Destin Dive report for Sat, Aug 22

[Puffer Fish]

I see Glen has already posted his pictures...

I was a bit concerned on the way down to Destin, as there were heavy rains and a fair amount of wind... but the forecast was for 1 to 2 ft waves....still, lots of rain means lots of run off.

So sat morning I met Glen at the dive shop and showed him some enlargements from my camera.. starting at 13 x 18, and going up to a cropped image that would have been a 20 x 24 enlargement. As Glen has a better setup than I do, I was hoping that at some point, he would say..."man, I'll never get images like that.. he Puffer just take my camera" I waited and waited... but he never did say that (darn)...

There turned out to be a fairly stiff off shore breeze.. and waves a bit bigger than 1 to 2, so that meant staying close to shore.. so shoreline and rubble were going to be the fare for the day.

Jumping in at Shoreline, and we were greeted with cold surface water (rain) and what sort of looked like snow.. lots and lots of snow. Even on the bottom, there was some fresh water mixing with salt and that blurry effect. This was not going to be a great photo day...

Still vis was not that bad.. it was just filled with large particles.

I have not been to shoreline for a couple of weeks, and was surprised to see it covered with stringy algae...

You can see the stuff here:

There were arrowhead crabs everywhere, and some appeared to be eating it.

So we did a circle of the reef, with me trying to stay away from everyone (and not doing a good job)... (I really need a tank sticker that says "Danger: Do not approach with 100 ft"

So, as the conditions sucked, I tried to get that really good picture of an arrowhead crab.. and failed (again)... one day... but I did get a couple somewhat interesting:

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showfull.php?photo=136054

 

[Puffer Fish]

I have a bunch more photo's, thanks to several member explaining the old DOS method of doing a copy and SBM... got it figured out...thanks everyone.

 

[GLENFWB]

As Glen has a better setup than I do, I was hoping that at some point, he would say..."man, I'll never get images like that.. he Puffer just take my camera" I waited and waited... but he never did say that (darn)...

Heck no I didn't.....I can live with you taking better pictures then me...but it would be very embarassing if you take better pictures with my own camera!

You can see the stuff here:
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showfull.php?photo=136055

Great pictures Jim. You DID get some great Arrow Crab shots...I hate that I missed the Octopus. You must have got that when I was avoiding the crowd, and staying by myself. My favorite is the closeup of the crossed eyed fish that really looks ticked off!

Enjoyed the dives....let's do it again!

 

[Puffer Fish]

So to post a picture in a thread, you have to use the old Control C... seems some of our people are still working in DOS...hello.... they just came up with windows.. (arrrrgggg).

Anyway, the Crab image:

 

[Puffer Fish]

Ok, it is the image, but the wrong size...humm.

Note: got it corrected..

 

[Puffer Fish]

So at the end of the reef, away from everyone... I found an octo... and a damsel fish... the damsel would approach the octo... and the octo would spray sand in it's face... then the damsel would back off and repeat.. did not get the actual sand spraying, but here are the two guys together:

Notice the color of the eye change from the first photo to the last... did not know they did that.

 

[Puffer Fish]

I did get a couple of ok shots:

 

[Puffer Fish]

After a very short surface break...down to the rubble...

I shot this under a ledge.. upside down...

 

[Puffer Fish]

Oddly, the fish did not seem to like the snow, any more than we did...and while I expect damsel fish to have an attitude, now the reef fish did.. So rather than just sit there, as they usually do like this:

They got upset at any thing I did:

and when that did not work...took it up a notch:

 

[Puffer Fish]

While I was doing face shots: