Dive Report: Ft. Pickens Jettie Night Dive 06-25-2011

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MRXRAY

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Hetland and I headed to Ft. Pickens Jettie for a night dive after a quick splash at the new Portifino Reef. (The Portifion Reef will be nice once more life moves in, we did however see one small Octopus on one of the Christmas trees.)

Splash time was 8:45 PM and the viz looked like it was 15-20 feet but with all the particulate it was hard to see much further than 15 feet with a flashlight. We made our way to the tire with Rods to tie our flag off and then headed deeper toward the organ in search of Critters to photograph. It didn't take long for us to stumble upon a nice Octopus that was just starting to venture out of it's hiding hole.

I shot a little video and took some shots of him but he wasn't very interested in entertaining visitors so we headed west in search of more victims. Again, it didn't take long for us to find some more willing participants and we spent almost our entire 75 minute dive playing with one or two Octopus in a 100 sqft area.

We came across a pair of Octopus engaged in a little foreplay which involves the male passing a package to the female which she.....well you get the idea. For an Octopus lover this was better than listening to stories of the EGG's favorite porn stars. :shocked2:

We also got to play with some huge shrimp (Prawn sized), I caught and released two, and a couple of squid. I had a great photo dive and will post a few pictures below!

We ended our dive at just past 10:00 PM. I showed a min temp of 79*. After the dive we headed to IHOP for some breakfast.....Yummy!

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Soap fish eating a pin fish..... Very odd sighting.
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+1 for the night time shots at pickens, those look great ! Makes me want to go.
 
Yep, it was a great trip. Every five minutes we spotted something new and cool, like the soapfish in the middle of his dinner, or the octos gettin' busy. Lots to see. And while the viz could have been better, there was almost no current to speak of, so it was a relaxing hour or so.
 
Great pictures, I especially like the squid.
 
I too loved the squid pic. I don't recall seeing pics or hearing about squid in the Panhandle. They are fairly common in the Caribbean when you snorkel.
 
I've been in a school of squid in Destin diving the Miss Louise. They were all over. We also saw a sandtiger that night (my first shark iirc) so I was nervous on the safety stop when a decent-sized squid slammed into my (errr) crotch-strap area and immediately inked, which looks like blood if you've ever seen it, and it took me a second to realize I had not just been speared in the... crotch-strap area., but then I saw the dazed squid, and figured out what happened.

I usually see a handful of squid on most night dives at Pickens, but they are always very small (1/2 inch or so) and usually don't stop for photos. We were constantly pelted, and I mean PELTED by thousands of very small bait fish the other night. I found several dead ones when I was braking down my gear.
 
Squid are definately common during night dives, between 1/2" and up to several inches long.
 
Nice pics Xray.... absolutely love Fort Pickens. The current stuff in the water makes photo's difficult without some backscatter...I'm getting it also.
 
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