MRXRAY
Contributor
Recharge, Grouper321 and myself headed out to do some near shore diving and to check out some of the local wrecks and see how the marine life was doing. Our first stop of the day was to be Tug Tessie but after a lot of looking (Sonar) we gave up and headed to an alternate spot nearby. (If anyone has good numbers or an update on the status of Tug Tessie I'd love to hear from you!) So after very little debate we decided to head to the Soule Barge and towers which is about 8 miles South of the pass.
This is a real nice Barge that lies upside down in about 75 feet of water with some radio towers scattered to the East of it. I saw a small shark on the first dive with Grouper321 but he never saw it. I joined Recharge for a second short dive on the Soule Barge and was blessed with two visits from the Same shark. I ended up with about 10 seconds of video as I swam along side the shark at a fairly good clip until I had long lost sight of the barge and had to compass back to it. It was a nice dive albeit a barge, but it had a lot of holes in it which you could look into and see some nice fish hiding out. Splash time was 10:13 for 30 and 18 minutes respectively to a max depth of 78 feet. Temps were 72* on the bottom and nearly 85 in the top 30-40 feet. We called the viz at about 30 feet.
After two dives on the Soule Barge we felt we HAD to go to the Russian Freighter and see what things looked like there as it would be a good judge as to the general conditions of the reefs in the area. Splash time was 12:36 and we were the only ones on the wreck diving with only one boat trolling around the perimeter. I have to tell you that things pretty much the same to me, lots of fish including a couple of very nice, big, Jackknife fish and the usual long list of critters, Including an egg laden huge Spiny lobster. There were some of the largest schools of Aj's I've seen in a while and I got a few nice photos and some video. Dive time was 40 minutes with a max depth of 80 feet, a min temp of 72* (Man did that cooler water feel good after sitting in the sun) and viz was again about 30-40 feet.
We left there and headed over to the USS Massachusetts to finish the day off. The water looked very green on the surface as we pulled up but a local charter group on the "Wet Booty" told us the viz was 20 feet so we gave it a go. They were right the water was very green in spots and sometimes the viz dropped to 5 feet but other times it just opened up to 25. I love this site and the huge amounts of life on it. We did see a few small bait fish dead on the bottom (About 4-5) but I'd say that with the 5 million that were on the wreck that a good bit of the was due to just natural death. Again the life was great here as well, and Grouper321 and I toured the wreck a few times in our nearly 1 hour dive.
All in all it was a great, hot day on the water. The viz was great, the fish life was abundant, and we saw no oil to speak of either above or below the water. There is a layer of schmutz from 10-35 feet that is thick with....****-ah-do-know-whatiz, which you have to hang in for your safety stop but this is very normal for this time of the year.
Here is the video and some pictures from the trip.....
[vimeo]13801556[/vimeo]
This is a real nice Barge that lies upside down in about 75 feet of water with some radio towers scattered to the East of it. I saw a small shark on the first dive with Grouper321 but he never saw it. I joined Recharge for a second short dive on the Soule Barge and was blessed with two visits from the Same shark. I ended up with about 10 seconds of video as I swam along side the shark at a fairly good clip until I had long lost sight of the barge and had to compass back to it. It was a nice dive albeit a barge, but it had a lot of holes in it which you could look into and see some nice fish hiding out. Splash time was 10:13 for 30 and 18 minutes respectively to a max depth of 78 feet. Temps were 72* on the bottom and nearly 85 in the top 30-40 feet. We called the viz at about 30 feet.
After two dives on the Soule Barge we felt we HAD to go to the Russian Freighter and see what things looked like there as it would be a good judge as to the general conditions of the reefs in the area. Splash time was 12:36 and we were the only ones on the wreck diving with only one boat trolling around the perimeter. I have to tell you that things pretty much the same to me, lots of fish including a couple of very nice, big, Jackknife fish and the usual long list of critters, Including an egg laden huge Spiny lobster. There were some of the largest schools of Aj's I've seen in a while and I got a few nice photos and some video. Dive time was 40 minutes with a max depth of 80 feet, a min temp of 72* (Man did that cooler water feel good after sitting in the sun) and viz was again about 30-40 feet.
We left there and headed over to the USS Massachusetts to finish the day off. The water looked very green on the surface as we pulled up but a local charter group on the "Wet Booty" told us the viz was 20 feet so we gave it a go. They were right the water was very green in spots and sometimes the viz dropped to 5 feet but other times it just opened up to 25. I love this site and the huge amounts of life on it. We did see a few small bait fish dead on the bottom (About 4-5) but I'd say that with the 5 million that were on the wreck that a good bit of the was due to just natural death. Again the life was great here as well, and Grouper321 and I toured the wreck a few times in our nearly 1 hour dive.
All in all it was a great, hot day on the water. The viz was great, the fish life was abundant, and we saw no oil to speak of either above or below the water. There is a layer of schmutz from 10-35 feet that is thick with....****-ah-do-know-whatiz, which you have to hang in for your safety stop but this is very normal for this time of the year.
Here is the video and some pictures from the trip.....
[vimeo]13801556[/vimeo]
