Navarre Beach Pier and Pensacola Beach Reef 8-26-6 Dive Report & Pics

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SuPrBuGmAn

Contributor
Messages
12,436
Reaction score
297
Location
Tallahassee, FL
# of dives
500 - 999
Navarre Beach Pier

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.

PierSurface.jpg


After a few gear issues, the storm was on us, but we're hardcore :14:

PierSurface2.jpg


StormyDivers.jpg


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.

Jelly.jpg


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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!

SouthernRay.jpg


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Full set of pictures can be viewed at http://www.suprbugman.com/gallery/album150

Pensacola Beach Reef

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.

Nudibranch.jpg


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.

Spadefish.jpg


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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.

Full set of shots at http://www.suprbugman.com/gallery/album151
 
SuPrBuGmAn:
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.
....... any excuse to go to Hooters. :D
How many beers does it take to.....?

Very nice report SuPrBuGmAn. Great job on the pics too........

I'm off to check the lotto numbers- I just gotta get an UW digital camera!!!
 
Li'l38:
....... any excuse to go to Hooters. :D
How many beers does it take to.....?

Very nice report SuPrBuGmAn. Great job on the pics too........

I'm off to check the lotto numbers- I just gotta get an UW digital camera!!!

Pitcher per person :wink:

Thanks for the reminder, Fla Lotto needs to fund me a dSLR to bring UW :wink:
 
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!

Can't wait to do it again, jellies or no.
 
Great photos. Looks like you folks had fun. I am hoping to do the Whiskey next weekend if the storm leaves us alone.

Mike

PS Do you use a strobe with your camera?
 
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.
 
Sounds like some good dives. How big was that nudi? I don't know if I'd have been able to tell him from the seaweed :D.
 
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 :D
 
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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