Destin Florida Diving: Scuba Tech Review

[sportxlh]

Just spent the holiday weekend in the Destin and made 8 dives with Scuba Tech: I also made 4 dives a couple of weeks ago with them as well.

I can't say enough about how great this operator is: we visited numerous sites including natural reefs, wrecks and bridge rubble piles. I'm astonished at the macro life that you can find in Destin: its equal to or exceeds Blue Heron Bridge (have over 70+ dives on BHB from when I lived in SE Florida). A macro photographer was on the boat who made most of the same dives and she reporting see 100's of nudibranches and at least 10 different species. I personally saw 3 different species and probably a dozen individual nudi's.

Also saw a dozen batfish, several frogfish, a number of mantis shrimp, lots of regular shrimp, half a dozen goldentail morays, etc. Also saw some amazingly large spotted morays on Whitehill Reef, equal in size to some green morays I've seen in the Atlantic. Tons of triggers, fair amount of angels, spadefish, amberjacks, jacks, grouper, snapper and butterflies (and other tropicals). Also saw one big nurseshark on one of the reefs (don't recall which one) and a goliath grouper and a large bull shark on the Liberty ship site. We did visit a couple of sites multiple times, but that was OK since finding new frogfish or nudi's is an interesting as seeing a shark to me. One one dive, the DM kindly ran a reel from one site to another, so we could see both during the dive. Sites included:

Whitehill Reef
Thomas Hayward Liberty Ship
Barge
Tripplet's Reef
North Rubble
East Rubble
Main Rubble
Max's Artificial Reef/Rubble Pile
Amberjack Rocks Reef
Shoreline Reef

Captain Nancy was awesome, she's been driving the boat for 30+ years and is incredibly skilled. The deck hand, Sean, was very helpful and Tim, the in-water DM as well as gas blender, was great. The captain quickly figured out which divers were experienced and let us hop in first to maximize our time on nitrox. Dive lengths were 45-55 minutes. The boat is a large converted lobster boat: its pretty comfortable with a large sun shade and interior space. They've been using the Sea Cobra for years, so I've been told. Visibility was good for the area: between 25 and 45 feet depending on the site and the day. I've had similar vis on shallow reefs and during choppy weather on the big wrecks in the Keys. Virtually 0 current which is great when searching for macro life.

The only downside is that there is no rinse bin at the boat dock. The shop does have a rubbermaid standard garbage can that you can use to rinse gear but you'll have to wait in line if there are a lot of divers trying to do the same. Other than that one little nit, I really enjoyed my time in Destin with this operator

 

[Skeptic14]

Very cool, the weather forecast turned out to be way off and it was a great weekend. You hit the best spots for the area for sure; the liberty ship and whitehill are apparently quite sharky!

Glad you had some great dives!

 

[CajunDiva]

Thanks for the report. Destin is much closer to home for us, but I had no idea such interesting critters could be found in such abundance there. We'll have to give it a shot!

 

[drrich2]

Good to hear, especially up around the panhandle area (did a quick look at a map; brought back memories, my senior high school trip was to Fort Walton Beach a long time ago).

So, 45 - 50 minute dives using nitrox, and 25 - 45 foot viz. which was good for that area? How many dives were you doing/day, and to what depths? Just wondering about the choice to use nitrox; did you need it, or do you just prefer it when you can get it?

Richard.

 

[sportxlh]

Hey Richard; most days were AM 2 tank trips. I did take one full day trip as well. I had my non-diving spouse with me, so the afternoons were generally dedicated to her.

Depths ranged from 65 feet on the rubble piles to 87 feet on the reefs.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Macro? Who knew? (Okay, I'm sure a lot of people knew.) Destin's best kept secret, perhaps. I did a couple of boat dives in the area, and with only some exaggeration I have compared the diving with the lifeless surface of the moon. But that was several years ago--before I got into macro critters. BHB might be my favorite dive in FL, and a diver who is oblivious to small things might say the same about his first BHB dive. Destin is an easier drive for me. (Welcome to Atlanta, sportxlh, by the way.)

Perhaps the thing to do is let Scuba Tech know at the time of booking that we're macro people, so they can take it into account in choosing sites?

 

[sportxlh]

Lorenzoid: some of the sites, like the rubble piles, aren't that interesting if you're not looking for frog fish, nudi's, bat fish, mantis shrimp and eels. If you stray too far off any site, its is like being on the moon: you're right about that!!!. However, reefs like Whitehill have astounding biodiversity: I've only seen a couple of places in my 700+ dives that had as many fish and critters per linear foot. It was similar to sections of reefs in WPB and Jupiter that are known as 'fish bowls' were fish congregate in large numbers in small 100 and 200 foot sections. I forgot to mention that I saw a fish related to spotted drums (they had no spots but the fish shape was just like a spotted drum, not like top hats) schooling on Whitehill.... I've never seen that behavior before, these kind of drums are usually solo in the Atlantic.

I've been told that I've been particularly lucky with my Gulf dives, of which I've only done a couple dozen. Vis has usually been 40-50 feet on some of the dives on each trip which I understand is really good for the area. I've never had one of those 10 foot vis dives that I hear about.

I've also been pretty lucky with Goliath Grouper sightings in Panama City Beach and Gulf Shores too, in fact much better than sightings in the Keys. Last year I climbed in the wheelhouse of the LuLu with a calm Goliath and have seen four schooling on the bridge girders in PCB which took close passes when I was solo.

Cajun: don't give up the Keys trips: there's no place quite like it for a dive vacation, but stopping in Destin on the way to the Keys if your driving might be worth it for a day or two..... especially if you like macro. It also might be well worth a three day weekend trip, which is what I'm doing, if you don't want to tie up an entire week.

 

[flyingDiver75]

Sunday morning's dives from the Sea Cobra were pretty epic for my son and I - Liberty Ship and Whitehill Reef. We had nearly 80' vertical vis which is very uncommon.

For those interested, here's some photo highlights: Virgil Zetterlind
as well as a highlight video that gives a better perspective on just how much life is on these sites

 

[flyingDiver75]

Good to hear, especially up around the panhandle area (did a quick look at a map; brought back memories, my senior high school trip was to Fort Walton Beach a long time ago).

So, 45 - 50 minute dives using nitrox, and 25 - 45 foot viz. which was good for that area? How many dives were you doing/day, and to what depths? Just wondering about the choice to use nitrox; did you need it, or do you just prefer it when you can get it?

Richard.

The 'standard' Scubatech 2 tank trip is a 80 - 90' dive on a natural reef, then 1 hour surface interval, and dive on a wreck or artificial reef in the 65 - 75' range so nitrox will almost always buy more time - especially on the 2nd dive. When surface traffic permits, the Whitehill Reef + Liberty Ship dive is very popular as the ship sits just a few 100 yards from the reef. The top of the ship is at 70' with the bottom at 80' so it's a fairly deep 2nd dive. I dive HP100's and EAN32 and am usually deco limited for both dives.

Scubatech will run 2 trips a day if there is enough interest but it's fairly uncommon for people to do 2 trips a day. 25 - 45' viz is typical. 60+ is very good. Navigation ranges from easy on some of the natural reefs to challenging on some of the larger rubble piles. Site selection depends a lot on the expected viz, overall group experience level, ... but Nancy always does her best to drop the anchor where it's easy to find again.

 

[sportxlh]

Flyingdiver: I was diving my own tanks too, an HP 120 and 100. I requested 35% nitrox which gave me additional bottom time. I didn't get near NDL on any of the dives with the computer at 1.4 PO2. I self limited my bottom time so I wouldn't hold up the boat, generally got back on the boat with 1,000 to 1,500 psi in the tanks. Tim nailed the mix on each fill and filled the tanks to their limits.... my 120 is a 3440 pressure tank.

BTW: I enjoyed the video. Nice segment of the frog fish swimming! Looks like the bull visited you on the Liberty ship too. On Monday, it was down in the sand near the divers, not more than 10 feet away.

One other thing I forgot to mention. We had a bent diver one day, so I got to see the crew in an emergency situation..... they responded excellently: very prompt action with no hint of panic. They were in control of the situation and got the diver on O2 immediately with quick calls to EMS. We had a police boat escort as we took the diver to the dock near the bridge (which I think is the coast guard location). A diver would be in good hands with these folks in an emergency situation.