A bit of post-Sally info from a favorite dive outfit in Orange Beach Alabama

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Down Under dive shop, and the boat of the same name, are an outfit I have used a number of times, and really like them.

Orange Beach and Pensacola got absolultely hammered by Hurricane Sally, though "onlyi" a Cat 1, she pushed a whole lot of water ahead of her.

Anyway I would typically day-dive there this time of year before the Gulf gets too cold.

So I called them mostly ask how they came through it. The news wasn't all that bad. The marina sustained some damage but wasn't wiped out. Dock boxes went drifting away, water was very high. But their boat is okay. They're waiting to hear about the channel depths, which may have been affected. In which case they might make a dive trip next weekend or the one after that.

I haven't checked with the other ops I've used over in Pensacola, ScubaShack and MBT Divers. Hope they are okay.

 

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To follow up, today I checked in with Scuba Shack, another of my favorite operators, they're in the downtown Pensacola dock area. Their boat, the WET DREAM (no I'm not making that up) is all right, but docks damaged and unavailable. So the outlook regarding autumn day dives is uncertain at present.

Also the bridge to Santa Rosa Island got knocked out by a construction barge that hit it during the hurricane, which cuts down on the vacationers and weekenders. Accordingly, they might use the boat temporarliy as a passenger ferry from the city out to the island, until the dive scene gets sorted out.

Very nice folks. Dive with them some time when you can. They're just under three hours'drive for me from New Orleans, so I can make one long day of it.

I don't want to speak too soon, but every one of the four gulf storms at some point had us right in the middle of their 'cone'. They all ended up east or west of us. We've been lucky.

On a larger note, there's still a need for donations for the folks in and from Lake Charles, and now for the Florida/Alabama shore area residents. New Orleans took in about 12,000 refugees from Lake Charles. Which is crazy, normally we are the refugees rather than the refuge.

Donations to Second Harvest Food bank and the Red Cross most welcome in both areas. Lake Charles got really torn up. and the Orange Beach/Pensacola shore towns drowned in water.


Diving may have to wait a bit. But patronize them when you can. It's surprisingly good diving that sort of flies under radar.






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