SeaYoda
Contributor
I convinced Larry's (Gulfgulper) son to be my "schlep-it" for the jetty death walk since I have not done it in a about a year and a half. I wore my BC and loaded the sand-yacht with a 19 pony, two AL80's and all that goes with them. No camera and strobe to add extra weight. The poor young fella had to stop a couple times and I told him he might be the first non-diver to be awarded a metal for completing the march carrying dive gear. He told my wife later that he didn't know how I did the walk with my bad back and then went diving (take that you youngsters!).
I brought the wet suit along but when I stepped in the water my Jedi senses told me that I was on the border of not needing it. I decided to chance the dive in t-shirt and trunks (my favorite dive outfit). The water was 78 degrees at depth and that is exactly the temp I was hoping for, not chilled at all during the dive.
The topography has changed a lot since my last dive here. Much of the excess sand is gone and the trough is about 3 feet deeper between the point and the anchor. The soft black rock(?) shelf is exposed on the way to the anchor. I did not see the road bed so this may not be quite as low as I have ever seen it before. The anchor is uncovered and I decided on the second dive to check out the second anchor. It is only about half cleared of sand. The mooring block is mostly uncovered too. I got a maximum depth of 58 feet (not Laying on the bottom like I do when taking pictures). I checked on the south side of the jetty and some of the larger boulders are showing.
The currents were flowing a little on the first dive (both directions and usually against me) but settled down on the second. There is a layer of June-grass on the bottom in some places that gets stirred up with the currents but it's not too annoying. Viz varied from 35 - 50 feet and had the milky haze that has come to be standard since all the beach re-nourishment activities began a couple years ago.
There were lots of young fish to be seen (damsels, wrasse, pin fish, pig fish, burr fish, file fish, sea bass, blennies, belted sand fish, sand perch, toad fish). The wrasse were pretty aggressive and bit my fingers a couple times. They also would swim up beside my head from behind and pop, unexpectedly, into view directly in front of my face. I had to swat them away like gnats more than once. There seemed to be an unusual lack of crabs. I saw one stone, a few hermits, and no blues. There is also a greater abundance of urchins this year than I've ever seen.
Now for the stuff that made the dives great ... . There were some unusual characters I ran into on the dives. I was greeted by a large school of blue runners near the anchor on both dives. They didn't just swim past but schooled around me both times until I decided to move on. There were two trigger fish (small but fun to watch) out just beyond the anchor. On the first dive, as I came back near the anchor, I was met by a large barracuda. Near the anchor, a single adult angelfish was found that was not very skittish that allowed me to swim around it for a while. I watched a couple of adult file fish doing, what must have been, a mating dance. While on the south side of the jetty, I found a school of decent sized sergeant majors. I kept looking for a ray and on my way in on the second dive I saw a 2 footer. Above all that, I saw not one but two young turtles (the first I have ever seen in Destin). Both had a shell less than two feet long. One turtle seems to like to stay halfway between the point and the anchor because I saw him there on both dives. He would not let me get any closer than about 15 feet away. He didn't bolt away but moved like he wasn't interested in any conversation. I encountered the second turtle on my second dive. I had seen the same turtle from the first dive earlier and noticed that he had no barnacles on his shell. As I was coming to the point on my way back on dive two, I looked up the rocks and then back forward. Five feet in front of me there was a turtle. It had one barnacle on the lower right side of its shell. It looked at me for a couple seconds and then swam off at a pace similar to the first turtle.
Between dives I sat on the beach off gassing and enjoying the beautiful day. While looking toward the jetties, I see a familiar face coming out of the water, Trever had been on a dive with his new buddy (his son is now certified). We seem to meet this way often, I think this is the third time we accidentally were at the jetties at the same time.
I took my gear to the dive shop on the way home, a year and a half put both my AL80s on the hydro and VIP list as well as the pony needing a VIP. My pony regulator free flowed on the second dive so I decided it needed service too. Just goes to show that diving frugal (like I try to do) doesn't always come cheap
.
All in all this was a great re-introduction to my old swimming hole.
I brought the wet suit along but when I stepped in the water my Jedi senses told me that I was on the border of not needing it. I decided to chance the dive in t-shirt and trunks (my favorite dive outfit). The water was 78 degrees at depth and that is exactly the temp I was hoping for, not chilled at all during the dive.
The topography has changed a lot since my last dive here. Much of the excess sand is gone and the trough is about 3 feet deeper between the point and the anchor. The soft black rock(?) shelf is exposed on the way to the anchor. I did not see the road bed so this may not be quite as low as I have ever seen it before. The anchor is uncovered and I decided on the second dive to check out the second anchor. It is only about half cleared of sand. The mooring block is mostly uncovered too. I got a maximum depth of 58 feet (not Laying on the bottom like I do when taking pictures). I checked on the south side of the jetty and some of the larger boulders are showing.
The currents were flowing a little on the first dive (both directions and usually against me) but settled down on the second. There is a layer of June-grass on the bottom in some places that gets stirred up with the currents but it's not too annoying. Viz varied from 35 - 50 feet and had the milky haze that has come to be standard since all the beach re-nourishment activities began a couple years ago.
There were lots of young fish to be seen (damsels, wrasse, pin fish, pig fish, burr fish, file fish, sea bass, blennies, belted sand fish, sand perch, toad fish). The wrasse were pretty aggressive and bit my fingers a couple times. They also would swim up beside my head from behind and pop, unexpectedly, into view directly in front of my face. I had to swat them away like gnats more than once. There seemed to be an unusual lack of crabs. I saw one stone, a few hermits, and no blues. There is also a greater abundance of urchins this year than I've ever seen.
Now for the stuff that made the dives great ... . There were some unusual characters I ran into on the dives. I was greeted by a large school of blue runners near the anchor on both dives. They didn't just swim past but schooled around me both times until I decided to move on. There were two trigger fish (small but fun to watch) out just beyond the anchor. On the first dive, as I came back near the anchor, I was met by a large barracuda. Near the anchor, a single adult angelfish was found that was not very skittish that allowed me to swim around it for a while. I watched a couple of adult file fish doing, what must have been, a mating dance. While on the south side of the jetty, I found a school of decent sized sergeant majors. I kept looking for a ray and on my way in on the second dive I saw a 2 footer. Above all that, I saw not one but two young turtles (the first I have ever seen in Destin). Both had a shell less than two feet long. One turtle seems to like to stay halfway between the point and the anchor because I saw him there on both dives. He would not let me get any closer than about 15 feet away. He didn't bolt away but moved like he wasn't interested in any conversation. I encountered the second turtle on my second dive. I had seen the same turtle from the first dive earlier and noticed that he had no barnacles on his shell. As I was coming to the point on my way back on dive two, I looked up the rocks and then back forward. Five feet in front of me there was a turtle. It had one barnacle on the lower right side of its shell. It looked at me for a couple seconds and then swam off at a pace similar to the first turtle.
Between dives I sat on the beach off gassing and enjoying the beautiful day. While looking toward the jetties, I see a familiar face coming out of the water, Trever had been on a dive with his new buddy (his son is now certified). We seem to meet this way often, I think this is the third time we accidentally were at the jetties at the same time.
I took my gear to the dive shop on the way home, a year and a half put both my AL80s on the hydro and VIP list as well as the pony needing a VIP. My pony regulator free flowed on the second dive so I decided it needed service too. Just goes to show that diving frugal (like I try to do) doesn't always come cheap
. All in all this was a great re-introduction to my old swimming hole.
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