MRXRAY
Contributor
I was extremely excited when I talked with Hetland late in the week to work out a plan for some diving as it looked like the weather was actually going to cooperate for a change.....A high in the low 60's seems a far cry from exciting but add some sunshine and that's a recipe for a day outside! So we ultimately decided to road trip to Panama City Beach and the Jetties at St. Andrews state park.
It didn't take much convincing to get Recharge and Grouper 321 to join us and we ended up with a few students of BBDC in Gulf Breeze joining us as well. So it was that we struck out on a nice Saturday morning from Navarre with a caravan of 3 vehicles testing the radar guns of the police along Hwy 98 between Navarre and PCB. We ended up arriving at a perfect time near 10:30 (after a brief delay getting everyone through the gate at the state park) and soon had camp set up under a pavilion near the cross over to the beach.
The conditions looked ideal with the sun shining and the water in the kiddie pool looking pristine. I was very surprised to note that you can nearly walk all the way out to the posts in the water where they normally put the swim area rope, which would indicate a huge wash of sand has entered the kiddie pool which left only about 30 feet of "deeper" water (about 5-7 feet deep) along the inside of the jettie. This is a huge change from last year. But, the water looked very clean in the kiddie pool and the water was flat calm from a North wind with just barely a ripple in the channel.
We had a brief dive briefing about the conditions, the plan of attack, direction, etc. and by 11:30 we were finally underwater. The conditions were a bit disappointing even with a strong incoming tide and current with a very heavy particulate which blocked a lot of the sunlight through the first 20 feet. We all made our way down to the sand at about 35 feet and then turned South toward the Gulf. We made our way over and around the boulders towards a max depth of 67 feet. The viz was quite a bit better at depth on the the southward trip but the particulate definitely impeded viz and viz never got above 10 feet.
I was surprised to find a dead Toadfish right off the bat, possibly another victim of the extended cold water temps, and never saw a single Toadfish the entire rest of the dive, although we spotted a lot of Sheepsheads, a ton of large grouper, some nice schools of black snapper, and even one very big red snapper. Outside of a couple of very cold looking damsels, and the usual blennies who probably only survive by sheer determination and fascinating high energy work ethic, we didn't see many "Reef fish". Even the usual large population of blue angels appeared to be whittled down to just one. Still, I really enjoyed the dive, so much so that Hetland and I braved the cold surface interval made a bit more pleasant by Recharges fossil fuel burner.
I showed a temp of 62* on both dives and viz about 5-10 feet. Hetland and I stayed shallow on the second dive focusing our attention on some macro photography since the particulate was lass than ideal for anything else.
Here are a couple of photos I managed to salvage:
It didn't take much convincing to get Recharge and Grouper 321 to join us and we ended up with a few students of BBDC in Gulf Breeze joining us as well. So it was that we struck out on a nice Saturday morning from Navarre with a caravan of 3 vehicles testing the radar guns of the police along Hwy 98 between Navarre and PCB. We ended up arriving at a perfect time near 10:30 (after a brief delay getting everyone through the gate at the state park) and soon had camp set up under a pavilion near the cross over to the beach.
The conditions looked ideal with the sun shining and the water in the kiddie pool looking pristine. I was very surprised to note that you can nearly walk all the way out to the posts in the water where they normally put the swim area rope, which would indicate a huge wash of sand has entered the kiddie pool which left only about 30 feet of "deeper" water (about 5-7 feet deep) along the inside of the jettie. This is a huge change from last year. But, the water looked very clean in the kiddie pool and the water was flat calm from a North wind with just barely a ripple in the channel.
We had a brief dive briefing about the conditions, the plan of attack, direction, etc. and by 11:30 we were finally underwater. The conditions were a bit disappointing even with a strong incoming tide and current with a very heavy particulate which blocked a lot of the sunlight through the first 20 feet. We all made our way down to the sand at about 35 feet and then turned South toward the Gulf. We made our way over and around the boulders towards a max depth of 67 feet. The viz was quite a bit better at depth on the the southward trip but the particulate definitely impeded viz and viz never got above 10 feet.
I was surprised to find a dead Toadfish right off the bat, possibly another victim of the extended cold water temps, and never saw a single Toadfish the entire rest of the dive, although we spotted a lot of Sheepsheads, a ton of large grouper, some nice schools of black snapper, and even one very big red snapper. Outside of a couple of very cold looking damsels, and the usual blennies who probably only survive by sheer determination and fascinating high energy work ethic, we didn't see many "Reef fish". Even the usual large population of blue angels appeared to be whittled down to just one. Still, I really enjoyed the dive, so much so that Hetland and I braved the cold surface interval made a bit more pleasant by Recharges fossil fuel burner.
I showed a temp of 62* on both dives and viz about 5-10 feet. Hetland and I stayed shallow on the second dive focusing our attention on some macro photography since the particulate was lass than ideal for anything else.
Here are a couple of photos I managed to salvage:
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