Destin report June 17-28 snorkeling & pics (long)

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Dave C

Contributor
Messages
563
Reaction score
41
Location
Juneau AK
I made my annual summer trip to Destin June 17-28 along with my 14 yr old nephew. I am an avid snorkeler (don’t scuba dive), so this report will concentrate on snorkeling. There was a persistent pattern of extremely hot, calm weather during this whole period, which was conducive to water activities, although it was sweltering topside. This was the only time I have been to Destin for a longer vacation in which there were never any “red flag” days at the beach (indicating rough sea conditions). Thus conditions were pretty good for snorkeling at the Destin jetties. Most days, visibility at high tide was about 25 ft, maybe up to 30 ft a few times, although it never reached the absolute maximum visibilities I have seen (rarely) in some other years. Compared to the hot air temps, the Gulf water in the Pass was surprisingly refreshing, probably no more than the low 80’s at the surface. I even got a little cool a couple of times with my dive skin on when I hovered in one spot for a while.

Snorkeling allows me to spend a long time in the water, and I have always found, everywhere I have been, the longer you stay in the water the more things you eventually see. This was not the case this year at the jetties. There was a disappointing lack of diversity, and despite all the time I spent in the water on multiple days, I saw very little besides the fish you always expect to see: pinfish, numerous cocoa damselfish, a few small sergeant majors in the shallows, many gray snappers, pigfish grunts and a few groupers in deeper water, belted sandfish, Gulf toadfish, some slippery dick wrasses (a lot more than last year, when they were very scarce), chubs, spadefish, and tons of baitfish. Not that this was especially bad, but it’s always fun to find things you don’t see all the time. I did see one barbfish (I’ve only seen a couple of those before), and for the first time ever, a dolphin briefly swam around me right off the small beach between the two jetties. You could even hear the clicks, but he was gone in flash. A brief encounter, definitely no time for photos, but pretty cool. Off the small beach there were small stingrays on a few days. I also saw two big barracuda off the end of finger jetty on a day when the viz was not that good for photos.

It’s interesting to observe how the currents and visibility in the pass change unpredictably from day to day. I’m sure those of you who frequently dive the Pass know this. On most days, the clear Gulf water stayed around the jetties until three hours after high tide, when the warm, murky water from the bay abruptly filtered in. However, on the last two days I was at the jetties, partial infusions of bay water came in only half an hour after high tide.

For something different, we went underneath the Destin Bridge one day (west end off Okaloosa Island), and it turned out to be loaded with June grass. This was the only significant June grass I saw. Despite this, I did observe two pipefish, which are first ones I’ve ever seen in Destin. I also went to the old Crystal Pier pilings one day. I hadn’t been there for three years, since before the beach renourishment project was completed. The pilings are definitely snorkelable again, although as before, the marine life is pretty modest. The visibility was a very nice 25 ft, there was a huge school of 1000’s of scad (cigar minnows) extending along the underwater pilings, and I also saw a couple of barracuda.

Finally, we went to Panama City and rented a pontoon boat one day to go to Shell Island. I’d never been there before. When I went to the boat rental place, I was dismayed to find that they would not allow their boats go near the jetty on Shell Island (they said it was too shallow and that the boat might be stranded when the tide dropped). I really wanted to snorkel there as I had heard good things about it. We ended up stopping in the bay at two spots behind Shell Island. The first, farther away from the pass, turned out to be very murky with a visibility of about 6-8 ft. In the murk, we stumbled across two large bat or bullnose rays, similar to eagle rays. They probably had a wingspread of 4 ft. One had a large remora attached. It would have been great if the viz were better. The second spot, off Spanish Shanty Pt. closer to the pass, had improved viz of 12-15 ft. The grassflats there were full of young pinfish, and we also saw several small stingrays, toadfish, a burrfish, scallops, large pen shells, starfish, many sea urchins, and live sand dollars. My nephew loved it, especially driving the boat and the easy snorkeling, and it was a different experience than Destin.

Here are some photos:

Striped hermit crab in a lightening whelk shell. Blue fish are juvenile cocoa damselfish.
original.jpg


Cocoa damselfish (juvenile slippery dick wrasse in background)
original.jpg


There were numerous large gray snappers at the jetties this year
original.jpg


Gray snapper (darker color phase)
original.jpg


Gulf toadfish (I know these are very common and are easy to photograph because they just sit there, but this is the best photo of these I think I have gotten)
original.jpg


Scad (fishermen call these cigar minnows)
original.jpg


My nephew is becoming quite the snorkeler (you can see the Destin Bridge in the background).
original.jpg


There are a few more photos here: Destin Florida underwater 2009 Photo Gallery by Dave_Clausen at pbase.com
 
Nice Photos Dave. I wish you'd get certified as I'd absolutely love to take you offshore. Your knowledge and love of underwater photography really shows, and like Hetland we love to share that passion with others. I'm guessing you can't snorkel to 90' so get that C-Card so we can share with you!
 
Those are some really awesome pictures!!
 
Nice Photos Dave. I wish you'd get certified as I'd absolutely love to take you offshore. Your knowledge and love of underwater photography really shows, and like Hetland we love to share that passion with others. I'm guessing you can't snorkel to 90' so get that C-Card so we can share with you!

I second XRay's sentiment on both the C-card, and the quality of your photos.

What camera set up do you use?

We have been very lucky this year (compared to last) regarding weather. Let's hope it holds out!
 
Sorry I missed you when you were here - I was in my crazy work phase or else I might have run into you. Nice pics.
 
Great pics! What kind of camera did you use by the way?
 
Thanks everyone for their nice comments on my photos. My camera is a fairly basic point 'n shoot, a Canon Powershot A630 (8 mgp) in a Canon housing. Since I am snorkeling, I'm able to use available light for almost all my photos. This simplifies things greatly; I don't have to deal with a strobe. Infrequently, when I am trying to take a picture of a fish inside a crevice or overhang, I use the camera's internal flash. Sometimes these have turned out surprisingly well.

Many years ago I did get certified and did a little diving in So. California (Catalina Island) when I was in college, but I never did get completely comfortable with it. I tried diving a few times when I moved to Alaska, but was kind of freaked out with a drysuit, murky, cold water, etc., so I never went again. I had a seizure about 7 years ago, and although the doctor said it was o.k. to swim and snorkel as long as I take medication, I'm not sure if I would pass medical muster for scuba diving. I have to admit, though, the only people I have ever met who were as enthusiastic about the underwater world as me were all scuba divers.
 
Those are great pics! The fact that you were snorkeling makes them even more impressive. I have an A620 I take snorkeling and my pics rarely turn out that sharp and colorful. Can I please ask what settings you are using? Also, are you doing a manual white balance and/or any computer editing? Thanks.
 
Trig,
I set the camera to Av mode (dial on the top), and then set ISO to 100 to make sure the pics don't have too much noise. Everything else I leave in the camera's default settings. In Av mode I also use "sunny" (that the default) unless it is cloudy or I am diving deep. I don't white balance and I don't use the camera's underwater mode. Since I don't white balance, I adjust all the photos later using the simple auto-fix command in a couple of the photo editing programs I use (for example, "auto levels" in Photo Elements). This is very easy to do, and for shallow water snorkeling pics, I find this usually does a surprisingly good job of correcting the color that is lost underwater even in the shallow depths. On macro shots I usually sharpen the photos slightly using a sharpen command or "unsharp mask" in the photo editing programs, although this doesn't do that much to improve the photos. It's the auto fix command that really improves the photos. One thing you have to be sure of is to be as steady as possible when you take the photo. This can be hard when snorkeling because of surge in shallow water and the fact that you can't achieve neutral buoyancy such as a scuba diver could in deeper water. To steady myself, I try to hold onto a rock (not coral, that's a no-no) with one hand while taking the picture with the camera in my other hand. A weight belt is also essential for getting down in the water column, and I always use one.
 
Well Dave let me start off by saying that I'm glad I saw this post, I think you and I might have similar interests.

I'm an aspiring diver, but right now I'm only snorkeling. And I actually came to the snorkeling section today to ask about weightbelts so I could do some photography while snorkeling (I'll still post that in a new thread). Now that I've seen your pictures, I have a little more confidence that I can pull it off!

Another reason why I'm glad I saw this is because I've been to Destin a couple of times in the past few years and actually did my first intro dive on that same jetty. I've also snorkeled there multiple times and loved it. So you've brought back some great memories.

Thanks Dave!

Great Pictures!
 
Last edited:
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom