MRXRAY
Contributor
Made it to Navarre Beach with an incoming High Tide this Morning at 7:15AM and hit the water at 7:32 for the high tide at 8:05AM. WJefferis met me there. We were met by perfectly calm seas and no surf and a a very slow tide/surge. We made our way down the Pier structure and made our way to the pier rubble. Yes it's still there. Some of the stuff is either buried since Ike or we just missed it, but there is still a lot to see! We saw some nice big schools of snapper, a few smaller Grouper and one monster Grouper. We saw some Schools of Spades, one big ray, some Angels, some "reef fish", bait fish, etc. and 3 Octopus hiding in some exposed tires. The viz was maybe 10 feet at the break in the pier and would have been better but the schools of game fish kept darting into the schmutz on the bottom and stirring it up. The reveal is still real nice on most of the stuff and upwards of 5 feet in some areas. On the way back in we took our time heading NorthEast through a huge shell field and made a lot of nice finds! I think with a very calm sea forecasted for this weekend things will be awesome for the coming days! Max depth was 24ft and temp 77deg.
After we left Navarre we went to P'Cola to check it out. The water there was much cleaner. But barren of shells and sea life. We found the reefs location with no trouble and were disappointed to find the same thing as before Ike, lots of Piers but no rubble. Sowm of the Pilings are now about 8 feet high....I stood beside one on the bottom and held my hand up and it was still higher than me. We circled the area for over 20 minutes but didn't see much. A couple small snapper, and some spades and bait fish were about it. What was notable on our post dive debrief was that there is no life at all on the pilings, they look sand blaster (probably were litterally by Ike). Nothing in the tops of the pilings, not much to see. We bumped into divers from MBT and they had heard the rocks were exposed too, but theey went to the same area as we did and although we didn't get to talk to them after there dive I think they would say the same. I saw about 7 rocks that were about 1 inch out of the sand in the area but that's it. Walter and I both left our cameras behind so we have no pics to post. Viz was about 20-25 feet max depth was 17 feet and the temp was 77 degrees.
After we left Navarre we went to P'Cola to check it out. The water there was much cleaner. But barren of shells and sea life. We found the reefs location with no trouble and were disappointed to find the same thing as before Ike, lots of Piers but no rubble. Sowm of the Pilings are now about 8 feet high....I stood beside one on the bottom and held my hand up and it was still higher than me. We circled the area for over 20 minutes but didn't see much. A couple small snapper, and some spades and bait fish were about it. What was notable on our post dive debrief was that there is no life at all on the pilings, they look sand blaster (probably were litterally by Ike). Nothing in the tops of the pilings, not much to see. We bumped into divers from MBT and they had heard the rocks were exposed too, but theey went to the same area as we did and although we didn't get to talk to them after there dive I think they would say the same. I saw about 7 rocks that were about 1 inch out of the sand in the area but that's it. Walter and I both left our cameras behind so we have no pics to post. Viz was about 20-25 feet max depth was 17 feet and the temp was 77 degrees.
