Destin Jetties, Sailboat, Morrison, HighTower, PCB Jetties Dive Reports 5-19 & 5-20-7

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SuPrBuGmAn

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Location
Tallahassee, FL
# of dives
500 - 999
5-19-7

Destin Jetties

I actually made it on time for the meet time Saturday morning, infact, early. Air temperatures in the upper 70s, maybe low 80sF at best, and blue skies prevailing. The Gulf looked awesome from the bridge crossing East Pass. The meet time was for 10:30 and I was looking for parking at 10:15AM. There was a couple empty spots with a gorilla in a foldout sitting in the middle. I asked if he was saving the spots and he said yes. The gorilla had a name, people on ScubaBoard know him as Saltydog. A bit further up and Captain Grumby recognized me and waved me into a spot they had made for me. Score one for the early guy. Shortly afterwards, I see SeaYoda driving to the end of the parking lot - LOL. We gear up and start walking up towards the beach access where we see Mike_S and KchFLA gearing up. We're introduced to Saltydog and his wife(newly certified) and head out to the beach. denisegg and her son Andy met us on the beach, where they were given instructions on how to get in my car so she could pick up her new Transpak. I decided to go ahead and take both my tanks out, 1/4 mile through the sand with two tanks sucks balls. Atleast I didn't bother with a wetsuit - diving in trunks, so nice.

Captain Grumby and two of his buddies, Mike_S, SeaYoda and I hit the water earlier than the predicted high slack tide for our first dive. The water is still sitting in the low 70s, my computer is showing 71F. Visibility was anywhere in between 10-25' depending on how much sand the currents were kicking up in the area we were in. On the first dive, the currents were steady, but managable, easier if you wanted to do a bit of pulling on the rocks. The life is getting more and more prevelant onsite, tropicals are making there way in(damsels, razorfish, filefish, were making appearances). Pinfish, pigfish, wrasse, mangroves, small grouper, bluefish, and blue runners were also zipping around. Look into the rocks and you'd find toadfish, scorpianfish, stonecrab, gobies and blennies. Our first dive led Captain Grumby, Mike_S, and I to the point where we waiting on everyone else. The two with Captain Grumby had turned back and we ran back into SeaYoda along the backside(southside) of the jetties. We crossed back over to the northside of the jetties and drifted back to the trough at around 30' to breath off our remaining gas. Dive was to 56' and lasted 38 minutes.

I walked my empty tank back to my vehicle during the SI and ran into denisegg and Andy finally making there way to the beach while using SeaYoda's sand yacht. By the time I made it back to our little slice of beach, cmufieldhockey8, KchFLA, and Saltydog had just gotten out of the water from their first dive. We socialized a bit and Mike_S, Captain Grumby(+2), SeaYoda, denisegg and Andy, and I all hit the water again 1:17 after our first dive. Andy had some clearing trouble and ended up exitting early while Mike_S showed denisegg around the shallows(he stuck with the same tank as the first dive). Captain Grumby's two buddies turned at some point before the point as well. The currents were a bit weaker this time around and Captain Grumby, SeaYoda, and I made a quick run to the point to hang out for awhile, before exploring the southside of the jetties up until we got around 15' of depth. At this point, we turned around and headed back to the point and then drifted back closer to our entry. Currents were a bit less predictable(direction), but still a bit more managable. A bit more junegrass on this dive creating for slightly less visibility(that still varied with current and particulate at around 5-20'. We observed the same life as our first dive. Just over 40 minutes, I led Captain Grumby back to the shallows for him to exit and I turned around and headed back down to meet up with cmufieldhockey, KchFLA, and their buddies who we crossed pathes with on our way shallow. My dive stretched out to 73 minutes with a max depth of 54'.

Unidentified Okaloosa Island Sailboat

A bit more than an hour and a half later, cmufieldhockey8 and I were in the water again. This time on the bayside of Okaloosa Island's Gulf Island National Seashore Park. The water was a bit funkier, diving the bay with a now outgoing tide, but visibility stuck around 10' which was mroe than managable. Different from my last dive on this site was the thermocline, there simply wasn't one on the wreck, but if you missed the wreck and hit slightly deeper water, you'd find it... Hmm. The sailboat seems to be a nursery for pinfish and mangroves, juvenilles everywhere. There are some big sheepshead and bluecrab onsite as well. Blennies and arrowcrabs hide amongst the seasquirts and oyster shells growing over the entirety of the wreck. The random spadefish and filefish could be observed as well. I found a digital watch, which still works. We were diving the bottom of our jetty tanks, giving us a run time of 28 minutes with a max depth of 19'.

ScubaBoard invaded KchFLA's house and Saltydog(Kch's brother by the way) boiled up some crawfish that he had brought from LA with him. We had our fill and then some, with lots of leftovers. The food was great and the company was topnotch. Thanks for the great time everyone!
 
SupRBugman's trip report pretty much sums it up.... It was a great day of diving.

I thought the currents were a little stronger than he noted though, but he said that he'd been out there with even stronger currents. It was prob as strong there as I'd seen it. We pretty much were left with "pulling" ourselves to the point along the rocks. Maybe I've just been lucky in the past not to have much current.

I only used a little over half my air on the first dive with Bugman, Yoda, and Capt Grumby, so I elected not to take the 1/2 mile round trip walk in the sand to retrieve another tank. That worked out pretty good as Andy was having a little trouble with his ears and we came up early. Denise and I were able to go back down for another 20 minutes or so after that though and finish the dive, so it was still a good trip.

I did notice an influx of "June Grass". I just hope it doesn't get worse. Diving there in mid June last year it was so bad that you couldn't see more than 5 to 10 feet because of it.

I couldn't make the Okaloosa sailboat trip, but maybe I can next time..... sounds like a good short follow up dive.

The crawfish that Salty Dog cooked up was just great! (Thanks for the parking place at the jetties too, you big Gorilla :D).


Panama City Jetties - St Andrews Park

Mat mentioned the 20th at HIghtower and PCB Jetties in the subject, but I'm guessing he's working on the report with a second post....

I wasn't able to make it to Hightower or Morrison, but did meet up with the folks at the Jetties around "high noon". SuprBugMan, Shagman, CMUFieldHockey, Denisegg + Andy and I headed out just a little late of the high tide for a dive along the jetties.

The tide had already peaked and there was a slight current heading out in the channel. We entered the channel in the south end of the wading pool going over the rocks in a low spot with just enough room to swim over and dropped down to about the 50 to 60' point.... we then headed up current (north) along the base of the jetty wall. Bugman's keen eyes spotted a rather nice sized octopus hiding under/near one of the rocks. Shagman I think got some pics of it, so hopefully he can post them.

As we reached the other end of the jetty, we headed back with a gentle drift in the current and then leveled out looking through the rocks for a long slow safety stop in the 30' range.

Lots of small crabs that I'm not sure of the name. Shagman got some good photo opportunities of them.

My computer read a water temp of around 73f on the bottom, but it's slow to react to temp changes.... I think that Bugmans temp read a few degrees colder. We eneded up I think with around 52 to 53 minutes with a max depth of 66' if memory serves me correctly.

Denise and Andy set off on a 2nd dive followed up soon by Shagman, Bugman and Stasia doing a second dive while I hung out with the family on the beach.


Many thanks to Bugman also for his help in changing my computer battery. (the battey hatch was being stuborn the day before and wasn't easily removed.)
 
Did somebody ask for pics? Here's some pics... there's more at http://www.shagman.org/hobbies/diving/ some of the full sized pics are still uploading, but the thumbnails/galleries and the intermediate sized photos are all up.
Here we go:

Why, yes, that IS the training platform visible from shore
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Good wildlife
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The funnel and platform
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Stacia shows us her DIR style... you need to lose the bulky console and go SPG-only tho!
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Hightower Springs: 6' deep and it was kinda stinky
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Help, I'm stuck!
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The remora liked Mike_s:
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Here's everybody's favorite shy octopus!
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dunno what these were, but lots of them on the bottom. Grouper?
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LOTS of ?queen? angels
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Mat doing some sort of obscure gang signs
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The currents are still strange at the jetties. A couple hours past high tide still pushing in from the Gulf - what's up with that????

Had a fun time doing the jetty crawl and getting a little jetty rash on my knees (from bracing against the rocks while taking pictures).

Here are the pictures from Saturday. There are a lot so I'm attaching them.
 

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More pics ...
 

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Dang SY, why do you always have to out-class me like that? :D

GREAT macro shots as usual. I like the school pic over the jetties a lot too.
 
5-20-7

Morrison Springs

So if I lay my backseat down flat(sits flush) I can lay nearly completely stretched out in the back of my wagon. The sleeping bag kept me warm, despite our frigid mid-50F FL night. Crashed at the Ponce De Leon rest area Saturday night, felt safer than Vortex, but far less fun. cmufieldhockey managed well in her hatchback with some borrowed blankets that denisegg had stashed away in her Scuba trailer. Made it to Morrison Springs Sunday morning just after 7AM. Shagman was already onsite. There was also an IDC class onsite, still waiting on the rest of their group who slowly funneled in. We geared up and hit the water first. Water levels are in the 1.5' range, very low. Visibility was excellent, better than 100'. We did a quick bubblecheck at the platform and headed into the cavern. Gorgeous as always, we explored the cavern with our first third of gas. There were plenty of eels and catfish to harrass. We headed back to OW and explored the outskirts of the basin watching bream, bass, pike, and hogchoakers. There was a ton of minnows schooling around the outskirts and at the bottom of the basin. We hit a max depth of 88' for a dive lasting 56 minutes. We opted out of a second dive as the hoards were starting to arrive and headed out to explore some new waters. Tried for Brunson, but Holmes County apparently doesn't like to sit their street signs withing visibility of the roads - more on this later.

HighTower Springs

After failing at finding Brunson Landing Spring, we headed to HighTower Springs. Online accounts showed a shallow spring, but some locals had told me it had deeper spots, so we optimistically headed just South of Vernon to dive Hightower. We arrived onsite, fairly nice little boatlaunch on the border of the spring run with benches and a grill. Seemed like a nice little swimming hole. A sheriff patrolled through just after we arrived, and I got some better directions to Brunson. Once we stepped out of the car, however, we were attacked by every manner of flying voracious insect known to man. There is a serious teradactyl problem here, so bring your repellant. The spring itself is definately shallow, but we geared up and took a dip anyway - had to escape the onslaught of buzzing predators. A bit over an hour and a half after Morrison, we were back in the water. The water is clear, but milky, visibility in the 20-30' range I'd guess if you didn't disturb the bottom which is covered in a carpet of fiberous algae that kept the silt on the bottom. Once the silt was disturbed, it didn't clear quickly. The water source came from several very neat sand boils on the bottom, which we all had fun playing with, seeing how far we could stick our arms into this liquid boiling sand. After 10 minutes, we had seen all there is and exitted with a max depth of 6'. Not a dive site, but could be a fun water hole to cool off... IF the water here didn't permiate your gear with the faint smell of gouch. Funky!

St. Andrews Jetties

After a quick set of fills at Dive Locker and some goofing around the shop, cmufieldhockey, Shagman, and I headed to St. Andrews State Park where denisegg and Andy, and Mike_S were already onsite. We were made it onsite just at hightide and started gearing up, getting in the water as quickly as possible. The park is crowded, parking was an issue for some, but despite being in the water a bit after high tide, currents were still very mild and visibility was great at around 20-25'(15-20' at depth). Our entire group hit the water(two and a half hours after our last dive) and went through the kiddie pool and over the jetties to the channel side. Once at depth, we headed north until we got shallow(against a now outgoing tide), where we'd turnaround and drift back to our entry. Still a ton of life onsite, grouper, scamp, hogfish, blue angels, sheepshead, scad, porgies, and mangroves showed themselves regularly. We found one big ole octopus, head the size of a coconut, that kicked a toadfish(large too) out of its hole. Peak in any crack and you'll find lots of arrowcrab, blennies, toadfish, anenomes, damsels, ect. Along the sand you'll find seacucumbers and mantis shrimp looking out from their holes. We followed our dive time and made it back to our entry and began ascending slowly up the jetties while watching the life move around us. Water temps at depth are at 69F. Had a max depth of 65' for a dive lasting 52 minutes.

We BS'd alot during the SI. We also ran into jviehe after he had finished up with an OW class. One day, he might dive without a class, not today though :p After an hour and a half SI, Shagman, cmufieldhockey, and I hit the water again. denisegg and Andy were exitting(they hit the water earlier than us for their second dive) when we started wading out to the jetties. The currents were picking up outgoing and visibility suffered down to 5-10' with the water turning green with lots of particulate. We followed the same dive plan. While the currents were moderate, I over-estimated them quite a bit without knowing until my flag broke loose from whatever was giving me so much drag. I moved quite a bit easier without it, currents were still managable. We hit a turnaround pressure before getting shallow and drifted back(quickly - fun!) to our entry, then made a slow ascent at our entry. Pretty much the same life could be observed during this dive, however, at our 15' safety stop, I got to watch a large school of bull redfish(drum) hanging around the tops of the rocks. They were all around 30" long and were quite fun to watch. It was a great dive despite the more challenging conditions(which honestly, I enjoyed - LOL). Dive lasted 33 minutes with a max depth of 65 minutes.

We all hit up Spinakers afterwards for some grub before parting ways and making our long drives home. It had been a great weekend with some fun people.

Brunson Landing Spring - didn't dive

On the way out, Shagman following me back to the interstate, I let curiosity get the best of me and called Shagman to see if he was game to go find Brunson Landing Spring. Light was fading and we wouldn't have enough time to dive, but atleast we could find it, hopefully. The sheriff's directions were right on the money, the road we missed previously was there, but had posted and no trespassing signs at its entrance and the street sign was hidden back in the woods. It is a public road with a public launch and park on Holmes Creek at its deadend. At this point we walked a trail following the creek until we found a stream with cold water. It appeared to have a sandy bottom so, we were going to follow it. Shagman took a step in and sank to his knees. I was still laughing when I did the same, pushing my GPS into the mud(its waterproof, thankfully). We relocated lost flipflops and trudged onto the other side to dry land. Eventually, we found the headspring, with a basin maybe 30' and round. There is a ropeswing hanging from a tree onsite. Blue clear water showed through and we could see several trees and branches spanning across the bottom, with limestone walls dropping. Despite the small size of the basin, it appeared as though the spring was 20' deep or more... We'll be back here to see whats at the bottom. On the way out, we found a much easier patch back to the parking area.
 
That sexy guy in the trunks showed up to get his picture taken again :rofl3: .
 
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