Dive Report: St. Andrews State Park 23 April 2010

[MRXRAY]

Hetland, Jhayes and I decided that we'd head to Panama City for some shore diving on Friday and man am I glad we did!

The weather man agreed to let us have a little sunshine to make up for the rain the night before and since we were experiencing a near slack tide we were thinking the viz may not be that great, but as we scoped the site from the walkway to the beach we thought that we were in for a treat.

We spoke to some divers that were on there surface interval, and we were suprised to hear that the viz was about 10 feet so as we geared up we were telling ourselves that we'd just make the best of average conditions and just trudge through the day.

So it was as we entered the water at about 11:30 with Macro lenses in hand that we were mentally prepared for...... Holy Crap, did they say 10 feet? The viz in the kiddie pool was pushing 30 feet and as we made our way through the breakwall I was astonished to look down and see the sand below....Some 20 feet. Those guys must have meant 10 Meters not 10 feet! The viz was AWESOME for St. Andrews. We made our way South on the first dive, and since I had my Macro lens all set I mainly stayed in the top 20 feet for most of the dive shooting macro shots of Blennies, only jumping down to a max of 67 feet for a few minutes to investigate the viz below. All in all I'd say we had about 25 feet of viz for most of the first dive and a min temp of 70*. The colorful reef fish seemd fairly prevelant compared to most of my dives lately (Which I was very glad to see) and I never noticed being cold in my 5 mm. The dive was Great and we all 3 called it after about 74 minutes.

Here are a few of my shots:

 

[MRXRAY]

A few more shots:

 

[GLENFWB]

GREAT shots Barry. I would like to get that Red Fish on the end of a rod and reel!

 

[MRXRAY]

Dive # 2: Splash time: 1:40 PM

We decided to head North our of the Break this time toward shallower water and we were immediately struck by the decrease in viz. It seemed much more silty on this visit which would slowly decrease over the dive to about 20 feet... No complaints though!

So as we started North I decided to take a tour of the dredging as this area seems to hold some interesting things every time I visit the wall like diggings left by the recent dredgings. As I approached the edge of the drop off I saw a very large Sting Ray take off and never got an opportunity for a pciture but it was a biggy. I then focused my attention on what looked like a bundle of fishing line stuck around something..... Oooooooh, it was a batfish.

We took quite a few pictures of the Batfish and then I gently nudged him to make sure he wasn't or wouldn't become entangled in the line, and then we left him. Only to find another one only a few minutes later, and then another one. It was Batfish-a-looza. So after blinding all the local batfish with numerous strobe firings we made our way back to the rocks where we searched for more elusive species of fish and invertabrae and then ultimately headed back to the kiddie pool after some 95 minutes at depth. I marked 70* min temp for this dive as well and a max depth of only 50 feet on this dive.

Here are a few photos from dive #2:

Pipefish:

 

[jhayes75]

LOL, we must have been typing the same report at the same time, Awesome shots, I still think you have the lead here.

 

[oceanbound]

outstanding shots! Thanks for sharing. Good to know there is somewhere in North FL besides springs that are possible to dive. What was water temps?

 

[tntgalbreath]

Great pics, as always!!

 

[Hetland]

Damsel shot is simply amazing. I've never seen one that close and clear.

 

[MRXRAY]

outstanding shots! Thanks for sharing. Good to know there is somewhere in North FL besides springs that are possible to dive. What was water temps?

Temps were 70*

 

[jhayes75]

Damsel shot is simply amazing. I've never seen one that close and clear.

ditto!