West Beach Paddlewheeler 8-2-6 Dive Report

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SuPrBuGmAn

Contributor
Messages
12,436
Reaction score
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Location
Tallahassee, FL
# of dives
500 - 999
I met up with Patrick D after work yesterday(Wed) and we headed over to the site of the Paddlewheeler. We had lots of rain over the past few days and some storms roll through earlier on Wednesday, so we weren't sure what to expect with seas and visibility. The gulf ended up being glassy with just some small shin-high rollers peeling in. Visibility was around 4-6' except near the break and in certain areas of the wreck with a nasty silt cloud hovering over the bottom. The fish were thick, definately some nice legal mangroves swimming around/inside the boiler area. Flounder were plentiful as well, Patrick ended up with 5(one he even spotted on his own). He could have easily doubled his catch had he not sucked so horribly with a polespear. :mooner: Spades, whitebellied sandfish, seargeant majors, and damsels could also be found on the wreck. Hermit crabs and Blue crab claimed many nooks & crannies of the debri. The wreck seems to have covered ever so slightly than my previous dives onsite. I hit a max depth of 16' for a dive lasting 76 minutes putting me back on dryland with well over 1300psi of gas left.

Finished the night with a pitcher of Yeungling and 3 mile wings at Hooters. Great way to cap off a day at work.
 
Sorry I miised yall while we were down there. The weather wasnt the greatest for sure. Did get to see a water spout while we were there though...pretty cool. Hopefully we will meet up next time.
 
Yeah, the weather was off and on, we didn't know what to expect yesterday, but it turned out fine enough.

We will probably be diving Saturday if you are still in town?

The waterspout, was it Sunday morning around 8-9AM? Just south of Alabama Point? We saw one then... Just curious if there has been more than one over the course of the week...
 
Nope, unfortunately we are back in Clanton. Did however, get to dive at Bluewater today. So I guess it was a good day after all.
 
Shoot me a line next time you come down. Hopefully, our schedules will work out better.

I didn't dive at all over the weekend, we did camp out on the bay though - which was fun.
 
Its down West Beach, about 75-100m off the beach. Thats really about as far as I'm going to get into it though. Parking is very limited, fish are plentiful, and I'd rather not have the site turned into the jungle gym that the Whiskey becomes in high season - sorry, I hope you understand.




Dive with me enough, you'll see get there.
 
You can always find it yourself :wink: Thats how I had to do it... Took ~2 years, which is another reason I just don't want to give it away. Nobody wanted to share the location after I heard about it either.

I can provide you with a totally outdated map from 1986 with landmarks that have changed or no longer exist. People used to find it by counting down 4 power poles, but I'll go ahead and tell you that there have been many new power poles added and diving off the beach at the 4th pole will yeild alot of sand :wink:

You now have more information than I started with - LOL.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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