Tessunderwater
Contributor
This past Sunday me and Doccarl went boat diving with a couple of the guys from the dive shop and a mutual friend who captained the boat. This was a huge diving milestone for me especially, it was my first boat dive and my first offshore rig. Lets just say I was nervous to start out with. We headed about 10 miles off dauphin island about 8am and stopped at a smaller rig. There was moderate current and moderate to heavy surge which got slightly stronger at the second rig. At the beginning of the first dive I had trouble clearing my right ear so I ended up staying between 10 and 20 feet for the first 15 to 20 minutes. Finally got the ear to clear and descended to the bottom at about 65 feet. My buoyancy was the best it's been since I started diving 
I finally had that light click in the back of my head. The visibility was 8 to 10 till you got halfway down and opened up to 20 to 30, the water was pretty green and our dive buddies said these were the worst conditions they have seen there. Schools of sheepshead were all around the rig, with a few red snapper, grouper and spade fish. The structure was covered with small and very large bleemies and tons of yellow light bulb anemones. Healthy coral was abundant with fan looking coral, tubes, some that were white and had a winding pattern. The water was 63 degrees at depth but the air temp was in the upper 60's to low 70's. Doccarl did some spear fishing and shot two good size sheepshead :dance3:. Meanwhile, with the boys having to fight a little with the last catch I made friends with a rather flirty angel fish that didn't seemed too worried about the large spear. The second rig we got to was a "triple rig" or three grouped together. The conditions were about the same here with just as much life, but not as deep only 55 max. This was the hardest dive I've done so far and enjoyed it immensely. I got to use my boat skills and appreciate the lack of beach sand.
I finally had that light click in the back of my head. The visibility was 8 to 10 till you got halfway down and opened up to 20 to 30, the water was pretty green and our dive buddies said these were the worst conditions they have seen there. Schools of sheepshead were all around the rig, with a few red snapper, grouper and spade fish. The structure was covered with small and very large bleemies and tons of yellow light bulb anemones. Healthy coral was abundant with fan looking coral, tubes, some that were white and had a winding pattern. The water was 63 degrees at depth but the air temp was in the upper 60's to low 70's. Doccarl did some spear fishing and shot two good size sheepshead :dance3:. Meanwhile, with the boys having to fight a little with the last catch I made friends with a rather flirty angel fish that didn't seemed too worried about the large spear. The second rig we got to was a "triple rig" or three grouped together. The conditions were about the same here with just as much life, but not as deep only 55 max. This was the hardest dive I've done so far and enjoyed it immensely. I got to use my boat skills and appreciate the lack of beach sand.
