"The Return of the Egg" Ft. Pickens and P-Cola Pier Rubble Report 9-10-10

Today (September 10th) I made it out to Ft. Pickens and met up with Denisegg, DocCarl, and GlenFWB for a dive at low tide. This was Denise’s first dive back since her incident at Jackson Blue and I was really happy to get to dive with her again. Glen wasn’t diving today due to sinus issues so we just shot the bull for a while and caught up.

We soon geared up and made it to the water and I was happy to see that the water was quite clear with only a slight brown tinge to it. Visibility averaged 15 feet throughout the dive (nice for a low tide dive). I kept an eye on Denise and gave her an “ok” check here and there. Denise looked great during the dive and appeared to be very relaxed. We took the grand tour of the site and had a nice relaxing dive lasting right at an hour.

We took an hour surface interval and splashed for dive number two. Visibility averaged 10 feet, but was a little better in spots. This time we started off going to the West. I was taking my time and looking amongst the rocks and found an octopus hanging out. We stopped there for a while and checked him out. From there we pretty much followed a similar route as dive number one. On the way back to the tire/cage I was checking out the nooks and crannies of the rocks and wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. When I picked my head up just a bit to see what was ahead I saw that I was right next to a southern stingray. The ray must have noticed at the same time and shot off (startled the heck out of me). I don’t think I have cursed that loud through my regulator in a while. After retrieving my dive flag we took our time checking out the shallow part of the rocks on our way up. We ended up with a dive lasting 71 minutes.

After the dive he headed over to Peg Leg Pete’s and had a great Cajun grouper sandwich. I was really happy for Denise that everything worked out so well and that she had no problems what-so-ever on her first dives back (the egg is back!!!). You go girl!! :wave:

On the drive from Ft. Pickens to Peg Leg Pete’s I noticed that the gulf looked really nice and flat as well as had a pretty emerald blue hue to it. I really wanted to check out the Pensacola Pier Rubble, but just didn’t think I would have the time. After saying goodbye to Denise, Doccarl and I were going to head back towards Pensacola for some fills. I couldn’t resist parking in the beach parking lot to check out the conditions. DocCarl was smiling when he got out of his car and was thinking the same thing as me. After checking out the conditions we decided to make a go of it. We entered the water and surface swam out to the site. The water at the beach was crystal clear, unfortunately there was an algae bloom on the bottom of the water between the first and second sandbar that was mucking the water up. We however still had at least 5 to 7 feet of visibility. The rocks are still covered (except a few here and there), but the pilings are nice and exposed. We saw three Southern Stingrays as well as some Blue Crabs, Rock Crabs, Sergeant Majors, Beaugregories, wrasse, a Robin Fish, and a few others I can’t remember. Although the highlight for me was seeing this one piling that had the most amount of blennies on it that I had ever seen. It looked like this piling was the blenny hotel. We didn’t stay too long as I had some errands to run, but we ended up with a 30 minute dive. It was great to get another dive in and definitely cool to dive with DocCarl today. I had a wonderful time today and look forward to getting over to Morrison Springs this coming Friday.

Thanks Denise and DocCarl for a great day of diving!!!!! :scubadive:

Go egg!!!!!!!!

I was stuck on land so I took a few surface shots:

Old Friends Reunite

I can't begin to express how much today meant to me! I never knew how good salt could taste! It seemed like I was floating in a piece of heaven. Thanks so much Walter and Carl for taking me out on my first dive in over 2 months and thanks Glen for the awesome pictures!
You guys rock!!

Tons of fun!

The first dive was really a pleasant surprise. Being around low tide, I was fully prepared with my soup spoon. When we arrived on site and saw a lovely shade of green, flat, and clear-ish water there were smiles all around. Viz seemed to degrade a bit as we moved closer to the mouth of the bay, but was much better than I expected in the central and eastern areas. There was a little bit of current out in the channel, but nothing too bad. I can't remember if our collective "stingray surprise" was the first dive or the second, but I swam up on a good sized fella, tail first, without being noticed. I tried to get the attention of Denise and Walter with my light. This really didn't work out like I hoped. They were prowling about with their canister lights- - - which I'm convinced were manufactured by 'the sun'. Waving my little 45 lumen princeton tec around was about as effective as, well, lets just say I'd have had more luck trying to strike a match. They floated by the ray about the same time he saw us, haha.

I do wish we'd been able to convince the octopus to come out and play, but I think the poor thing may have been blinded!
The toadfish were out and about today. I saw several swimming around in addition to those hanging out in the usual places. Dive one: 50 fsw, 57 minutes. Dive two: 46 fsw, an hour and 11 minutes.

Grouper sandwich at Pegleg Pete's: tasty tasty!

We really were planning to head home, but the gulf look sooo nice. We dropped and managed to find the rubble in about 30 seconds :yelclap:. I swear I saw a ray every time I turned around. Super friendly school of juvenile spadefish, on top of everything else Wjefferies mentioned.

All in all a great day. Glad to see Glen again, and meet Denise. Walter, It's a pleasure as always!


Carl

It was nice to meet you too Carl!

Sounds like I missed out on a good time! Glad everything went well for you today denisegg! Great photo's Glenn! Your not making it easy for me. I finally have all my gear from the shop and so ready to get wet!

Congrats Denise.

Thank you AT and CD