New reef at Portofino Pensacola Beach

[airstream]

Dove the new Christmas Trees about a mile east of Portofino in the Gulf. The buoy was not visible from shore. We retied it to compensate for high tide. Amazing amount of life for such a new series of structure! Remora, Stingrays, Blue Crabs, Spade and so on....

Here is a link to the video posted by one in our group:

YouTube - Dive 33

 

[Hoos'ride]

nice thanks

 

[GLENFWB]

Airstream...what was the depth for this dive? How long of a walk from your cars to the beach? I have been by the Portofino many times but never walked over the dunes...can't imagine it is to far of a walk. Thanks for the video.

 

[Hetland]

Sweet! We need to take compass headings for when the inevitable happens and the buoy is stolen (or washed away).

How many Christmas trees do you think they had down?

 

[jhayes75]

This is sweet, can't wait til it fully develops.

 

[nashvegas]

Thanks for sharing. A GPS location would be great as well, if not already posted.

 

[airstream]

I should clarify that this site is NEAR Portofino...
GPS Coordinates of the nearest beach entrance: 30.348000, -87.053787
There are two ORANGE painted poles on the beach that you "sight" to line up on the reef. The reef is marked by an orange mooring ball. It is approximately 100 yards offshore. Max depth 18ft.
I think we counted 18 "Trees"....

Parking is ample and its only about 150 yards from the nearest parking spot to the beach water entry....they are currenlty working on a gravel equipment drop-off area where I have marked with the GPS coordinates....

Enjoy...
If anyone wants to go PM me and I'll meet up!

 

[airstream]

Dove the site again this evening..... two divers leaving as we were going in!!! Visibility was about 5ft and current was ripping! The water was warm, and the June Grass is blooming....

 

[MRXRAY]

Nice to get wet mid-week. Like airstream says the viz was not that great and the structure although covered well with growth was fairly void of reef fish as of now. There were a lot of juvenile Spades and a few crab, but not much else today. The walk and swim is not bad and made for a nice evening. Can't wait until it's a bit more populated.

 

[ReefHound]

My google map shows several parking lots a bit east of Portofino (resort?). Which one?

Google Maps