wjefferis
Contributor
I made it out to Ft. Pickens today (9-24-09) and met up with Mrxray around noon for a couple of dives. The weather was fantastic which was really great after the last several dives here being done in less than ideal weather. Unfortunately the water had a very dark tannic stain color to it today, darker than I have seen it so far this year. I didn’t give up all hope since I have seen tannic water conditions here several times this year and once I have popped below ten or fifteen feet it has always opened up, today was no different. The current on our first dive was very noticeable. I was surprised that it was still moving as swift as it was since low tide was less than two hours away when we got in. There was a boat right by the main rock jetty so we went down the right side of the East rock pile to the jeep frame. I saw an anchor line and at first I thought it was the boat’s anchor that I saw by the main jetty, but I soon realized that the line was cut and the anchor was fouled in the jeep body. Mrxray made short work of coiling up the rope and I attached my dive flag to the anchor chain. From there we made it over to the “organ” and I found the resident octopus still hiding in his spot. While looking around the base of the organ, Mrxray found a friggin’ huge octopus, it was very cool. We ended up making a 60 minute dive and Mrxray recovered the anchor. Water temps were 85* at depth with viz at 10 to 15 below the thermocline (which was at 19 feet today) and about 2 to 3 feet of viz in the tannic nasty stuff above.
Mrxray and I swapped out tanks and got back into the water after a short surface interval to loud cussing from the one of the two guys in the boat fishing near the main rock jetty. I usually could care less but this guy started to threaten that he was going to use his grapple hook to pull us to the surface and other nonsense. So I used a few of my favorite four letter words and let him know that if I saw a grapple hook in the water I would cut his anchor rope, this really made him mad. I then ignored the rest of the ranting and started talking with Mrxray. Meanwhile the other guy in the boat figured it was time to go and the loud mouth tried to pull the anchor and low and behold it he wasn’t fouled . I yelled over to the guy and asked if his anchor was fouled and he just dropped his shoulders and said in a low voice “yes.” I guess he was expecting a sarcastic remark. I instead told him that I would help him out, but he was still too proud to accept my help and they tried without luck to get unstuck. I then took the “higher road” and told this guy that I didn’t want to see him loose his anchor and that I would be glad to help him out. I could tell this guy felt like a schmuck, he was now helpless and needing help from the same guys he was cursing just minutes before. Mrxray and I started our dive by making a B-line out to the guys’ anchor which was fouled inside of a mostly buried tire and freed him. I guess the good karma from freeing this guys’ anchor paid off immediately as this turned out to be a very nice dive. The current slacked up completely and out in the pass the visibility picked up from our last dive. We headed out to the tank/culvert and then out to the drum. From there we went out to the Northeast to an area I call the “wash-out” which has a shell bottom. I saw a large silver object sailing by. When I shined my light over to it I saw a friggin’ huge barracuda checking us out. I have never seen such a large barracuda in the pass, it was cool. From there we headed back to the tank/culvert area. I was able to see some more structure directly to the West of the tank/culvert section so we headed over there and found a large metal object and a concrete reef pyramid. I was super happy to find more new stuff out in the pass to check out. The inside of the pyramid was full of white anemones which looked really cool. From there I spotted some rocks that continued West from the large metal object and followed them to some more decent sized metal objects, sweet even more new stuff!!!!! I saw a small little sting ray out in this area, but he took off pretty quick. From there we headed back towards the West rock pile and then over to the East pile. I think we found a total of five octopuses amongst the rocks. We ended up making a 70 something minute dive. Karma ended up working well for us today. I look forward to making another dive here soon. I only took a few pictures during the first dive due to the current and I decided to leave the camera in the truck on the second dive (big mistake). Most of my pictures turned out crappy since it was a bit hard to get good pictures while trying to not let the current sweep me off to Cuba. Hopefully Mrxray will be nice enough to share some of his. Here are a few of mine:
Mrxray and I swapped out tanks and got back into the water after a short surface interval to loud cussing from the one of the two guys in the boat fishing near the main rock jetty. I usually could care less but this guy started to threaten that he was going to use his grapple hook to pull us to the surface and other nonsense. So I used a few of my favorite four letter words and let him know that if I saw a grapple hook in the water I would cut his anchor rope, this really made him mad. I then ignored the rest of the ranting and started talking with Mrxray. Meanwhile the other guy in the boat figured it was time to go and the loud mouth tried to pull the anchor and low and behold it he wasn’t fouled . I yelled over to the guy and asked if his anchor was fouled and he just dropped his shoulders and said in a low voice “yes.” I guess he was expecting a sarcastic remark. I instead told him that I would help him out, but he was still too proud to accept my help and they tried without luck to get unstuck. I then took the “higher road” and told this guy that I didn’t want to see him loose his anchor and that I would be glad to help him out. I could tell this guy felt like a schmuck, he was now helpless and needing help from the same guys he was cursing just minutes before. Mrxray and I started our dive by making a B-line out to the guys’ anchor which was fouled inside of a mostly buried tire and freed him. I guess the good karma from freeing this guys’ anchor paid off immediately as this turned out to be a very nice dive. The current slacked up completely and out in the pass the visibility picked up from our last dive. We headed out to the tank/culvert and then out to the drum. From there we went out to the Northeast to an area I call the “wash-out” which has a shell bottom. I saw a large silver object sailing by. When I shined my light over to it I saw a friggin’ huge barracuda checking us out. I have never seen such a large barracuda in the pass, it was cool. From there we headed back to the tank/culvert area. I was able to see some more structure directly to the West of the tank/culvert section so we headed over there and found a large metal object and a concrete reef pyramid. I was super happy to find more new stuff out in the pass to check out. The inside of the pyramid was full of white anemones which looked really cool. From there I spotted some rocks that continued West from the large metal object and followed them to some more decent sized metal objects, sweet even more new stuff!!!!! I saw a small little sting ray out in this area, but he took off pretty quick. From there we headed back towards the West rock pile and then over to the East pile. I think we found a total of five octopuses amongst the rocks. We ended up making a 70 something minute dive. Karma ended up working well for us today. I look forward to making another dive here soon. I only took a few pictures during the first dive due to the current and I decided to leave the camera in the truck on the second dive (big mistake). Most of my pictures turned out crappy since it was a bit hard to get good pictures while trying to not let the current sweep me off to Cuba. Hopefully Mrxray will be nice enough to share some of his. Here are a few of mine:
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and the devil was saying to just let him stay stuck and have him cut his anchor line and then I will just recover it and take it home as a trophy. Then I looked over on my left shoulder :angel: and got the idea to do the right thing 
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