MRXRAY
Contributor
Met with GlenFWB, Dan, Recharge, and Chris? to dive with Wreck Raider in Panama City today. Glen set the trip up with hopes of rubbing elbows with some big wig photographers which to shutterbugs like myself is a chance to oogle at great gear and hopefully pick up a few tips. Unfortunately our pro got posted to an assignment and we lost out opportunity to dive with him, but we decided to go anyway.
Meet time was 8:00AM at Rods house/dock and it wasn't long before we were loaded up and heading out into a chilly morning with slightly higher than we hoped waves. The Wreck Raider did a great job of powering through the 4' swells and before long it was decided that our offshore trip would have to be moved in a bit. So for dive 1 we opted for the Liberty Ship USS Benjamin Grierson, a 441 foot ship hull some 57 feet wide, (7 1/2 Miles from the pass) which as our Captain for the day Scott so aptly pointed out looks like a big 'ole canoe.
Our deck hand/dive master Nick, splashed first and made his way down for the hard tie and returned with some bad news....Viz was about 5-10 feet. This unfortunately turned our hopes for underwater photography upside down and we all opted to leave our cameras onboard the boat during the dive.
Recharge and I hit the water first since we were going to try and spearfish and so at 9:35AM I hit the water and started my descent into the murky depths. The boat finally came into view at about 60 feet and Nicks call was right on the money about 5-10 feet of viz.....Yuck! I made my way aft along the Port side watching all the near extinct red snappers dart in front of me but no big grouper or trigger, just red snapper. I made my way to the rear and circled back up the Starboard side and then jumped back across to the middle of the wreck and made my way through the ship looking into every hole I came upon. I'm sure we kicked some grouper up but with the viz we just couldn't see them.....And so it went until I finally made my way back to the line and headed back up with Recharge after 45 minutes with a max depth of 78 feet and a min temp of 63*. There was a nice thermocline at about 40 feet that seemed to get gradually warmer as we surfaced at about 69* but that bottom temp was COLD in that 5mm!
After we retrieved our hard tie we moved closer to shore to the USS Strength which is a 184 foot old Navy minesweeper that has been split in half by hurricanes but sits up right with about an 8 foot gap between the bow section and the rest of the ship. This is a very interesting dive that I've committed to going back to with better viz as she has a tremendous reveal (some 20 plus feet). Viz had increased significantly on this dive to about 20 feet and the temp was up a bit as well hovering at about 65* with that same thermocline at around 40 feet. I managed to spook a nice Gag but he rolled out of site before I got lined up good on him and ended up sticking one in the sand but I did come back to the boat with a keeper AJ to round out the trip.
All in all it was a nice day on the water with excellent friends and a great crew. We headed to the Mellow Mushroom to debrief over some pizza before heading home as our thoughts turned to the upcoming springfest just a couple of weeks away!
Meet time was 8:00AM at Rods house/dock and it wasn't long before we were loaded up and heading out into a chilly morning with slightly higher than we hoped waves. The Wreck Raider did a great job of powering through the 4' swells and before long it was decided that our offshore trip would have to be moved in a bit. So for dive 1 we opted for the Liberty Ship USS Benjamin Grierson, a 441 foot ship hull some 57 feet wide, (7 1/2 Miles from the pass) which as our Captain for the day Scott so aptly pointed out looks like a big 'ole canoe.
Our deck hand/dive master Nick, splashed first and made his way down for the hard tie and returned with some bad news....Viz was about 5-10 feet. This unfortunately turned our hopes for underwater photography upside down and we all opted to leave our cameras onboard the boat during the dive.
Recharge and I hit the water first since we were going to try and spearfish and so at 9:35AM I hit the water and started my descent into the murky depths. The boat finally came into view at about 60 feet and Nicks call was right on the money about 5-10 feet of viz.....Yuck! I made my way aft along the Port side watching all the near extinct red snappers dart in front of me but no big grouper or trigger, just red snapper. I made my way to the rear and circled back up the Starboard side and then jumped back across to the middle of the wreck and made my way through the ship looking into every hole I came upon. I'm sure we kicked some grouper up but with the viz we just couldn't see them.....And so it went until I finally made my way back to the line and headed back up with Recharge after 45 minutes with a max depth of 78 feet and a min temp of 63*. There was a nice thermocline at about 40 feet that seemed to get gradually warmer as we surfaced at about 69* but that bottom temp was COLD in that 5mm!
After we retrieved our hard tie we moved closer to shore to the USS Strength which is a 184 foot old Navy minesweeper that has been split in half by hurricanes but sits up right with about an 8 foot gap between the bow section and the rest of the ship. This is a very interesting dive that I've committed to going back to with better viz as she has a tremendous reveal (some 20 plus feet). Viz had increased significantly on this dive to about 20 feet and the temp was up a bit as well hovering at about 65* with that same thermocline at around 40 feet. I managed to spook a nice Gag but he rolled out of site before I got lined up good on him and ended up sticking one in the sand but I did come back to the boat with a keeper AJ to round out the trip.
All in all it was a nice day on the water with excellent friends and a great crew. We headed to the Mellow Mushroom to debrief over some pizza before heading home as our thoughts turned to the upcoming springfest just a couple of weeks away!
Risky
Like Barry I want to make a return trip to the USS Strength. It is a wreck that has a lot of areas that need to be explored. 
