MRXRAY
Contributor
After quite a few "Non-Reportable" dives in the past few weeks, I'm happy to finally report that I made it to the water with my 'ole dive buddy Hetland. It had been a while since he and I have had a chance to dive together and as we both discussed before the dive old dive buddies are hard to beat. I headed down to Navarre Beach early in the morning to do a bit of scouting before calling Hetland and when I did it was with good news....."The water is near flat and the water looks blue". It didn't take much arm twisting to get him headed in this direction.
We met in the parking lot at around 11:30 AM but conditions had worsened since my morning call and the waves were starting to pick up, evident by the wake boarders starting to show up. But we decided our dehydration had gone far/long enough so we made our way back and suited up.
By 12:08 we were in the water and making our way through the surf and the long shore current which was fairly strong. We had to work fairly hard to get out to the missing section of pier on the old pier but once we did the current slacked off to the point that it was just barely noticeable.
Man had the landscape changed since the last storm blew through. At the base of each piling was a deep hole and most of the old rubble has again been exposed. Not to the levels it used to be but enough that you had some nice reveal. We made our way around checking out first one, then up to 6 Octopus by my count (I think Alex counted 3 or 4). They were all fairly small one that I played with for some time came out and got into the palm of my hand, I turned this into about a 15 minute play session which Alex came over and saw at one point.
It always amazes me how smart Octopus are, and here is a perfect example. I find this Octopus at the base of the piling, I take a few pictures, he inks and takes off to the other side of the piling so I chase him around trying to get more pictures. First to one side of the square then the next, and so on. I'd usually get one photo then he'd sneak around to the next side. This went on for a good five minutes to the point we had turned around the whole column maybe 5 times. Finally he started getting smart and instead of only going around one corner he'd go around two, so I'd try to go the opposite way and catch him on the reverse side....He figured that out quick and then would peek around the corner to see which way I was going and sometimes would double back on me, and twice he did a fake move only to go back to the spot of origin with only a quick fake around the corner.....I could only laugh to myself at how fun this game of peek-a-boo had become.
After 55 minutes and with Alex down on air we called the dive and started back, but I told him I wanted to look at one more spot real quick before we left. And, Shazaam....A small Loggerhead. I never got a pic as I it took of fairly quick and I was trying to make sure Alex saw it.
So we thumbed the dive and headed back, I was thinking on the way back up the slope that I couldn't wait to change tanks and head back, but as we hit 10 feet we were blasted by a huge current and the waves were kicking now. So as we huffed and puffed our way to shallow water and as we did the thought of a repeat dive came rumbling out of my head like a run away train, and the only thing I could think now was how far we'd already swam and how much further we still had to go......
We of course finally made it, winded but happy to have dove.
We made our way over to the New Heel-n-Backs in Navarre (Just East of the Navarre Bridge on the Sound side) to debrief and have some great pizza and talked over the games and stuffed ourselves on some awesome pizza!
Dive time was 55 minutes, Max depth was 22 feet the viz varied from 5-15 feet and I showed a min temp of 66* although it felt much warmer then that.
Some Octopus Pictures:
Some exposed rubble sections:
Devil's Spire:
The old double cave piece (Caves are not uncovered)
We met in the parking lot at around 11:30 AM but conditions had worsened since my morning call and the waves were starting to pick up, evident by the wake boarders starting to show up. But we decided our dehydration had gone far/long enough so we made our way back and suited up.
By 12:08 we were in the water and making our way through the surf and the long shore current which was fairly strong. We had to work fairly hard to get out to the missing section of pier on the old pier but once we did the current slacked off to the point that it was just barely noticeable.
Man had the landscape changed since the last storm blew through. At the base of each piling was a deep hole and most of the old rubble has again been exposed. Not to the levels it used to be but enough that you had some nice reveal. We made our way around checking out first one, then up to 6 Octopus by my count (I think Alex counted 3 or 4). They were all fairly small one that I played with for some time came out and got into the palm of my hand, I turned this into about a 15 minute play session which Alex came over and saw at one point.
It always amazes me how smart Octopus are, and here is a perfect example. I find this Octopus at the base of the piling, I take a few pictures, he inks and takes off to the other side of the piling so I chase him around trying to get more pictures. First to one side of the square then the next, and so on. I'd usually get one photo then he'd sneak around to the next side. This went on for a good five minutes to the point we had turned around the whole column maybe 5 times. Finally he started getting smart and instead of only going around one corner he'd go around two, so I'd try to go the opposite way and catch him on the reverse side....He figured that out quick and then would peek around the corner to see which way I was going and sometimes would double back on me, and twice he did a fake move only to go back to the spot of origin with only a quick fake around the corner.....I could only laugh to myself at how fun this game of peek-a-boo had become.
After 55 minutes and with Alex down on air we called the dive and started back, but I told him I wanted to look at one more spot real quick before we left. And, Shazaam....A small Loggerhead. I never got a pic as I it took of fairly quick and I was trying to make sure Alex saw it.
So we thumbed the dive and headed back, I was thinking on the way back up the slope that I couldn't wait to change tanks and head back, but as we hit 10 feet we were blasted by a huge current and the waves were kicking now. So as we huffed and puffed our way to shallow water and as we did the thought of a repeat dive came rumbling out of my head like a run away train, and the only thing I could think now was how far we'd already swam and how much further we still had to go......
We of course finally made it, winded but happy to have dove.
We made our way over to the New Heel-n-Backs in Navarre (Just East of the Navarre Bridge on the Sound side) to debrief and have some great pizza and talked over the games and stuffed ourselves on some awesome pizza!
Dive time was 55 minutes, Max depth was 22 feet the viz varied from 5-15 feet and I showed a min temp of 66* although it felt much warmer then that.
Some Octopus Pictures:
Some exposed rubble sections:
Devil's Spire:
The old double cave piece (Caves are not uncovered)
I'm posting the crap photos anyway LOL.
