Planning dives near Apalachicola

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oem3105

Registered
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
40
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Location
Nashville, TN
# of dives
1000 - 2499
I am looking for some advice here.

I'm headed to Florida on vacation in mid-September and will be staying just east of Apalachicola. This is the first time I have been to this area of Florida. I have been given the task of planning a day of diving for me, my sister, and her husband. I've been to several places in central Florida cavern diving as well as shore & boat dives in Panama City. My sister and her husband are good divers but don't have a lot of experience.

Is there any spot to dive near Apalachicola that is recommended or should we take a day and drive to Panama City?

THANKS and be safe!
 
I don't really know anything in Appalachicola... aside from diving for muscles when they are in season(I THINK they still are?).

There are lots of sinkholes and springs in the area, but most are on private property or are very difficult to get to... and all of them are NOT OW friendly, you'll want proper training and equipment.
 
A quick seach turned up N 2 Deep Divers in Appalachicola and Daly's Dock and Dive in Port St. Joe Dive Charters Daly's Dock & Dive Center There is diving around the Mexico Beach/Port St. Joe area's on reef balls and some old wrecks. I'd give these shops a call and they could give you the low down. If you can hit the Empire Mica, I would highly recommend it, it's a true bit of American history. The prop can be seen at Capt. Andersons in Panama City.
 
SuPrBuGmAn, Deep VI, & b1draper - THANKS for the info! I'll take a look at this ASAP. Looks like we may not be driving to Panama City after all.

Thanks again & BE SAFE!
 
My wife and I dove with Daly's Dock and Dive around July 4th. We were staying on St. George Island for a week and wanted to dive somewhere nearby. I was in contact with both Daly's Dock and Dive, and N2Deep. The thing about diving near Apalachicola is the weather changes a lot, so they won't have anything scheduled until less than a week from when you want to dive. And then things can change a lot during that week. Another dive op I had contacted earlier was Killfish Charters, which seemed to also be associated with Seahorse Water Safaris. The Killfish website seems to be down but here is the Seahorse site: http://www.seahorsewatersafaris.com/diving.cfm. We didn't go with them because it seemed like they don't go out a lot and you pretty much need to have at least 4 divers (up to 6) unless there happens to be another group that isn't full going the at the same time. They do go out to the Empire Mica, though that is a much longer trip.

I talked to both dive ops pretty much every day I was there, N2Deep was pretty good about getting me information about the dives, but I would say Daly's was very good. I spoke with Ann Marie there and she kept me up to date on the conditions, and even called me outside business hours and gave me her cell number so I could respond. She said they typically like to do more relaxed dives for the vacationers, but they were definitely going to be going out at some point in the week for a student getting her AOW. We ended up going on that dive because the seas were pretty calm and there was no guarantee we'd get to dive later in the week. N2Deep wasn't planning on going out until 2 days later, so we decided to go with Daly's even though it was an extra 25 minute drive.

When we arrived everything was pretty easy, you assemble your gear at the shop and they load it on the boat for you. They have a cooler with complimentary drinks and snacks, and you can put your own stuff in the cooler too. It's a short 2 minute drive from the shop over to the dock. We actually had to wait a little bit at the dock because they got the boat in the water then realized they forgot to fill it up with fuel. Definitely glad they remembered before we took off though!

Our first dive site was Sherman's tug, it took I guess about 10-15 minutes to get out of the bay and then another 30 to get to the dive site. I get VERY seasick, so I had taken my meclizine and my eyes were fixed on the horizon the entire trip. Their boat is a 6 pack, no seats you just lean up against the big inflatable tubes on the sides of the boat. There is plenty of room for the divers and all of their stuff though. I was fine with the seasickness until we arrived at the dive site. We got there and dropped anchor and were told to wait for a while so the dive master could make sure we were at the tug. This was a mistake, my wife and I should have geared up immediately and just got in the water. Even though there were only 2-4 ft seas, we were both sick by the time he got back up and told everyone to start gearing up. So everyone else starts gearing up and we sit for a little bit and feed the fishes once or twice. We managed to get geared up as the last diver was getting in. The dive master waited for a few, and then told us he'd go ahead and take the group down and we should follow. Both the dive master and captain were very good about helping us get geared up in our condition. We knew as soon as we hit water we'd feel better, but it was just tough to do that feeling sick and very hot.

We finally got in and got started down the line as the others were reaching the bottom. It was a fun dive, the tug used to be upright, but now is listing a little bit. We swam around it several times, and swam through several sections. The dive master got a picture of the whole group at the back of the tug with someone's camera. Our bottom time was 35 minutes with a max depth of 83 ft. At least 2 of the other divers didn't have a computer, and one didn't even have a bottom timer so the dive master loaned him an extra. They kept their dive pretty short, plus another guy had pretty bad air consumption I think. The dive master checked our computers and headed up with the others and we stayed down for a while longer since we were a few minutes late getting in. Apparently he thought we were in trouble because when we were coming up the dive line for our safety stop, he was coming down with an extra set of gear. We assured him we were doing just fine though and we all finished our safety stop and headed up. My wife saw a barracuda during our safety stop, but I didn't see him. I think I saw one down in the tug, but he backed inside of it pretty quickly.

Once we got back on the boat, we sat for a while before proceeding to the next site. Most people enjoyed a snack and drink while the captain and dive master changed everyone's gear to a fresh tank, though we got sick again pretty quickly. We must have been there for a while because our total surface interval was an hour and 20 minutes. I'd say we sat for about 20 minutes or so, it was about 30 minutes to the next site, then another 30 minutes for the dive master to check the site and for us to gear up while sick.

The next dive site was called Wilson's Reef. It was a bunch of old sections of concrete pipe laid out in a large square. It wasn't quite as fun as the tug, but it was still pretty good and plenty of fish. Our max depth was 51 ft, and we had 48 minutes of bottom time. Again one diver had to surface after about 20 minutes. The dive master checked our computer when we had probably 1200 or so psi left and he was headed up with another diver. He told us we could stay down, but we motioned we were getting a little cold and decided to follow him. Though he could not find the dive line so he was going to surface, find the boat, and come back down. After he went up we just followed the square of concrete pipes and found the anchor after 2-3 minutes. We headed up, did our safety stop and got back on the boat.

We were very happy to reach dry land and when we got back to the shop asked if we could eat the sandwiches we brought in their shop so we'd have some air conditioning. This was no problem and we ate so our stomaches would feel a bit better.

Overall we thought it was a good dive operation and we definitely don't regret going despite getting sick. We do wish however they would have been a little quicker getting the divers in the water. We are a bit spoiled though because we are newly certified, and our only other boat diving experience was in Bora Bora. We would definitely use Daly's Dock and Dive again if we are in the area.
 
Good Report. Next time I'm in that area I'll try them out.
 
Excellent write-up! Thanks for taking the time to put that together.

I am going to meet with my sister and brother-in-law and show this to them and let them decide which site they want to dive. Looks like we have plenty to choose from.

Thanks again!
 
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