Christmas Tree and Ft. Pickens Dive Report 6/15

[Tessunderwater]

Kmenees and I got early and headed out to the new artificial reef site in pensacola on wednesday. Thanks to airstream's GPS coordinates, the shore entry site was easy to find. We had a bit of a hard time finding the buoy but managed to drop down as soon as we saw the outline of the structures from above, the visibility was about 15 to 20'. We saw tons of bluecrab and the bleenies practically came out of thier barnacle holes and greeted us upon arrival. It looks like that area has become a favorite blue crab spawning ground. We saw a school of spade fish and another school of a fish I did not recognize. After a little over an hour, we dicided to head back to shore and check out Ft. Pickens.
We arrived at Ft. Pickens as the tide was coming in so we expected the usual lower visibility. To our surprise the visibility was great about 25' and the current wasn't that strong. I caught a very surprised puffer fish during our descent and after kate and I said our hellos, we let the poor guy go all blown up and upset. We did the usual rounds, seeing a grouper and a stingray and many arrow crabs. The water for both dives was kinda cool at about 74 degrees. A great day of diving.

 

[Jay_SMART_Diver]

I'll be vacationing in Pensacola Beach July 9th-16th and definitely want to dive these spots. Got a few questions if ya'll don't mind:

Did you guys have to float a flag for the Xmas Trees site?
How hard is it to cross the road and dunes (which trail, if any, do you take from the GPS coord parking lot) to get to the water?
Is it easy to find the "poles" airstream talked about if you can't see the mooring ball?

Don't know which days I'm gonna shore dive yet, will depend on when that week I get to dive the "O" (bringing my tanks filled with Nitrox for the "O" and will shore dive after on 21%).
Thanks!!

 

[Tessunderwater]

I'll be vacationing in Pensacola Beach July 9th-16th and definitely want to dive these spots. Got a few questions if ya'll don't mind:

Did you guys have to float a flag for the Xmas Trees site?
How hard is it to cross the road and dunes (which trail, if any, do you take from the GPS coord parking lot) to get to the water?
Is it easy to find the "poles" airstream talked about if you can't see the mooring ball?

Don't know which days I'm gonna shore dive yet, will depend on when that week I get to dive the "O" (bringing my tanks filled with Nitrox for the "O" and will shore dive after on 21%).
Thanks!!

Yes, you do need a flag and the poles are easy to find. We back finned out off the poles and staying just on the west side of them, after about 100 yards or so we saw the first set of trees and just dropped on top of them. There are a couple of trails to get through the dunes. The closest trail to the poles is on the far east side of the parking lot and there is no worry about crossing the road because the parking lot is on the same side as the dive site, gulf.

 

[MRXRAY]

Thanks for the Update!

 

[DocCarl]

Thanks for leaving me at work while you two went! lol

Seriously though, I would like to check this site out some time.

 

[Jay_SMART_Diver]

Yes, you do need a flag and the poles are easy to find. We back finned out off the poles and staying just on the west side of them, after about 100 yards or so we saw the first set of trees and just dropped on top of them. There are a couple of trails to get through the dunes. The closest trail to the poles is on the far east side of the parking lot and there is no worry about crossing the road because the parking lot is on the same side as the dive site, gulf.

Cool I thought that it was on the Sound side, not the Gulf Side thanks for the info. Anyone gonna be around and diving the 9th-16th?

 

[paulwall]

What are the depths?

 

[Tessunderwater]

What are the depths?

We got 16 feet.

Cool I thought that it was on the Sound side, not the Gulf Side thanks for the info. Anyone gonna be around and diving the 9th-16th?

Check with the board, I'll be boat diving in PC beach that weekend.