Dive Report: USS Massachusetts (BB-2) 12 July 2009

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MRXRAY

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Location
Pensacola, FL
# of dives
My 16 Year old son asked me if he could join us diving (Probably wants to borrow some money), so of course I said yes and started planning a safe place to take him since it had been a year since he's been wet. After checking the Tides, Currents, and weather, I determined that it wasn't going to get much better than this weekend to dive the Massachusetts (BB-2). We met at Recharge's house at 8:00 AM to load the boat and found ourselves way ahead of schedule and at the boat launch at 8:30 AM for our 9:00 AM departure.

Not long after we got the boat tied up and settled in, Hetland arrived along with Brandon and his out of town bubble watching friend. So about 9:15 we were on our way to the USS Mass. The bay was just lightly choppy and we found our selves in the green water above the Mass in record time.

We set the anchor and we were wet by 10:00 and after a few equipment tweaks to my Son we were finally under water at 10:05. The current was just enough to be a challenge on the surface but once we were on the wreck is was only mildly noticeable at times. The current on the Mass seems to swing depending on where you are, probably as it moves about the ships structure, but we never found ourselves having to work hard against the current.

Josh and I made our way down the Port side from Stern to bow stopping to take pictures a long the way at it wasn't long until we spotted what would turn out to be the only Octopus of the day. We stopped and took some pictures and some video and We let the Octopus play with our naked fingers for a bit before we turned and head forward up the port side again. We went all the way to the bow where we took a couple of port hole pictures and then turned and came back down the Starboard side toward the stern, jumping into the center of the wreck and a few places along the way. The life on the reef was extraordinary and although I wanted to take a million pictures I was far to focused on my son to focus on photos. All in all we had a great time and we had several nice encounters and saw a school of big red snapper that would rival some of the biggest snapper I've seen to date, as well as a couple of barracuda, a scorpionfish, some angelfish, but not the Goliath Grouper or the nurse shark. We called the dive after 58 minutes with a max depth of 24 feet and a min temp of 79*.

Here are some pictures:

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I'll second Barry's observation about the red snapper on the Mass. I saw the largest snapper I've seen all year on this trip. I also saw a nice black snapper, but mostly just bait balls and smaller critters. I was disappointed that I missed the Octopus, but that's the way it goes. Here are a few pics and a video:

VIDEO: USS Massachusetts 7/12/09 on Vimeo


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Great report, really liked the photos!
 
Great pics both of you..
 
Oops forgot the porthole picture:

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Wow! Great report. I will need to see if this is a site that we can visit on the 29th and 30th. This would be perfect for Adam.

Thanks for the water temps too. :)

Michael
 
Hetland - great video. The fish density is incredible. You never see that many fish in Caribbean locations. This shows how productive the waters of the Panhandle are.
Xray - I really liked the porthole photo.
 

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