m7scuba
Contributor
Better late than never, but here is my report for the trip that we took down to Panama City Beach this past weekend. My LDS (Dolphin Dive Center) organized the trip and we dove most of our dives off of the Splash from Diver's Den.
We arrived late Thursday evening so that we could rest up for an afternoon dive on Friday. Saturday we got up early and did 2 morning dives and then 2 afternoon dives. Sunday morning we did 2 more dives before coming home. Here's what we saw:
USS Strength (8/12 2 p.m.) 2-5 ft viz @ 71 ft max
Bridge Span (8/12 3:30 p.m.) 5-20 ft viz @ 72 ft max (the better viz at top of span)
Two Tugs (8/13 8:30 a.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 101 ft max
Bridge Span (8/13 10 a.m.) 5-20 ft viz @ 72 ft max
Black Bart (8/13 2 p.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 82 ft max (saw a big jewfish)
Bridge Span (8/13 3:30 p.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 75 ft max
Hovercraft (8/14 9 a.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 76 ft max
Barge (8/14 10 a.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 62 ft max
I got my first "deep dive" this trip and also finished up my Nitrox cert (Sat a.m. dives). I got to see quite a few fish. I'm not good on knowing which is which yet, so I don't have notes as to what specifically I saw. It's pretty amazing to see a school of thousands of these small fish that can just set there in place and then the whole group of fish will quickly move in concert. I saw a few fish on the bottom that reminded me of catfish, but I'm not sure what they were. A couple of others in the group did see a couple of sharks, but I didn't find them 
. I saw loads of sea urchins on the last two wrecks (and I can't believe how naieve I was to actually hold one in Hawaii before I get certified).
I did attempt to rescue a 6" fish on one dive. I was swimming around the wreck and saw this fish pointing straight up. I thought it odd, so I came close and realized that the fish was hooked to the wreck. Looks like this was one that got away from the fisherman, but didn't really get away. I freed the hook from the wreck and removed the hook. I actually swam around with the fish in my hand for quite a while hoping that it would just swim off. It must have been there for a while because every time I let go it would try to swim and eventually sink to the sand on it's side. Eventually I decided to leave it - I guess it was either there too long and got too weak or was injured somehow. Sad.
This was my first s/w dive since I added the weights on the back of my Orion. I got all the way down to 12 lbs (just 2 in my pockets) and was probably still a pound or two heavy. It definately made buoyancy much easier than my certification trip in March where I had 22 lbs on (but I did have an additional 3 mil vest... ok nowhere near 10 lbs worth of neo...). This was also the first dives in s/w with my own regulator set. I had ordered a long hose, but it didn't come in before the trip. I borrowed one for the first 2 dives and can't wait until I can switch mine over. The jaw fatigue is night and day between a long hose that is wrapped and the hose that came with my reg. Now I'm just hoping that the 5' I got is going to be the right length for me.
In all this was a great trip. I'm looking forward to the next time I can get wet (probably in Lanier).
Brian
We arrived late Thursday evening so that we could rest up for an afternoon dive on Friday. Saturday we got up early and did 2 morning dives and then 2 afternoon dives. Sunday morning we did 2 more dives before coming home. Here's what we saw:
USS Strength (8/12 2 p.m.) 2-5 ft viz @ 71 ft max
Bridge Span (8/12 3:30 p.m.) 5-20 ft viz @ 72 ft max (the better viz at top of span)
Two Tugs (8/13 8:30 a.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 101 ft max
Bridge Span (8/13 10 a.m.) 5-20 ft viz @ 72 ft max
Black Bart (8/13 2 p.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 82 ft max (saw a big jewfish)
Bridge Span (8/13 3:30 p.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 75 ft max
Hovercraft (8/14 9 a.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 76 ft max
Barge (8/14 10 a.m.) 10-20 ft viz @ 62 ft max
. I saw loads of sea urchins on the last two wrecks (and I can't believe how naieve I was to actually hold one in Hawaii before I get certified).I did attempt to rescue a 6" fish on one dive. I was swimming around the wreck and saw this fish pointing straight up. I thought it odd, so I came close and realized that the fish was hooked to the wreck. Looks like this was one that got away from the fisherman, but didn't really get away
. I freed the hook from the wreck and removed the hook. I actually swam around with the fish in my hand for quite a while hoping that it would just swim off. It must have been there for a while because every time I let go it would try to swim and eventually sink to the sand on it's side. Eventually I decided to leave it - I guess it was either there too long and got too weak or was injured somehow. Sad.This was my first s/w dive since I added the weights on the back of my Orion. I got all the way down to 12 lbs (just 2 in my pockets) and was probably still a pound or two heavy. It definately made buoyancy much easier than my certification trip in March where I had 22 lbs on (but I did have an additional 3 mil vest... ok nowhere near 10 lbs worth of neo...). This was also the first dives in s/w with my own regulator set. I had ordered a long hose, but it didn't come in before the trip. I borrowed one for the first 2 dives and can't wait until I can switch mine over. The jaw fatigue is night and day between a long hose that is wrapped and the hose that came with my reg. Now I'm just hoping that the 5' I got is going to be the right length for me.
In all this was a great trip. I'm looking forward to the next time I can get wet (probably in Lanier).
Brian
