Saturday, I took a OW student offshore for his final dives. We went out on the Fintastic through Dive Locker in Panama City, FL. Luckily we were between hurricanes, and so the weather was nice. We first headed out to the Black Bart, with 1ft seas, sunny skies, and 95f temperatures. Arriving at the site, we ran off some fisherman and set the hook. There appeared to be a Moon Jellyfish infestation as there were hundreds in the water and on the wreck. Never the less we braved them and headed down to the Black Bart, a US Navy Bouy Tender sunk as an artifical reef. Visibility was poor at around 10-20ft, but we had a good time playing with Damsel Fish, Soft Shell Crabs, Angel Fish, Snapper, small Grouper, and all the usual tropicals. We circled the wreck and explored, down to a depth of 60ft for about 30 mins, then headed back up.
Dive 2 was on the Jeff Hovercraft, a british prototype for the US hovercraft that was developed for landing covops forces. It lies in about 70ft of water with 10ft relief, and we had a good time exploring this reef. We saw many of the same fish and the usual Toadfish hanging out in small spaces. Water temp was about 79f on the bottom, 86f on the top, which made for an ok dive with no wetsuit, and luckily Moon Jellys arent bad stingers. Unfortunately there were microscopic pieces of something else floating which would give us pricks all during the dive. Viz on the hovercraft was a little better at 20-30 ft and we had a good time exploring. My student did well, and we headed back to the surface dodging jellies and hanging in the strong current. Then back to shore for some shrimp po boys and home.
