Alabama Point Jetties and 2 Whiskey Wreck Dive Reports 7-15-6

Alabama Point Jetties 7-15-6

After an early morning dive at Navarre Beach Pier, NateBrr and frankc420, viajerochevere, and two of their buddies(big one-armed Mike and Randy) and I headed back to Orange Beach to get some fills from Gary's Gulf Diver and some lunch at Tacky Jacks before heading to Alabama Point Jetties for a dive nearly 4.5 hours after our first. There wasn't a large transition of water today and there would be a neap the next day, but we hoped for the best while entering the water. We entered at slack tide and visibility ranged between 5-10' with lots of particle suspended. There were quite a few mangroves around and we saw a few sheepshead and flounder as well. Scad schooled in large numbers on occasion. I saw lots of blennies and sandfish hiding in the rocks with blue and stone crabs as well. We dove to the point, turned the dive, and dove the inside of the channel back to our entry point. I managed to find a hole to 33' and the dive lasted 77 min.

Whiskey Wreck 7-15-6

Our group(minus Nate who called it a day to catch up on sleep) headed back to GGD to get another fill and headed to the Whiskey Wreck. We were back in the water after a bit more than a 2 hour SI. I dove ahead and hooked the flag to the wreck and reported visibility to be a fairly clean 5-10'. There were lots of seargant majors and damsels on the wreck. Mangroves, spades, pinfish, and pigfish swam in and out all the wrecks nooks and crannies. There were quite a few bluecrabs eating barnacles off the hull and flounder were plentiful(even during the day). I spotted two different species of filefish, which was kinda cool. I hit a max depth of 18' for a dive lasting 83 minutes.

Whiskey Wreck 7-15-6(Night)

viajerochevere, Randy, and I were back in the water to dive the Whiskey Wreck slightly more than an hour after our last dive. The surf had subsided quite a bit and visibility improved to 10-20'. Most of the same fish were out, in larger numbers, and lots of catfish and stingrays started showing up. Flounder covered the bottom, but no large ones were spotted. We saw a nice big pufferfish and crabs with barnacles outstretching their feeders to catch particle floating in the water. We planned on a 30 min dive, but conditions were great so we stayed 45 minutes with a max depth of 17'. We swam back to the beach UW without lights, there was enogh ambient light from the condos to see our way back and we watched the bioluminescents flash as we swam. Had a great dive to top off a day of fun dives

Wish I could have made the rest of the dives with ya'll. Had a good time. I should have turned it a little sooner. I had to make part of the return trip on the surface. Nice meeting the Miss. guys.

Mat any luck this morning?

I know wish I wuold've made the night dive. Oh well, there is always next time.

Nate, it was a pleasure to meet with you and dive with you. FINALLY someone that sucks as much air as I do.

Michael

Michael it was good times. Sorry I gave us that long surface swim.

mwhities:

I know wish I wuold've made the night dive. Oh well, there is always next time.

Nate, it was a pleasure to meet with you and dive with you. FINALLY someone that sucks as much air as I do.

Michael

Click to expand...

It was a great dive Mike, remember the RedBull next time I had a great time diving with you guys all day Saturday, lemme know next time your in town.

How'd the dives go for you guys today?

Natebrr:

Michael it was good times. Sorry I gave us that long surface swim.

Click to expand...

Nate,

Don't worry about that. I had a great time. It's all about experience and most of all, FUN! I had a LOT of both, so no need to apologize.

Michael

SBM,

Ohh yeah. I'm sure Frank will be on in a few to tell you about RedBull and myself. (I tihkn you got me addicted to it.) I thikn I had 6 yesterday for the trip home. Over all. I too had a great time diving with you, Yoda and Nate. I GREATLY appreciate it.

We only dived at the Pensacola Beach old pier. All four of us went down and we tied off on one of the old posts. Brad ended up not feeling well, so he cut the dive short for himself. The rest of us swam around and found more sun glasses, shells and sand dollars.

In some spots the viz was 10 or so, some spots were up to 15 (maybe 20). There was a lot of june grass maybe? (Floating on the bottom. It didn't look like saw grass.) Saw some fish that I've never seen, even in books. (Of course, my first salt water dive, EVERYTIHNG will be new...)

We'll definetly meet up again.

Thanks,

Michael

I'm envious of the dive, I've yet to dive the Pensacola Beach Reef. Sounds like a decent spot.

Guys, I had a wonderful time!

All in all, the Pensacola Reef was my favorite dive. Whiskey running a very close 2nd. I saw atleast 5 more different fish on the reef dive than the others. I even had a crab try to attack me.

At some points it was difficult to stay down, it seemed as if the water had an updraft or some sort, I think we all 3 had this problem, nothing a couple kicks of the fins couldn't fix. We ended the dive at 110 minutes. After we were on shore for maybe 2 minutes, the lifeguards rode by on a loud speaker telling everyone to get out of the water due to lightning, crazy stuff.

I really enjoy diving with you Nate, and it was nice meeting you SeaYoda (wasn't able to dive with you since you were with Mat on the first dive). Next trip we'll hit Destin and Morrison Springs, that should be a great trip.

And yes, Mike is now addicted to red bull.