MRXRAY
Contributor
Hetland and I had some much bigger plans for diving today, but they were canceled and plan B (Ft. Pickens) turned out to be a darn good choice. First, It was a real pleasure just to be in the water with Hetland again, it is the first time we've been in saltwater together since late June....YIKES!
We met at Ft. Pickens very near high tide (8:00 AM ish) and the water was already packed with divers. We geared up after saying hello to a few Dive Pro's folks and made our way to the oil free/boomless water and splashed at just about 8:30. Viz was pretty nice on the first dive, probably pushing 20-25 feet so we ventured out into the sand to explore. There is a lot of June grass in the holes and deeper rock beds away from the jetty which the sting rays seem to love to hide in so we just explored deep out into the channel and goofed around in about 50-55 feet. One item of note is that the "Bob Sled" (Propane tank with the top cut off) has been moved quite a ways from the culvert which is also turned at a different angle. I can only guess that it was hooked by an anchor and dragged off. It's too bad as this used to be a fantastic hiding spot for some big grouper, but I think that has been diminished now.
After playing deep for quite a while and avoiding the OW students we then moved in toward shallower water where we played with an Octopus for quite some time trying to get him to eat a small crab we had found earlier. After 13 minutes we gave up and left a very happy albeit pissed off crab to tell his wild crab party story to his crab friends.
Octopus:
Very relieved crab....Well here he was just pissed off! ....Try to make a meal out of me will ya!
So anyways a long our merry, picture taking way we went, snapping a shooting like rabid dogs.
It was GREAT! We spent 93 minutes on the first dive with a max depth of 55 feet and I showed a min temp of 84*....Might be getting to hot for the shorty!
So we spun around quickly and headed right back to the water for dive two in hopes of breaking my long standing record of a 120 minute dive. The current had picked up a good bit and the viz dropped down to about 10-15 feet but seemed to increase a decrease unexpectedly with the surge in current. It was neat as we dove to watch as the current got stronger the seemingly natural movement of the fish to move to the up current side of the Jetty to feed. It was especially noticeable with the Flounder who were stacked like timber at the edge of the rocks and sand.
So we took our pictures and videos, I cut a ton of fish line out and collected a couple of pounds of lead weights while we watched the time tick away.... I'll tell you two hours in a strong current taking pictures, is a LONG time. I was getting tired but at long last we called the dive and headed back to shore after 123 minutes, max depth was 31 feet and the min temp was 84*.
We topped it off with a stop at Fuji Sushi bar in Gulf Breeze for some awesome rolls, in fact Alex says the Fuji River is his new all time favorite roll! So like my home boy rapper would say...."Today was a good day!"......
We met at Ft. Pickens very near high tide (8:00 AM ish) and the water was already packed with divers. We geared up after saying hello to a few Dive Pro's folks and made our way to the oil free/boomless water and splashed at just about 8:30. Viz was pretty nice on the first dive, probably pushing 20-25 feet so we ventured out into the sand to explore. There is a lot of June grass in the holes and deeper rock beds away from the jetty which the sting rays seem to love to hide in so we just explored deep out into the channel and goofed around in about 50-55 feet. One item of note is that the "Bob Sled" (Propane tank with the top cut off) has been moved quite a ways from the culvert which is also turned at a different angle. I can only guess that it was hooked by an anchor and dragged off. It's too bad as this used to be a fantastic hiding spot for some big grouper, but I think that has been diminished now.
After playing deep for quite a while and avoiding the OW students we then moved in toward shallower water where we played with an Octopus for quite some time trying to get him to eat a small crab we had found earlier. After 13 minutes we gave up and left a very happy albeit pissed off crab to tell his wild crab party story to his crab friends.
Octopus:
Very relieved crab....Well here he was just pissed off! ....Try to make a meal out of me will ya!
So anyways a long our merry, picture taking way we went, snapping a shooting like rabid dogs.
It was GREAT! We spent 93 minutes on the first dive with a max depth of 55 feet and I showed a min temp of 84*....Might be getting to hot for the shorty!So we spun around quickly and headed right back to the water for dive two in hopes of breaking my long standing record of a 120 minute dive. The current had picked up a good bit and the viz dropped down to about 10-15 feet but seemed to increase a decrease unexpectedly with the surge in current. It was neat as we dove to watch as the current got stronger the seemingly natural movement of the fish to move to the up current side of the Jetty to feed. It was especially noticeable with the Flounder who were stacked like timber at the edge of the rocks and sand.
So we took our pictures and videos, I cut a ton of fish line out and collected a couple of pounds of lead weights while we watched the time tick away.... I'll tell you two hours in a strong current taking pictures, is a LONG time. I was getting tired but at long last we called the dive and headed back to shore after 123 minutes, max depth was 31 feet and the min temp was 84*.
We topped it off with a stop at Fuji Sushi bar in Gulf Breeze for some awesome rolls, in fact Alex says the Fuji River is his new all time favorite roll! So like my home boy rapper would say...."Today was a good day!"......
