SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Vortex 8-20 & 8-21-10
My original plans to explore on a certain panhandle waterway got all jacked up...
Vis was good. I dove 21% in backgas, stage, and safety, with 100% in my deco bottle. Left the safety in the cave for team 2, brought everything else back out. 150' max depth for a run time of 95 minutes. Team 2 brought the safety out with them.
Vis was good on Saturday as well. I dove 21% again, same in the stage, and 100% for deco. 110' for 18 minutes, gate was locked, had to get a key and refill stages. Back underwater :11 minutes later for a dive to 130', lasting 85 minutes.
'nough of that.
Gulf Shores Beach Wrecks on 8-22-10
Time for some low impact diving, enjoyable too. Time to jump back in the salt in Gulf Shores, tar balls are seemingly gone and the gov says its OK to jump in the water, we'll see. Meet time was at 8AM, I thought Down Under opened then and figured I'd be 20 minutes late. They don't open till 10AM on Sundays though, so I headed over to the Whiskey with a 72 with 1800 of 21%, no biggy, its the Whiskey Wreck and I'd be in 15' of water. Paulwall was already out in the water, with Doccarl and Tessunderwater making there way there. Mccormick waited for me and I geared up and started my way down the beach ASAP. The water felt great! Gulf was bluish, but kinda cloudy and visibilty ranged from 3-10' depending on where on the wreck you were located. The east/sternside of the wreck was fairly well covered, but the western/bow portion was very much exposed. I ran a line from the sheered off portion of the main area to the bow portions. Had a great dive and spotted many flounder, a sheepshead, spade, and several other little fish like grunts and pigfish. Blue crab were everywhere, mostly bearing eggs though :/ Hit 14' for a dive around an hour. Water was in the lowish 80sF. I dove monkey with the Nomad.
We headed to Down Under for some fills afterwards, didn't take long, and we headed west to look at Paul's Shrimpboat. The water looked like coffee that far west, so we decided that food was in order and Bahama Bobs would fit the bill nicely. The food was great and I tried for a local discount and got shot down - D'Oh.
Carl and Tess headed back home, but we decided one more dive was in order. McCormick got stuffed in the trunk and we headed to the West Beach Paddlewheeler. Some thunderheads rolled in and the lightning started, damned close too. I got scared, not gonna lie. Everything moved away quickly and we went ahead with the dive. The gulf looked better here than further east, strangely enough. Visibility was a bit better too, 5-12'. On my first circumnavigation of the wreck, I scared off a vicious 1.5' long nurseshark. I wish it would have stuck around longer
Lots of fish here as well, mangroves were all over the boilers, flounder were common, couple spades, couple of sheepshead, lots of bluecrabs again, a few stones, and urchins were also very common. I dove with the jacket BC this time with an BM'd AL80, the way God intended. It was a great dive and we hit 15' for another dive of about an hour.
Great dives and no sightings of oil. There were a few crews on the beach working, but otherwise it seemed like everything was back to normal. I needed some relaxed dives and these just really hit the spot, even met a few new Scubaboarders and had some good food. Its the way it should be!
My original plans to explore on a certain panhandle waterway got all jacked up...
Vis was good. I dove 21% in backgas, stage, and safety, with 100% in my deco bottle. Left the safety in the cave for team 2, brought everything else back out. 150' max depth for a run time of 95 minutes. Team 2 brought the safety out with them.
Vis was good on Saturday as well. I dove 21% again, same in the stage, and 100% for deco. 110' for 18 minutes, gate was locked, had to get a key and refill stages. Back underwater :11 minutes later for a dive to 130', lasting 85 minutes.
'nough of that.
Gulf Shores Beach Wrecks on 8-22-10
Time for some low impact diving, enjoyable too. Time to jump back in the salt in Gulf Shores, tar balls are seemingly gone and the gov says its OK to jump in the water, we'll see. Meet time was at 8AM, I thought Down Under opened then and figured I'd be 20 minutes late. They don't open till 10AM on Sundays though, so I headed over to the Whiskey with a 72 with 1800 of 21%, no biggy, its the Whiskey Wreck and I'd be in 15' of water. Paulwall was already out in the water, with Doccarl and Tessunderwater making there way there. Mccormick waited for me and I geared up and started my way down the beach ASAP. The water felt great! Gulf was bluish, but kinda cloudy and visibilty ranged from 3-10' depending on where on the wreck you were located. The east/sternside of the wreck was fairly well covered, but the western/bow portion was very much exposed. I ran a line from the sheered off portion of the main area to the bow portions. Had a great dive and spotted many flounder, a sheepshead, spade, and several other little fish like grunts and pigfish. Blue crab were everywhere, mostly bearing eggs though :/ Hit 14' for a dive around an hour. Water was in the lowish 80sF. I dove monkey with the Nomad.
We headed to Down Under for some fills afterwards, didn't take long, and we headed west to look at Paul's Shrimpboat. The water looked like coffee that far west, so we decided that food was in order and Bahama Bobs would fit the bill nicely. The food was great and I tried for a local discount and got shot down - D'Oh.
Carl and Tess headed back home, but we decided one more dive was in order. McCormick got stuffed in the trunk and we headed to the West Beach Paddlewheeler. Some thunderheads rolled in and the lightning started, damned close too. I got scared, not gonna lie. Everything moved away quickly and we went ahead with the dive. The gulf looked better here than further east, strangely enough. Visibility was a bit better too, 5-12'. On my first circumnavigation of the wreck, I scared off a vicious 1.5' long nurseshark. I wish it would have stuck around longer
Lots of fish here as well, mangroves were all over the boilers, flounder were common, couple spades, couple of sheepshead, lots of bluecrabs again, a few stones, and urchins were also very common. I dove with the jacket BC this time with an BM'd AL80, the way God intended. It was a great dive and we hit 15' for another dive of about an hour. Great dives and no sightings of oil. There were a few crews on the beach working, but otherwise it seemed like everything was back to normal. I needed some relaxed dives and these just really hit the spot, even met a few new Scubaboarders and had some good food. Its the way it should be!
