It was around Memorial Day last year. A group of us that work/volunteer at the UAT made our annual trip to Panama City to dive. We elected to stay at Vortex, dive at Morrison Springs one day, dive in PC the next, then ride home. In all we stayed at Vortex for 4 days and 3 nights. We'd booked one of the bunkhouses, arrived, unpacked, and proceeded to veg. It was nice and quiet when we arrived. We were the only ones there. The next morning we awoke, gather our gear, left the kids behind, and headed to Morrison. Two great dives and about 4 hours later, we return.
It was like we'd died and gone to "Deliverance". Now I was born in Alabama, but not raised here, but I have lived here off and on, and I can honestly say I have NEVER seen that many barefoot, shirtless, potbellied, four-wheeler riding kids with Confederate flag bandanas in my life! The bunkhouse next door was taken over by a family that we realized not only contained the Hatfields, but also the McCoys. From what the kids that stayed behind told us, our new found neighboors arrived about an hour after we'd left, and sat up their recreation of the infield at Talladega. About that same time they started boozing it up.
Well, we had to go to Panama City to drop of tanks for the dives the following morning, so we all loaded up and left one person behind to watch our stuff. After we'd dropped off the tanks, snorkeled a bit, and grabbed a couple of buckets of KFC, we headed back. The Hatfields, or maybe it was the McCoys, had started burning all kinds of animal parts. Apon seeing us eating the Colonels finest, the patriarch of the clan proceeded to yell at us in all his drunkeness for eating that. He proceeded to offer all of us some of his chicken instead. It was good, but we weren't interested.
The night progressed, we talked amongst ourselves, they got drunker and drunker. Sometime around 1am a woman came running out of their bunkhouse crying and clutching a child. Thirty seconds or so after that, the whirling ball of redneck came crashing out of the door. Apparently the the McCoy (or was he a Hatfield?) with most teeth proceeded to beat his wife (the crying woman) and the rest of the clan proceeded to beat the crap out of him. This went on for the next half an hour or so, and at one point one of the Hatfields/McCoys grabbed a plastic Hunts ketchup bottle and threatened to kill the other MCoy/Hatfield with it. The patriarch arrived, got his licks in on the guy, and expeled him from the clan.
Next morning Ii awoke to the smell of bacon and was looking forward to having some. In hindsight maybe it wasn't a good idea to expect a drunk to remember offering you breakfast, but no matter. Ain't nothing finer than cold KFC. But, whilst eating my piece of Kentucky's finest, whom do I spy cooking the bacon? The same man nearly killed by a plastic Hunts ketchup bottle from the night before. Apparently once the booze had worn off all was forgiven.
The rest of our trip held little excitement from them. No more crying, pink tube top wearing, bafefoot women. No more toothless threats to kill each other with condiments. They stayed pretty much drunk, and we high tailed it home as soon as possible.
Now I know this has been a long tale, and what is my point you ask? It is this, this is not an isolated incident. Apparently what used to be a safe haven for divers, has now become a repository for redneck rage. The folks at the dive shop have said this, and other divers have said this. My advice if you're going, go for the day and consider staying somewhere else.
