Ft Pickens Report 8-22-09

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!

wjefferis

Contributor
Messages
1,564
Reaction score
4
Location
Pensacola, Florida
# of dives
200 - 499
I made it out to Ft. Pickens today (8-22-09) around 7:00 am to get in a few dives. There was a neap tide today with the supposed high tide to be at 1:18 pm, but since the tidal flow would be so little I splashed in close to 8:00am. There was some suspended particulate in the water, but there was still 10-15 feet of visibility depending on if the clouds were covering the sun or allowing to the sun to shine and light things up a bit. There was a warm thermocline at 10 fsw and I enjoyed my dive in 85* water. Last week I purchased a Dive Rite LED LUX canister light so I thought I would bring it along to use to check things out amongst the rocks and it worked great. After completing an hour dive I got out and did a 45 minute surface interval and them jumped back in. Conditions had gotten worse as a thick layer of particulate laden water moved in and cut the visibility to 5 feet, (yikes). Luckily, my dive light saved the day and I was able to still enjoy all of the critters zipping around the rocks. I cut that dive short to about 45 minutes. I went ahead and switched my tank and took another 45 minute surface interval hoping that things would clear up a bit and I got my wish. The thick cruddy water was still hanging around close to the rocks, but once you got out to the “organ” things cleared back up to 15 ft of visibility. I went ahead and ventured out to the culverts and was happy to see that the French Angelfish was still hanging around and has gotten quite large. He/she (not sure) was hanging around with a nice sized blue angelfish. I enjoyed watching them swim and play around the culverts. I then followed some rocks that venture out towards the pass. I saw some respectable sheep head hanging out here at my max depth of 50 fsw. I turned and made my way back to the rocks and then out to the golf cart and was sad to see that it was about 60% covered up. Oh well, it will uncover eventually. I didn’t bring the camera today because I figured with the neap tide the conditions wouldn’t be good enough to get any decent shots, but that’s ok I needed to have a few dives where I am not always looking for a photo opportunity. After watching my computer click over to an hour of dive time I figured that I had seen enough and went ahead and got out. I had a good set of dives with a total of 2 hours and 45 minutes of bottom time.
 
Great report. What wattage of LED is that light? Any pictures of it? I'll see if I can find it online.

Michael
 
I was there a couple weeks ago and had visibility of about 10-15 feet too. From what I gather, that is good visibility for Ft Pickens though. Sounds like some great dives. Thanks for sharing :)
 
Thanks for the report wjefferis!

Great report. What wattage of LED is that light? Any pictures of it? I'll see if I can find it online.

Michael

Its a 10w with just shy of 1000 lumens. They also sell a 500 and 700 lumen version, but I'd get the LUX(~1000 lumen). It gets around 5 hours of burntime on a slimline canister and has a great beam(IMO), but not a super tight beam like the Salvo/Leviathon equivelant or some of the tighter HIDs. I still find it plenty adequate to signal with, even in larger passages and the slightly wider beam makes viewing the cave more enjoyable.
 

Back
Top Bottom