Blown out again! With the waves at both the Pensacola South and the Mobile South buoys over a dozen feet and climbing as Katrina churns up our salt water backyard, we had to reluctantly cancel yet another Gulf excursion. But a few of us just had to get wet anyway... so it was off to Kowaliga again.
Now don't get me wrong - I love to dive Kowaliga - and it beats not diving at all - but it ain't the Gulf and it ain't salt water, and I am basically a salt water critter and after getting blown out three times in a row I sometimes get a little cranky.
It was a gorgeous clear warm morning with enough of a light breeze to take the edge off the heat. TT, May-May & I headed up in my trusty Suburban and met Scud at the Kowaliga marina. There were a ton of cars already there, but no divers, so we knew the boat traffic would be a little more than average, if not downright crowded. The dive plan was pretty simple. We'd head directly off-shore to the 30' contour and follow that west for awhile to see if we could locate the new "Ghost Fleet" boats TT & I had found two weeks ago, and try to get some good photos of them and the rest of the Fleet. Then we'd backtrack over to the old bridge rubble and explore along that until either turn-pressure or someone got cold, and then head back in, checking out the Christmas trees on the way.
Scud was so hot to try out his new E7-120 he dove it, even though it was filled with Nitrox and we didn't anticipate getting any deeper than 40 feet.
I led, dragging the flag. As we eased down to the first thermocline at 24 feet, the visibility went from a reasonable five or six feet down to three or four, so I kept the pace very slow, making sure everyone could keep up while still using good anti-silting technique. As the first of the Ghost Fleet boats' bow materialized out of the gloom I slowed even more to give TT plenty of photo time. Heading west the vis got even worse, so I tied into a stump and commenced a circular line search with about a hundred feet of line out, just to see if I could snag anything new or interesting. Starting my circle clockwise would take us deeper first. At about 35 feet we hit the second thermocline and the visibility plummeted to less than an arm-length. I had to resort to the one-finger-touching-the-mud method of staying close to but not landing on the bottom as I couldn't see it even from just a foot above it. The rest of the team closed up to touch contact as we crept around the deep side of the circle. Surely such conditions would yield something wonderful, right? Two stumps and a pipe!
Retrieving my reel, we headed east, pausing at the main body of the Ghost Fleet for photos (I'm real curious to see if TT got anything interesting or usable as the vis was so sorry), then following our nav line over to the bridge rubble. We worked our way slowly along the west side of the pile of pilings, out to where the old roadbed begins, then along the west side of the roadbed for a few hundred feet before crossing the road (yes we looked both ways before crossing) and heading back in along the east side. While on the roadbed the boat traffic overhead got to sounding about like a beehive, and TT says he even had one boat shadow come over him. I reckon they were using our dive flag as a target.
We worked our way slowly back to the Christmas trees (a pile of Christmas trees someone has tied to some concrete blocks and dumped as a fishing spot), checking the bottles scattered all over the bottom from years of litterers heaving their bottles off the bridge during its 40 years as the main highway across the lake. We collected a few for topside examination.
At the Christmas trees we took our time and cirlcled them slowly, to see what might be using them for shelter. One fat old Appaloosa Catfish, a few nice bass and some hum-dinger sized Crappie were hanging out there. Nice.
Cruising back to our exit point, we surfaced 105 minutes after we'd started, and while not completely compensated for missing the Gulf, at least a good deal more relaxed. And hungry.
Grouper sandwich for me at Sinclair's, where we took our picture with Kowaliga while reading the Bonaire Reporter. TT will send that off to Bonaire and hopefully get us in the Reporter.
After we got back down the hill to Montgomery, I asked the Lovely Young Kat if she'd like to go see "The Cave" with me and we went. I'll only say that it has some very pretty cave-diving video and that it is better than "Open Water."
Not a bad Saturday at all... Katrina konsidered
Rick
Now don't get me wrong - I love to dive Kowaliga - and it beats not diving at all - but it ain't the Gulf and it ain't salt water, and I am basically a salt water critter and after getting blown out three times in a row I sometimes get a little cranky.
It was a gorgeous clear warm morning with enough of a light breeze to take the edge off the heat. TT, May-May & I headed up in my trusty Suburban and met Scud at the Kowaliga marina. There were a ton of cars already there, but no divers, so we knew the boat traffic would be a little more than average, if not downright crowded. The dive plan was pretty simple. We'd head directly off-shore to the 30' contour and follow that west for awhile to see if we could locate the new "Ghost Fleet" boats TT & I had found two weeks ago, and try to get some good photos of them and the rest of the Fleet. Then we'd backtrack over to the old bridge rubble and explore along that until either turn-pressure or someone got cold, and then head back in, checking out the Christmas trees on the way.
Scud was so hot to try out his new E7-120 he dove it, even though it was filled with Nitrox and we didn't anticipate getting any deeper than 40 feet.
I led, dragging the flag. As we eased down to the first thermocline at 24 feet, the visibility went from a reasonable five or six feet down to three or four, so I kept the pace very slow, making sure everyone could keep up while still using good anti-silting technique. As the first of the Ghost Fleet boats' bow materialized out of the gloom I slowed even more to give TT plenty of photo time. Heading west the vis got even worse, so I tied into a stump and commenced a circular line search with about a hundred feet of line out, just to see if I could snag anything new or interesting. Starting my circle clockwise would take us deeper first. At about 35 feet we hit the second thermocline and the visibility plummeted to less than an arm-length. I had to resort to the one-finger-touching-the-mud method of staying close to but not landing on the bottom as I couldn't see it even from just a foot above it. The rest of the team closed up to touch contact as we crept around the deep side of the circle. Surely such conditions would yield something wonderful, right? Two stumps and a pipe!
Retrieving my reel, we headed east, pausing at the main body of the Ghost Fleet for photos (I'm real curious to see if TT got anything interesting or usable as the vis was so sorry), then following our nav line over to the bridge rubble. We worked our way slowly along the west side of the pile of pilings, out to where the old roadbed begins, then along the west side of the roadbed for a few hundred feet before crossing the road (yes we looked both ways before crossing) and heading back in along the east side. While on the roadbed the boat traffic overhead got to sounding about like a beehive, and TT says he even had one boat shadow come over him. I reckon they were using our dive flag as a target.
We worked our way slowly back to the Christmas trees (a pile of Christmas trees someone has tied to some concrete blocks and dumped as a fishing spot), checking the bottles scattered all over the bottom from years of litterers heaving their bottles off the bridge during its 40 years as the main highway across the lake. We collected a few for topside examination.
At the Christmas trees we took our time and cirlcled them slowly, to see what might be using them for shelter. One fat old Appaloosa Catfish, a few nice bass and some hum-dinger sized Crappie were hanging out there. Nice.
Cruising back to our exit point, we surfaced 105 minutes after we'd started, and while not completely compensated for missing the Gulf, at least a good deal more relaxed. And hungry.
Grouper sandwich for me at Sinclair's, where we took our picture with Kowaliga while reading the Bonaire Reporter. TT will send that off to Bonaire and hopefully get us in the Reporter.
After we got back down the hill to Montgomery, I asked the Lovely Young Kat if she'd like to go see "The Cave" with me and we went. I'll only say that it has some very pretty cave-diving video and that it is better than "Open Water."
Not a bad Saturday at all... Katrina konsidered
Rick
