Alabama Point seawall & Jetties Dive report 1-13-08

[wjefferis]

I got out to Alabama Point today trying to do a little more diving of the area to familiarize myself with the seawall and explore the jetty. The weather was really nice for a winter dive with air temps at 64* according to my computer the water temps were 59* at the surface. Viz was 10 to 15 feet. The plan was to make a one tank dive and explore both the seawall and the jetty. We started out down the seawall and just made a slow trip along the wall. We made it out to a large air conditioning unit at about 20 fsw and decided to turn around and start back towards the jetty. During this time we ran into 3 sea horses just hanging around. We stopped and played with them and I took a couple pics and then we were on our way. We made it to the jetty and started down it. After a short while I felt bursts of warm water ahead and I took off through a thermocline that was very pronounced into 62* water. You could literally look up and see the cold water layer. I played around lifting my head into the cooler water and then lowering it into the warmer water. I really enjoyed the jetty. Next time I will do an entire tank on it and really explore it. We eventually turned and headed back to our entry point after a dive time of 61 minutes, max depth of 22 feet, surfacing with 1400 psi still in my AL80. This was definitely a nice way to end this weekend of diving. I didn’t feel like taking a bunch of pictures on this trip, but here are a couple.

 

[algulfdiver]

Did You go on low tide? Who went with You?

 

[wjefferis]

Low tide was at 9:30 am and we splashed in at around 12:00. There was not supposed to to be a big shift so we tried it. I didn't really didn't feel any significant current, mostly felt slack. High tide was scheduled for 5:48 pm, so I figured we would at least have an in-coming tide hopefully making the viz decent. When I arrived it looked like the tide was out-going and the water was a bit brackish. Anyhoozle there was enough viz to make the dive so we did it. I partnered up with Gary Toms, not sure if you have met him before or not.

Just to make sure I was reading the tide tables correctly. I went to saltwatertides.com, clicked on the alababame section, and selected Mobile Point/Ft. Morgan. The only thing I didn't do was add on the 15 minutes to the high tide times since we were diving at noon and I didn't think it would really matter. Was that correct? Because it didn't seem like we were diving an in-coming tide.

I was thinking about getting in another dive to check out the jetty sometime towards the end of the month if anybody wants to go. I will look at some dates and throw them out to see what works best for somebody or for several people.

 

[gulfdiver1970]

i went out to the seawall yesterday, was real nice cool. I didn`t stay to long , i got to about 15 fsw , watched a few schools of lady fish, then headed back current was picking up a little , just didn`t wanna get in caught in it , but was a great day!! . It was close to low tide then , water was about 15 vis.

 

[GLENFWB]

Let me know when you are going...I would like to dive it sometime.

I was thinking about getting in another dive to check out the jetty sometime towards the end of the month if anybody wants to go. I will look at some dates and throw them out to see what works best for somebody or for several people.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

wjefferis, sounds like you did the tide thing right.

Great pics, some of the best I think you've posted so far.

Thanks for the report.

 

[algulfdiver]

I agree good pic's

 

[snepdiver]

Nice pictures. Looks like some good diving in that area. I have not tried it there though. YET.

 

[denisegg]

Walter you are becoming quite the photographer!! Great job!!

 

[scubacoots3]

great pics what type of camera do you use?