wjefferis
Contributor
I made it out to Ft. Pickens today (8-22-09) around 7:00 am to get in a few dives. There was a neap tide today with the supposed high tide to be at 1:18 pm, but since the tidal flow would be so little I splashed in close to 8:00am. There was some suspended particulate in the water, but there was still 10-15 feet of visibility depending on if the clouds were covering the sun or allowing to the sun to shine and light things up a bit. There was a warm thermocline at 10 fsw and I enjoyed my dive in 85* water. Last week I purchased a Dive Rite LED LUX canister light so I thought I would bring it along to use to check things out amongst the rocks and it worked great. After completing an hour dive I got out and did a 45 minute surface interval and them jumped back in. Conditions had gotten worse as a thick layer of particulate laden water moved in and cut the visibility to 5 feet, (yikes). Luckily, my dive light saved the day and I was able to still enjoy all of the critters zipping around the rocks. I cut that dive short to about 45 minutes. I went ahead and switched my tank and took another 45 minute surface interval hoping that things would clear up a bit and I got my wish. The thick cruddy water was still hanging around close to the rocks, but once you got out to the organ things cleared back up to 15 ft of visibility. I went ahead and ventured out to the culverts and was happy to see that the French Angelfish was still hanging around and has gotten quite large. He/she (not sure) was hanging around with a nice sized blue angelfish. I enjoyed watching them swim and play around the culverts. I then followed some rocks that venture out towards the pass. I saw some respectable sheep head hanging out here at my max depth of 50 fsw. I turned and made my way back to the rocks and then out to the golf cart and was sad to see that it was about 60% covered up. Oh well, it will uncover eventually. I didnt bring the camera today because I figured with the neap tide the conditions wouldnt be good enough to get any decent shots, but thats ok I needed to have a few dives where I am not always looking for a photo opportunity. After watching my computer click over to an hour of dive time I figured that I had seen enough and went ahead and got out. I had a good set of dives with a total of 2 hours and 45 minutes of bottom time.