SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Destin Jetties
High Tides were at 8:**AMish and GLENFWB and SeaYoda decided on a meet time of 7AM, so I was up by 4:45AM to gather the rest of my stuff and get on the road. I saw another sunrise from behind the wheel of my car while driving East. Thank God for sun visors. The ride was easy, not much traffic, great weather, and an itch to dive some saltwater. I made it ontime and SeaYoda was already onsite gearing up. kchFLA was right behind me, Halftime was just down the road with his daughter, and GLENFWB was only a few minutes behind with his family. The plan was to dive two tanks here at the jetties, so I geared up, threw my jacket + 80 on the back, then another 80 over my shoulder and started to trudge it a quarter mile through the sand to our divesite.
The water looked great from the surface, clear, blue, but the marker bouys in the channel sure were tilting sideways a bit. Awesome, we can expect current, as well as the need to crawl. Atleast I forgot my gloves at home. Air temps were in the mid-70s and they felt great, the water was 86F and just felt straight up muggy compared to the air outside. There were a few jellyfish to avoid in the first 20' of water at our entry, but they were few and very far between once we passed the metal trough used for our tie-in. Visibility at this point was around 25', but would be reduced considerably towards the point with waves of algae blume all over the place dropping vis to 5' or so. Almost immediately, I spotted a blue crab, then another, and while they weren't all over the place like last year, atleast they were around. This is the first I've seen bluecrab onsite since last year, when they were so numerous you'd have to be carefull not to get pinched! There were the ever present pigfish, pinfish, flounder, stonecrab, wrasse, razorfish, sandfish, parrotfish, puffers, filefish, doctorfish, butterflyfish, blennies, damsels, arrowcrab, red grouper, octopii, cigar minnows, bar jacks, ect. Certainly no shortage of life. By the time we reached the point, we were all pulling and gliding. We hung around a bit at the anchor than moved on. Glen and myself ventured a bit over to the southside of the jetty for just a bit before crossing back over and to the northside. The dive ended up lasting 68 minutes with a max depth of 54'. We had the site to ourselves for the most part.
Nearly an hour later, we were back in the water with fresh tanks to start our second dive. This time, there were several boats onsite, and lots of divers in the water(mostly classes). The tides weren't running nearly as badly as on the first, and were often nearly slack. I managed the dive without the need for any pulling on the rocks, great since I had no gloves! We saw all the usual suspects and got to the anchor again, where I nearly nailed a scorpianfish with my knee - thankfully SeaYoda warned me beforehand. Halftime and I venture up the southside of the jetties, then turned and headed back to the point and back around to the northside. He was running a bit low so we headed back to the trough where he waved goodbye and I turned around to meet up with SeaYoda and we headed back to the anchor. I managed to spend enough time, diving air, on these two dives to get to a point where I had to pay attention to NDL. I was about 7 minutes from NDL when SeaYoda signalled his turnaround pressure for us to head on back. I've never considered Destin Jetties a place where you'd have to worry about going into deco at - LOL. We hit 54' again and our dive time lasted a leisurely 75 minutes.
Morrison Springs
After the long haul back to the vehicles, then to ScubaTech for a couple fills, and Wendy's for some grub; GLEN, Halftime, and I headed to Morrison Springs for a third, cleanup dive. Traffic was light, it looks like the season has finally ended, thank God. Morrison was packed though. There were cars everywhere, but as we geared up, it seems as though we had timed it correctly since lots of people were in the process of packing and leaving. It wasn't nearly as chaotic as the last few weekends, regardless. We talked to Little Rich(MBT) and a couple of the other MBT staff doing some OW classes, then noticed PerroneFord and his supervisor in the water as well.
I didn't dive with any exposure suite at the Jetties, but most certainly packed a 3mm for Morrison's(68F) water. We suited up and threw the gear back on and hit the water a bit over three hours after our last Jetty dive. Visibility wasn't awefull, probably 20-40' in OW, spottless as always in the cavern. Our team dove our typical dive plan, head to the cavern, dive a third of our pressure, exit, screw around in the basin then start our ascent. I ran a line in the cavern and noticed my gnome still in the same place I put it a few weeks ago. There was a little bulldog statue down there now, that I had never seen before. The eels and catfish were in force down below and the bream and bass were in OW. After we made it back to the basin, I took some time to swim around without my mask. I also practiced my don-doft as well. After a max depth of 85', we were heading out of the water after 35 minutes, all of us with lots of gas still in our tanks.
I ended up being free for the rest of the evening so I stuck around Morrison for a bit and ended up at Sally's with Perrone and his buddy. Thanks for the beer again! After that, I headed to Vortex to visit with Rick Murchison and Tom Smedley and their classes. Tom,thanks for the beer again! LOL Its always fun hanging out with their groups. Laughs and jokes abroad and everyone always seems in a good mood. Oh, and they cookout too! The Vortex feud still exists, but the good news is that the official dive price for Vortex is $19 and it still comes with a free air fill. At that price, Vortex is worthwhile if you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it in awhile.
Had a great set of dives as always and I couldn't ask for a better group of buddies. Looking forward to next time.
High Tides were at 8:**AMish and GLENFWB and SeaYoda decided on a meet time of 7AM, so I was up by 4:45AM to gather the rest of my stuff and get on the road. I saw another sunrise from behind the wheel of my car while driving East. Thank God for sun visors. The ride was easy, not much traffic, great weather, and an itch to dive some saltwater. I made it ontime and SeaYoda was already onsite gearing up. kchFLA was right behind me, Halftime was just down the road with his daughter, and GLENFWB was only a few minutes behind with his family. The plan was to dive two tanks here at the jetties, so I geared up, threw my jacket + 80 on the back, then another 80 over my shoulder and started to trudge it a quarter mile through the sand to our divesite.
The water looked great from the surface, clear, blue, but the marker bouys in the channel sure were tilting sideways a bit. Awesome, we can expect current, as well as the need to crawl. Atleast I forgot my gloves at home. Air temps were in the mid-70s and they felt great, the water was 86F and just felt straight up muggy compared to the air outside. There were a few jellyfish to avoid in the first 20' of water at our entry, but they were few and very far between once we passed the metal trough used for our tie-in. Visibility at this point was around 25', but would be reduced considerably towards the point with waves of algae blume all over the place dropping vis to 5' or so. Almost immediately, I spotted a blue crab, then another, and while they weren't all over the place like last year, atleast they were around. This is the first I've seen bluecrab onsite since last year, when they were so numerous you'd have to be carefull not to get pinched! There were the ever present pigfish, pinfish, flounder, stonecrab, wrasse, razorfish, sandfish, parrotfish, puffers, filefish, doctorfish, butterflyfish, blennies, damsels, arrowcrab, red grouper, octopii, cigar minnows, bar jacks, ect. Certainly no shortage of life. By the time we reached the point, we were all pulling and gliding. We hung around a bit at the anchor than moved on. Glen and myself ventured a bit over to the southside of the jetty for just a bit before crossing back over and to the northside. The dive ended up lasting 68 minutes with a max depth of 54'. We had the site to ourselves for the most part.
Nearly an hour later, we were back in the water with fresh tanks to start our second dive. This time, there were several boats onsite, and lots of divers in the water(mostly classes). The tides weren't running nearly as badly as on the first, and were often nearly slack. I managed the dive without the need for any pulling on the rocks, great since I had no gloves! We saw all the usual suspects and got to the anchor again, where I nearly nailed a scorpianfish with my knee - thankfully SeaYoda warned me beforehand. Halftime and I venture up the southside of the jetties, then turned and headed back to the point and back around to the northside. He was running a bit low so we headed back to the trough where he waved goodbye and I turned around to meet up with SeaYoda and we headed back to the anchor. I managed to spend enough time, diving air, on these two dives to get to a point where I had to pay attention to NDL. I was about 7 minutes from NDL when SeaYoda signalled his turnaround pressure for us to head on back. I've never considered Destin Jetties a place where you'd have to worry about going into deco at - LOL. We hit 54' again and our dive time lasted a leisurely 75 minutes.
Morrison Springs
After the long haul back to the vehicles, then to ScubaTech for a couple fills, and Wendy's for some grub; GLEN, Halftime, and I headed to Morrison Springs for a third, cleanup dive. Traffic was light, it looks like the season has finally ended, thank God. Morrison was packed though. There were cars everywhere, but as we geared up, it seems as though we had timed it correctly since lots of people were in the process of packing and leaving. It wasn't nearly as chaotic as the last few weekends, regardless. We talked to Little Rich(MBT) and a couple of the other MBT staff doing some OW classes, then noticed PerroneFord and his supervisor in the water as well.
I didn't dive with any exposure suite at the Jetties, but most certainly packed a 3mm for Morrison's(68F) water. We suited up and threw the gear back on and hit the water a bit over three hours after our last Jetty dive. Visibility wasn't awefull, probably 20-40' in OW, spottless as always in the cavern. Our team dove our typical dive plan, head to the cavern, dive a third of our pressure, exit, screw around in the basin then start our ascent. I ran a line in the cavern and noticed my gnome still in the same place I put it a few weeks ago. There was a little bulldog statue down there now, that I had never seen before. The eels and catfish were in force down below and the bream and bass were in OW. After we made it back to the basin, I took some time to swim around without my mask. I also practiced my don-doft as well. After a max depth of 85', we were heading out of the water after 35 minutes, all of us with lots of gas still in our tanks.
I ended up being free for the rest of the evening so I stuck around Morrison for a bit and ended up at Sally's with Perrone and his buddy. Thanks for the beer again! After that, I headed to Vortex to visit with Rick Murchison and Tom Smedley and their classes. Tom,thanks for the beer again! LOL Its always fun hanging out with their groups. Laughs and jokes abroad and everyone always seems in a good mood. Oh, and they cookout too! The Vortex feud still exists, but the good news is that the official dive price for Vortex is $19 and it still comes with a free air fill. At that price, Vortex is worthwhile if you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it in awhile.
Had a great set of dives as always and I couldn't ask for a better group of buddies. Looking forward to next time.
