SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
After driving up to Tuscaloosa Friday night, I was up by 7:45AM Saturday morning for the one hour drive to ABWA in Pelham, AL. Three hours of sleep is plenty right? Mikey Paul and I made it to the parking lot, just a bit after opening to see ~ half dozen cars already in the parking lot. We signed in, geared up, and hit the water before all but one other pair had made it in. The steps are slippery, I busted *** on the way in - ugh! We swam South and buzzed past the sailboat and bus to check out the wall that drops to ~120'. Visibility was anywhere between 3 and 30' depending on location and there were two very discernable thermoclines. 82ºF on the surface, mid 60sºF around 50' and we showed 55ºF as our coldest temperature at our max depth of 125'. We spent around 5 min at depth before ascending to 60', to open our NDL times on the computers up a bit and headed back towards the docks. We looked at some of the cars and boats that were submerged on the way back in and then did a 2 min safety stop at 30' and a 3 min safety stop at 15'. I saw two fish, both bass, during our 35min dive.
I munched down a bag of chips and drank the rest of my grape juice during our ~ hour SI. The sun felt great outside. It was sunny and air temps were in the mid 80sºF. We geared back up and I busted *** again on the steps, dang it! We made our way back to the sailboat to take a closer look and back to the school bus again for a few swim throughs and a visit by the octopus. We checked out a few hoopty's on the bottom in transit as well as a Dimetrodon hanging onto a line. After playing around the bus, we headed South and worked our way West of the docks to play near the firetrucks and bream beds. Found a volkswagen beetle half buried in silt and checked it out for a bit being a fan of veedubs Fine automobiles, even when sunk. We played around the firetruck before being guided by another diver to some concrete culverts and some large coi. We missed a large catfish that he was trying to show us, D'Oh! Lots of bream and bass were out by this time and they weren't very shy. Our depths maxed at 77' by the sailboat and gradually ascended throughout the rest of our nearly hour long dive.
We had a great time and will definately be visiting this site again. There's a new Hooters in Pelham that I've never been to before, some lookers in there to boot!
I'll post pics later, I'm still in Tuscaloosa, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow
I munched down a bag of chips and drank the rest of my grape juice during our ~ hour SI. The sun felt great outside. It was sunny and air temps were in the mid 80sºF. We geared back up and I busted *** again on the steps, dang it! We made our way back to the sailboat to take a closer look and back to the school bus again for a few swim throughs and a visit by the octopus. We checked out a few hoopty's on the bottom in transit as well as a Dimetrodon hanging onto a line. After playing around the bus, we headed South and worked our way West of the docks to play near the firetrucks and bream beds. Found a volkswagen beetle half buried in silt and checked it out for a bit being a fan of veedubs Fine automobiles, even when sunk. We played around the firetruck before being guided by another diver to some concrete culverts and some large coi. We missed a large catfish that he was trying to show us, D'Oh! Lots of bream and bass were out by this time and they weren't very shy. Our depths maxed at 77' by the sailboat and gradually ascended throughout the rest of our nearly hour long dive.
We had a great time and will definately be visiting this site again. There's a new Hooters in Pelham that I've never been to before, some lookers in there to boot!
I'll post pics later, I'm still in Tuscaloosa, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow