Hey dude, chill. I know I look extremely attractive in my tight fitting exposure suit, but there is no reason to get all gushy-eyed on me. Back off or I’m gunna spork you with my beanie-weenie utensil.

So I start to stand up and I’m having a little trouble. Jeeze. This gear is heavier than I thought. Did I remove that extra weight or not? After straining a second or two, my buddy starts laughing. It seems I’ve forgot to undo the tie-down on the tank. Not only that, it’s below my 1st stage. Ugh. Hey, thanks for telling me Buddy. Where’s my spork?

Again, my buddy enters the water before me and is waiting at 25’ for me on the anchor line. Finally, I get sorted and hit the water. No hesitation, only a slight heart pitter-patter, and maybe only 2-3 stomach flutters (butterflies are an old wives’ tale. Don’t believe everything you hear).

Ahhhh, the Gulf is nice. I’m slightly negative and eyeball the line down to the anchor line and see my buddy fiddling with his camera and equalizing his ears. He’s going up and coming down a few feet trying to get his ears good and having a hard time with it. Serves him right. He should have told me about my tank. NYAH!

I pause a minute or so myself, to calm down. I take 3 deep breathes and exhale slowly and am eventually steady. We look each other over and make sure nothing is floating around crazy-like off our gear and no bubbles are escaping from hoses and fittings. All good. Let’s go!

Weight turns out to be perfect! I’m horizontal the entire descent turning slow circles like a sky-diver. With lung power I control my descent and stay with Mr. Smarty-pants as he clears his troublesome ears. That’s OK. It sounds like I’m resentful of such a slow descent, but in actuality, I am not. I appreciate his predicament and am glad we are slow. It allows me to calm down further myself. I prefer a slow steady descent over one where I’m being tasked too much with a new dive site, orientation, buoyancy, equalization, and nerves. I thank my lucky stars my buddy and I dive the same way.

The wreck sits in about 90’ of water. We’re tied off to the wheelhouse again at about 50’. We got to the wreck in short order and immediately I realized why this is such popular dive site. The marine life is incredible.

Those dingleberry looking urchins with the spines covered the wreck from bow to stern on every flat surface. The fish were darting in and out of holes cut into the deck and the hatches. There were at least 20 billion fish making this place a home. My buddy and I planned to circumvent the wreck in a similar manner in which we did the Accokeek. We’d drop to the bottom and make our way under the bow and back down the port side. Then we’d come up to the weather decks and make our way forward to the wheelhouse.

It was a pretty nice place, but I got pushed into the wreck by another diver pretty hard and put my hand out to stop from faceplanting it. Ow? Scraped it up pretty good and a Dingleberry Urchin poked me, luckily with only one spine. It wasn’t very deep scratch, so I wasn’t in immediate danger of passing out from losing gallons of blood. Valiantly, we pressed on. I keep looking at my hand thinking if I squeezed the blood out it would look pretty cool in the water. Narc’d maybe? Haha. What a dope.

Meanwhile we had ascended to the wheelhouse, careful of any further life threatening puncture wounds from the Dingleberry Urchins. They are DEADLY! Can you imagine if I’d run my hand all the way through to the other side of it? Or even worse, if one of them became hostile and launched spines at me like missiles and piercing my tank?! Holy cow! I’m incredibly lucky.

We reach the wheelhouse, mindful not to antagonize the resident Dingleberry Urchins. As I look in through the hatch I almost had a heart attack. A human skeleton stood in the middle of the bridge wielding a cutlass. I just watched Jason and the Argonaughts the week before and am well aware that skeletons are deadly opponents and will attack you on sight.

Regaining our composure, my buddy and I peek through the hatch again and look at each other all saucer-eyed and breathing heavy. I point at him. He shakes his head in the negative and points at me. I grasp him by his BCD and pull him close. I yell through my regulator that he was insane if he thought I was going to go in a dark shipwreck alone with some crazed skeleton commanding an army of Dingleberry Urchins.

He glances at me with a quizzical look and communicates through a series of hand movements that we will BOTH enter the bridge together. Me from this side and him from the other side. This way the Captain Skeleton wouldn’t be able to get us both and the other could disarm him with a few well placed underwater expert judo moves.

We’ve got the skillz. When my buddy is in place, on a count of three we rush through the hatches opposite each other. That is when we notice the skeleton being only a Halloween decoration. The nerve! Trying to scare unwitting divers. Although I admit that is a pretty cool trick.

We head back aft to check out some school of fish we saw pass by as we were assaulting the bridge. They looked pretty big. There were like 8 of them. They looked like that cartoon fish named Charlie on the can of tuna fish only different… You know? Back on board, the PADI Fish ID’er said they were Amberjack or something. Obviously, he is correct. He has the C-Card to prove his knowledge.

We turn the dive again at 1100 psi and swim back to the anchor line. As we ascend I can’t help but notice how eerie the wreck looks from above. What a site! I loved it.

Dive time: 33 minutes. Air Consumption: 2000 psi

We stow our gear and get ready for a long surface interval, as we are going to do a night dive on the Bart. COOL! I can’t wait.

Again, I’m at work and need to do something productive, so the next report will be later.
 
Another great report but I'm dissappointed there were no pictures to accompany this one!
 
oh yea, i just downloaded this from my camera. It's a picture of the skeleton captain with a squad of dangerous urchins!
 
Good write up, I look forward to more trip reports. Now just get a cheap camera to have pics accompany.
 
I kinda like the MS Paint pictures :D definately different from your average dive report pics!
 
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