sontek
Contributor
5/21/2010
On Friday I decided to head out solo and do a dive at Ft.Pickens, we had got in some strong current a couple days prior and decided to leave my reel and flag down there and come back and get them... So I went down to get them and discovered my rope still tide onto the tire but each side of the line cut and my reel and flag gone... so someone decided my equipment was free for the taking
Entered the water at 3:12pm, went down to the big tire and then down to the rocket launcher (formerly known as the pipe organ
) and played with the 2 octopus that were in there... 1 was on top so you could see his whole body, the other was in the hole and was munching on a crab. Afterwards I started heading west towards the toilet and found a guitar fish and a batfish, both I had never seen before so it was a great dive! There was about 15ft of vis at deeper depth, shallower depths had a warm thermocline that blurred things out.
Entered: 3:12
Bottom Time: 69min
Max Depth: 46ft
Temp: 71 degrees
5/22/2010
Nyxtom and I woke up bright and early today to see what Pickens had to offer at high tide since the last few times we went out together were well past high tide and had to toughen it through some pretty rough condition and it payed off!
Since someone stole my dive flag and reel we decided right when we woke up that today was a treasure hunting dive, we wanted an anchor to make up for the lost equipment and we were not disappointed!
We swam out to the marker buoy and entered the water at 8:13am and followed its chain around looking for anchors but nothing to be found other than some sheepshead, so then we started heading southwest up towards the rest of Pickens and decided to practice with our lift bag, so we snagged up a brick and took it to the surface and back down just to get a feel for it (we haven't used lift bags other than during advanced open water course). Found a guitar fish after dropping off the brick and then headed back up to end the dive.
Entered: 8:13
Bottom Time: 67min
Max Depth: 57ft
Temp: 71 degrees
We surfaced to find mrmccoy had finally arrived (he had trouble getting the local gulf breeze dive shop to fill tanks when they opened, so he had to head over to scuba shack). He hadn't been to Ft.Pickens too many times so I wanted to give him the grand tour so we dropped down to the toilet, then worked our way over to the rocket launcher, and then to the jeep. After showing him those we set back out on our treasure hunt and headed out to the bobsled where we found some *HUGE* groupers and then shot across to the old tire cage and on our way there we found this bad boy:
1987 US Navy 45KG Anchor.
So we hooked up the lift bag and took him to the surface, hes 100lbs and I had a 100lb lift bag so it worked out perfectly... We found the batfish again and had a fun time bring the anchor to shore.
Entered: 9:51am
Bottom Time: 43min
Temp: 71 degrees
Max Depth: 52ft
On Friday I decided to head out solo and do a dive at Ft.Pickens, we had got in some strong current a couple days prior and decided to leave my reel and flag down there and come back and get them... So I went down to get them and discovered my rope still tide onto the tire but each side of the line cut and my reel and flag gone... so someone decided my equipment was free for the taking
Entered the water at 3:12pm, went down to the big tire and then down to the rocket launcher (formerly known as the pipe organ
) and played with the 2 octopus that were in there... 1 was on top so you could see his whole body, the other was in the hole and was munching on a crab. Afterwards I started heading west towards the toilet and found a guitar fish and a batfish, both I had never seen before so it was a great dive! There was about 15ft of vis at deeper depth, shallower depths had a warm thermocline that blurred things out.Entered: 3:12
Bottom Time: 69min
Max Depth: 46ft
Temp: 71 degrees
5/22/2010
Nyxtom and I woke up bright and early today to see what Pickens had to offer at high tide since the last few times we went out together were well past high tide and had to toughen it through some pretty rough condition and it payed off!
Since someone stole my dive flag and reel we decided right when we woke up that today was a treasure hunting dive, we wanted an anchor to make up for the lost equipment and we were not disappointed!
We swam out to the marker buoy and entered the water at 8:13am and followed its chain around looking for anchors but nothing to be found other than some sheepshead, so then we started heading southwest up towards the rest of Pickens and decided to practice with our lift bag, so we snagged up a brick and took it to the surface and back down just to get a feel for it (we haven't used lift bags other than during advanced open water course). Found a guitar fish after dropping off the brick and then headed back up to end the dive.
Entered: 8:13
Bottom Time: 67min
Max Depth: 57ft
Temp: 71 degrees
We surfaced to find mrmccoy had finally arrived (he had trouble getting the local gulf breeze dive shop to fill tanks when they opened, so he had to head over to scuba shack). He hadn't been to Ft.Pickens too many times so I wanted to give him the grand tour so we dropped down to the toilet, then worked our way over to the rocket launcher, and then to the jeep. After showing him those we set back out on our treasure hunt and headed out to the bobsled where we found some *HUGE* groupers and then shot across to the old tire cage and on our way there we found this bad boy:
1987 US Navy 45KG Anchor.
So we hooked up the lift bag and took him to the surface, hes 100lbs and I had a 100lb lift bag so it worked out perfectly... We found the batfish again and had a fun time bring the anchor to shore.
Entered: 9:51am
Bottom Time: 43min
Temp: 71 degrees
Max Depth: 52ft
