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Morning came to early on Saturday and I was up before the sun, packing gear and preparing for a set of dives. By the time I left the house, there was a bit of daylight being filtered through a heavily overcast sky. Dnos met up with me in Loxley during a monsoon which we had to suffer through while loading his truck with my gear. Eventually, the rain stopped a bit over the line in FL. Even some sun started peaking out.
By 8AM we were at the Navarre Beach Pier, joined by KensaiKitsune shortly afterwards. There was as storm looming a bit further west of us, lots of rain, but no lightning or thunder, so we continued on as planned. The gulf was glassy with shin-knee high rollers crashing on the beach, easily managable.
After a few gear issues, the storm was on us, but we're hardcore :14:
Visibility towards shore was 5-8' and we immediately noticed quite alot of seaweed floating around...and Jellyfish. Stinging nettles to be more specific, lots of em, everywhere. They're back, so wear some kind of exposure protection. I believe we all took hits during the dive, but we continued on. As painfull their sting is, you can't help but admire them in the water.
Near the last set of pilings, visibility opened up to 15-20'(maybe slightly better?) as we left the majority of the seaweed/algae. Schools of baitfish were being chased by spanish macks and bluefish. We saw a couple of large southern rays and a pair of octopii as well. Tropicals swam around the pilons and rubble on the bottom and flounder under the sand. I hit a max depth of 23' for a dive time of 66 minutes. Water temp at depth was in the upper 80sF and closer to 80F on the surface(probably due to the rain). Despite varying visibility, jellyfish, and a few gear problems everyone claimed they had alot of fun!
Dnos and I left KK(his wrist is healing from a car accident - so he wasn't going to push a second dive) and headed out to Pensacola Beach where we'd be in the water ~an hour and a half later. Water conditions were basically the same and visibility on the Pensacola Beach Reef(rubble from the old pier piled just east of the existing pier) ranged about 10-15' with lots of seaweed in the area. We swam into a patch of seaweed, before we hit the rubble, that was covered in algae as well as lots and lots of nudibranches.
The dive site was covered with fish of all kinds of variety including mangroves, pigfish, flounder, bluerunners, a decent sized gag grouper, tropicals, ect. If you swam to the top of the upright pilons, you'd get schooled by spadefish near the surface.
Jellyfish weren't near the problem on Pensacola Beach as they were on Navarre Beach, just a few miles east - weird. The dive was fun and we decided to head to Hooters for some grub and a few beers to numb the stings we had endured in Navarre.
When the rain is blowin' in your face, and the whole world is on your case, I would offer you a warm embrace, to make you feel my love. When evening shadows and the stars appear, and there is no one to dry your tears, I could hold you for a million years, to make you feel my love.
Those are some great pics! And you are right about the sea nettles: it's pretty surprising and painful to get zapped by one that you didn't see (I'd never been stung before prior), but the ones that you do see are quite graceful and enjoyable to watch. It's a little unnerving to have to run a maze of them, though!
Nope, occasionally I use the internal flash, but in our waters - that usually results in a ton of backscatter. I'd use an external strobe on a long arm if I could afford it :P
I shoot in RAW and adjust WB during post processing to bring the colors back into the photos.
Psalm 104:24,25
O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
My Pictures - "click here"
They ranged from about an inch to 3-4" across, there were hundreds, some of them all balled up in an orgy or something. At first, they I didn't distinguish them from the seaweed at all
Great pics SuPrBuGmAn and nice diving with you and KansaiKitsune.
The nudibranch was a first for me. The surge helped with spotting them. They would stand out as the seaweed got pushed back and forth along the bottom.
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Originally Posted by SuPrBuGmAn
