SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Mikey Paul and I were toying with the idea of trying a night dive tonight. Surf reports were saying knee high waves with occasional larger sets. They did mention the water being clear though - course, surfer's version of clarity is different than a divers.
We chanced the trip to Gulf Shores and walked out to the water to see that the surf report was correct. There was a constant south wind and the water was also very choppy. Suprisingly, the water didn't look incredibly kicked up and brown, but a good shade of blue. We decided, again, to chance conditions and jump in the water and figured we'd get very silty kicked up blue water. Gearing up in the surf was fun, the flimsy kite spool finally broke away and Mikey had to chase the flag down the beach. Once we went under, everything seemed fine and we had 5-10' of suprisingly clear visibility, with the exception of when a set rolled over top and shifted a ton of sand towards the beach every few minutes.
Found the southside(facing beach - wreck lays east-west) of the Whiskey Wreck without too much trouble and started following the hull west. Once we rounded the west end and started following it east, we noticed more relief. A hell of alot more relief. The sand on the northside of the wreck has been washed away quite a bit in the last two weeks. I was hitting 17' without sitting on the bottom and I'm sure you could find a hole or two at 18, 19, or even 20'. There was alot of relief, 10-12' on the on the northside, despite the southside looking fairly typical to the last few dives onsite. As we followed the inside of the southern most side of the hull(yes, both sides of the hull are now visibile to an extent!), we found ourselve swimming through the remains of what we guess were cargo holds. The Whiskey Wreck actually has some overhead areas to it now?!!!! The inside of the wreck is covered in ballast stones and there is lots of trash caught up in it including pvc piping, sheets, and rugs. Once we rounded the far eastside of the wreck, the hull juts over the sand high enough for you to view the rudder. This is the first time I've actually been able to really tell which side of the wreck was the front and back! I've never seen the Whiskey Wreck this uncovered since my certification ~3 years ago. What a suprise and what a great dive!
There is also a ton of fish on the wreck at the moment too. Lots of schooling spades, still some sheapshead, catfish, flounder, puffers, mangroves, stingrays, skates, octopii, crab, ect.
I maxed out at 17' and stayed under for 56 minutes. Did I mention I shot 12 flounder?
Mikey shot 10 too!
We chanced the trip to Gulf Shores and walked out to the water to see that the surf report was correct. There was a constant south wind and the water was also very choppy. Suprisingly, the water didn't look incredibly kicked up and brown, but a good shade of blue. We decided, again, to chance conditions and jump in the water and figured we'd get very silty kicked up blue water. Gearing up in the surf was fun, the flimsy kite spool finally broke away and Mikey had to chase the flag down the beach. Once we went under, everything seemed fine and we had 5-10' of suprisingly clear visibility, with the exception of when a set rolled over top and shifted a ton of sand towards the beach every few minutes.
Found the southside(facing beach - wreck lays east-west) of the Whiskey Wreck without too much trouble and started following the hull west. Once we rounded the west end and started following it east, we noticed more relief. A hell of alot more relief. The sand on the northside of the wreck has been washed away quite a bit in the last two weeks. I was hitting 17' without sitting on the bottom and I'm sure you could find a hole or two at 18, 19, or even 20'. There was alot of relief, 10-12' on the on the northside, despite the southside looking fairly typical to the last few dives onsite. As we followed the inside of the southern most side of the hull(yes, both sides of the hull are now visibile to an extent!), we found ourselve swimming through the remains of what we guess were cargo holds. The Whiskey Wreck actually has some overhead areas to it now?!!!! The inside of the wreck is covered in ballast stones and there is lots of trash caught up in it including pvc piping, sheets, and rugs. Once we rounded the far eastside of the wreck, the hull juts over the sand high enough for you to view the rudder. This is the first time I've actually been able to really tell which side of the wreck was the front and back! I've never seen the Whiskey Wreck this uncovered since my certification ~3 years ago. What a suprise and what a great dive!
There is also a ton of fish on the wreck at the moment too. Lots of schooling spades, still some sheapshead, catfish, flounder, puffers, mangroves, stingrays, skates, octopii, crab, ect.
I maxed out at 17' and stayed under for 56 minutes. Did I mention I shot 12 flounder?
Mikey shot 10 too!
