Destin, FL, dive report 11/11/05

[meigs3]

Used Scubatech's boat, the Sea Cobra, which they have had for quite a while. 11 divers on boat. 9 were AO, DM or IDC students from U. of Southern MS's training program.

1st Dive: Phoenix Barge, depth 77', bottom temp 72 degrees, viz maybe 30'-you could see both ends of the barge from the middle until the students silted out the viz. Some flounders around the barge. Not too much to see.

Suface Interval: Best described as "Pick your own". The students were gung ho and went on second dive without an hour SI. Buddy & I waited until we knew we had enough time on the bottom to use up air w/o hitting NDL. Boat has cooler, inside cabin and head.

2nd Dive: Destin Bridge rubble, depth 66', bottom temp 73 degrees, viz about 15'. Anchor was off the rubble and it was not visible. Used reel to run a search and then to follow back to anchor. One nice flounder. Not too much to see as fish life.

The water gets deep close to shore and I suspect these two sites see heavy fishing & spear fishing. That would explain lack of fish to see.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Thanks for the report.

There has also been some red tide issues lately that alot people claim are responsible for some of the lack of fish. Those sites are pretty much the norm for ScubaTech's dives, so they do get heavily fished/spearfished as well.