Dive Report: Ft. Pickens Pensacola 24 May 2009

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MRXRAY

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Location
Pensacola, FL
# of dives
Well I went with some friends from the West Florida Dive Club to Ft. Pickens this morning, and yes the road is open. We paid $25 for the annual pass (Instead of the $8 Weekly pass) which is only good at Ft. Pickens. This only allows you into the park from 8 AM -10:00 PM. They have a night owl pass that allows you to stay 24 Hrs but it's an additional $30.
Also I should mention that the Park Rangers were "Harassing" an instructor with a large group of students for not having a Federal training permit which is required for all instructors. Apparently each shop must separately possess one but it is not required for each individual instructor, it's just shop based. I think they let the instructor (which I think was from out of state) off with a warning but I think he said it was several hundred dollars for the pass. If you are teaching this may be worth looking into before any tickets are passed out.
OK, back to the report. We parked our vehicle to the West of the Stairs and about the time we were suited up GlenFWB showed up. We waited for Glen and all went together GlenFWB, Recharge, Brandon (SB Name slips me) and Myself. Not long after we crossed the wall we bumped into the crew with Paulwall in it. We made our way into the water, and headed East from the Western Jetty toward the smaller Jetty. We found the Pipe Organ (?), the Jeep frame, another car frame, some culvert and lots of big and small tires. It was a great dive by my standards as we saw lots of Flounder, Sheepsheads, Spades, Toadfish, a couple Octopus, and lots of reef fish. We ended the dive after 55 minutes with a max depth of 41 feet and a min temp of 75* and viz was about 10-15 feet. We went back to the car refreshed, found the showers were working!!! And changed out for dive # 2. We basically redove the first dive and saw many of the same things, including more Octopus, some Red snapper some big Grouper and Glen sighted a Guitar Fish, and I got some pics of a Beautiful French Anglefish. The second dive was 43 minutes to 48 feet temp was 75* and the viz dropped to 8-10 feet. Man it was good to be able to drive out to the Fort!!! Recharged had used my camera for the first dive and I feel weired about posting his pics but I gave them to him this evening on CD so hopefully he'll post them. I'm planning to return tomorrow with Hetland so I'll have some pcis to post on tomorrows report!
 
Being this is a little closer, I Will definitely have to meet you guys there one day. It will have to wait until I get back from Cozumel though. Nicole is scheduled to have her ACL surgery on July 1st, so it will definitley have to be quick trips for me for a while. I will be Mr Mom for a few months.
 
Understand that, Give Nicole our best. We'll have to talk about you staying at Casa de Xray when you come!

Being this is a little closer, I Will definitely have to meet you guys there one day. It will have to wait until I get back from Cozumel though. Nicole is scheduled to have her ACL surgery on July 1st, so it will definitley have to be quick trips for me for a while. I will be Mr Mom for a few months.
 
Thanks for the report and the heads up about the rangers. I'll definitely be taking students there in the future. I made the mistake of going to Vortex yesterday instead of Pickens. It stormed the whole way there and until about noon. The spring filled up with run-off and viz dropped to three feet. We would have been much better off at Pickens.
 
Thanks for the report, would have been awesome to see a Guitarfish!
 
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