Crystal Pier pilings (5-08-2006)

[mike_s]

SeaYoda and I just finished diving the Crystal Beach Pier Pilings.

Boy the sand erosion from recent hurricanes has really filled in the sand around the pilings. What used to be 12-15+ feet deep is now only 6-9 feet deep. Not really worth hauling your gear out for that.

It still wasn't a terrible dive, but the wave surge was enough to bounce you around a lot because of the shallow conditions. Worst part was all the floating "june grass" which made vis go down to 5-10 feet in a few places.

I've included a few pics, but most were worthless because of the june grass. You can see it in some of the pics.

Not a terrible dive, but definately done better. The shallow conditions have really changed the dive over the years. Still better than being at work though.

-mike

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

What kind of fish in the last pic?

Still looks like a fun dive

 

[SeaYoda]

It was a good dive despite the changes in depth and June grass. I hope the algae doesn't get too bad for the Jetty dive Friday.

 

[mike_s]

That last fish? I dunno.... Sea Yoda and I decided to call them "convict" fish.


of course we were almost "convicts" too. The beach patrol was sitting on their 4 wheelers waiting on us for diving without a flag.

The guy was pretty nice though and just told us that we should be using a flag when diving there because of boats. He agreed with us though when we said that it would be pretty funny to see a boat run into that area with all the pilings broken off just a few feet below the waterline. (hmmmm.... that's be a nice new wreck to dive on....)