Pensacola Beach Reef 7-19-7 Dive Report

I was working in the Pensacola/Gulf Breeze area today and took the opportunity to get a dive in after finishing up with work. wjefferis was also available and agreed to meet me up onsite. The biggest issue of the day was parking. The Blue Angels are flying on Friday and Saturday and they were doing their practice runs today(maybe yesterday as well). The parking lots get packed out for the practices just as much as the shows themselves, so it was a real PITA. wjefferis had to make one hellova walk, I lucked out a bit closer and started gearing up, only to find that I had forgotten my mask(D'Oh). By the time I had realized this, wjefferis had made it to the meeting place and parking was opened up in the main beach parking area again. I found a nice parking spot, much much closer to our entry and luckily wjefferis had a spare mask.

Green flags were up, with purple flags showing on only some of the poles. We were expecting the worst, but hoping for the best. Surf was running, maybe shin high, no problem whatsoever and the water was a nice emeral blue/green color. Water temps on the surface were in the mid-low 80sF and under 12' or so, dropped to 78F. Despite the persistant afternoon thunderstorms and west winds we've had over the last week(or better) visibility ranged in the 5-10' area - more than managable. Lots of fish onsite, including, pigfish, spadefish, flounder(some large ones too!), mangroves, lane snapper, damsels, butterflyfish, wrasse, cowfish, puffers, puffins, scorpianfish, toadfish, sandfish, and the occassional(might have spotted a half dozen) stinging nettle. It was a great dive, maxed out at 17' and dove for 74 minutes. I got hit by one jelly, which was out in the open and my fault for not dodging, being too busy looking at the sand below me. The jellies really were not a problem today.

Anyway, another thanks to wjefferis for being prepared for a buddy sans mask :shakehead

It was nice to get out today and get a dive in but my initial walk from the boardwalk side near Hooters to the beach with all my gear was one killer walk! Took my camera out with me, but for some reason my strobe was not working :11: . I have another one and I checked it when I got home and it worked perfect. I had to restrain the urge to kick my faulty strobe across the street :light: . Since the strobe was out most of my pictures were crap :shakehead . I sort of salvaged a couple of them which I will post below. The algae field that was sitting between the beach and the site has cleared up a bit since my last dive. Once it leaves the visibility should really be good on site. Even with the purple flags on the beach, the jellies as bugman said were very manageable. All in all it was a very enjoyable day, hope to do it again soon.

Nice grab on the flounder, I was hoping atleast one of them would come out. There were so many of them, some big too(atleast one 3lb'er). Had a great time out there today.

Nice report and pictures.

You guys should have stopped by Gulf Breeze Bait and Tackle and picked up a sand yacht for your journey .

Does anyone know what that thing in the bottom picture is called. I think it is some kind of sponge or something(?).

Definately a sponge, they are far more prevelant this year for some reason.

Thanks for the report and pictures. Nice.