I took a snorkel at the old Crystal Beach pier pilings in Destin the day before Thanksgiving. There isn't a lot to report. At best in the summer, this is only a modestly interesting spot to get wet. This time it was a nice day with air temps of about 70 and surf less than 1 ft. Visibilty was about 15 ft. The only fish I saw were one sheepshead, one moderate-sized stingray, numerous molly miller blennies on the pilings, and a few baby drums (whiting?) in the shallows. Seeing the stingray wasn't surprising, because this place always seems to attract larger-sized rays. Over the years, I think there has been only one I time I have been here that I haven't seen a ray. Barracuda also seem to be more common here than at the Destin jetties.
This place is now too shallow for a scuba dive. Submerged pilings extend out to a depth of 8 ft. and then disappear. In some previous years, I remember the pilings similarly disappeared, then if you searched farther out in deeper water, you could find more pilings in maybe 10-14 ft of water. I searched quite a bit this time and found nothing but sand. The offshore pilings appear to have sanded-in, because even offshore I found water no deeper than 8 ft. and it eventually shoaled to 6 ft.
The one thing that made this snorkel worthwhile was octopus. I saw three of them, two in the hollowed-out tops of pilings and one in an old pipe. I've seen octo here before a few times in Nov., but never in summer, so there may be some seasonal pattern of migration going on. I managed to get an acceptable photo of the largest sized octo, which I am happy with because this is my first octopus photo from Destin!
This place is now too shallow for a scuba dive. Submerged pilings extend out to a depth of 8 ft. and then disappear. In some previous years, I remember the pilings similarly disappeared, then if you searched farther out in deeper water, you could find more pilings in maybe 10-14 ft of water. I searched quite a bit this time and found nothing but sand. The offshore pilings appear to have sanded-in, because even offshore I found water no deeper than 8 ft. and it eventually shoaled to 6 ft.
The one thing that made this snorkel worthwhile was octopus. I saw three of them, two in the hollowed-out tops of pilings and one in an old pipe. I've seen octo here before a few times in Nov., but never in summer, so there may be some seasonal pattern of migration going on. I managed to get an acceptable photo of the largest sized octo, which I am happy with because this is my first octopus photo from Destin!
