Panama City Trip Report - 6/3/06

[jviehe]

2 buddies and myself, headed off to Panama City saturday for some really cool offshore diving. After a mix up with the boat location (Splash has a new dock, fyi), we jumped on the boat for the 45min ride out to a new site call Two Tugs, which is a new artificial reef put down in the last couple of years by the Florida Aquatic & Marine Institute.

The water looked blue all the way out, so I was excited about visibility, and upon arrival, the boat dropped its divemasteranchor, and we all suited up and hopped in. Water temperature at the surface was low 80s, but about 50ft down, it dropped to 70, which was a shock as I just had a shorty on. But we quickly adapted and continued on the dive. We had anchored near the pilot house at about 80ft down, so I headed to the deepest point first with my buddies following. The wreck is layed out such that one tug is actually on top of the other one. We swam down to 103ft deep, and around the side of one of the tugs, then spiraled up and checked out both tugs along with swimming through some of the structure. We also found the 400pd jewfish that lives on the wreck. After 20 minutes, we headed up the line for a bit of safetyt stop and boarded the boat.

Next stop was a shallower dive, the usual bridgespan. These are just sections of the old bridge in panama city, and they all look the same and general arnt that exciting. It made for a nice relaxing dive however.

More pics at http://northfloridadiver.net/media/pics/pc606.htm

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[mike_s]

so what map software is that that you did a pic with?
it looks pretty cool.

is that something that came with your marine GPS?
I notice you have lots of waypoints programed in. Did you have to program in all these wreck sites or did it come that way?

 

[jviehe]

It is Garmin Blue Chart, but an older version. Its available from their website. I have manually typed some in waypoints, and also converted over some numbers that are available publicly. Pretty much any list of stuff with GPS numbers I can import.

 

[KidK9]

Nice report, nice pictures, and very cool software.

 

[PerroneFord]

Jon,

Thanks for setting this up. I had a blast. I was pretty whipped though when I got home! Went straight to bed after getting cleaned up, and then spent most of Sunday in a pool helping with an OW class! LOL!

Let's try again next month for one of the other offshore wrecks.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Thanks for the report, looks like a great time and the Two Tugs looks like a pretty decent site.

 

[PerroneFord]

Matt,
Get off the Whiskey and lets go do some DIVING!! That was a very nice dive site. I'm trying to arrange a visit to the Mica, Chippewa, and Accokeek this summer as well. I hope you can join me.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I'm diving alot just not deep.

I'm looking to dive out of PCB sometime this summer, when are you planning your trip? Gonna try to dive off the Sea Hunter.

 

[PerroneFord]

I'm diving alot just not deep.

I'm looking to dive out of PCB sometime this summer, when are you planning your trip? Gonna try to dive off the Sea Hunter.

I'm gonna try to get one offshore dive in July, one or two in August, and maybe one or two in september. Depends on money and time.

What do you want to go see?

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I haven't seen anything offshore PCB, I've only dived the jetties at St. Andrews. The Accokeek and Chipewa looks very nice, I think I'll wait for the Mica until I get some more advanced training.