I made a trip to the Santa Rosa beach over the July 4th weekend and managed to squeeze in a couple of dives out of Panama City. The dives were great, but I was less than impressed by the outfit I selected.
We signed up for a 4 hour charter with Hydrospace, and visited the Wreck of the Strength, and a sunken bridge span that was acting as an artificial reef.
The Strength was covered with little bait fish, and a lot of mostly gray overgrowth. Just little splashes of color here and there that made it interesting. I couple of little sharks dashed in and out of the schools of bait fish looking for a snack. The clouds of bait fish were pretty impressive, and I dont think I seen quite that many outside of Cozumel.
The bridge span was pretty cool. The steel beams were covered in colorful corals, sponges, crabs, and fish. There were several of the biggest Barracuda that I have ever seen before. Ive run into plenty in Honduras and Cozumel and never felt any qualms about getting close. These guys were in the heavyweight class and I felt pretty intimidated about getting too close. I took a bunch of photos, but never got within more than 10 feet or so. They must have been about 6 feet long and about 18 inches or more wide. Impressive.
The Hydrospace operation was the only letdown of the experience. They did have nice boats, and the crew was polite. Their shop, storerooms, and repair facility was a disaster area. It looked really disorganized and sloppy. No Nitrox was available as the compressor was broken. After loading up the boat, they checked the fuel supply and found it to be a little on the low side. No matter, it should be good for four hours. Well, try about 3:45! Predictably the boat ran out of gas about 5 miles offshore and had to be towed in.
Still I had fun, and took a few shots with my Ikelite / D70 / 18-70 rig.
Photos
Dave
We signed up for a 4 hour charter with Hydrospace, and visited the Wreck of the Strength, and a sunken bridge span that was acting as an artificial reef.
The Strength was covered with little bait fish, and a lot of mostly gray overgrowth. Just little splashes of color here and there that made it interesting. I couple of little sharks dashed in and out of the schools of bait fish looking for a snack. The clouds of bait fish were pretty impressive, and I dont think I seen quite that many outside of Cozumel.
The bridge span was pretty cool. The steel beams were covered in colorful corals, sponges, crabs, and fish. There were several of the biggest Barracuda that I have ever seen before. Ive run into plenty in Honduras and Cozumel and never felt any qualms about getting close. These guys were in the heavyweight class and I felt pretty intimidated about getting too close. I took a bunch of photos, but never got within more than 10 feet or so. They must have been about 6 feet long and about 18 inches or more wide. Impressive.
The Hydrospace operation was the only letdown of the experience. They did have nice boats, and the crew was polite. Their shop, storerooms, and repair facility was a disaster area. It looked really disorganized and sloppy. No Nitrox was available as the compressor was broken. After loading up the boat, they checked the fuel supply and found it to be a little on the low side. No matter, it should be good for four hours. Well, try about 3:45! Predictably the boat ran out of gas about 5 miles offshore and had to be towed in.
Still I had fun, and took a few shots with my Ikelite / D70 / 18-70 rig.
Photos
Dave
