Pensacola Trip Report (July 28 - 30, 2017) and Florida Diving in General

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Clark Fletcher

Contributor
Messages
215
Reaction score
88
Location
Hickory, NC
# of dives
25 - 49
As many of you already know, I've recently returned to the sport after many years of absence. And, I do not have a lot of dives under my belt. However, I thought some folks may find this report helpful even though the weekend was nearly a bust.

Since returning to scuba diving in late April of this year (2017), I've made three separate diving trips to Florida. And, while I don't have a lot of experience yet, there is one thing I can say for certain. If you're planning to dive offshore in Florida (i.e. boat dive), you should ALWAYS have a backup plan. Of the three trips I've taken to Florida this year (Key Largo, Venice, Pensacola), none have gone according to plan and in all three cases, we had to revert to our backup plan. And, in all three cases, the backup plan prevented the weekend from being a total loss.

Now let's get to the discussion about our trip to Pensacola this past weekend. We booked a dive weekend with Scuba Shack on their boat Wet Dream. When we left, I had no idea what we were going to dive on Friday or Sunday. However, the plan was to dive the Oriskany and the Chevron Oil Rig on Saturday.

While the weather report was a little sketchy for Friday we were able to go out. I can't begin to say enough nice things about the folks at Scuba Shack. I really was like diving with family. They had homemade cookies, fresh pineapple, and fresh oranges for us. After our second dive, Captain Gene grilled hot dogs for us. And, on our trip back in, we had homemade ice cream and fresh watermelon. My wife went along as a bubble watcher and we were so full when we got back in that we didn't eat supper that night.

Now on to the diving and our first lesson on diving around Pensacola. If there has been a lot of recent rain around Pensacola (over the previous week) expect the visibility to be poor. When the rivers get loaded up with water and then dump into the bay, it can get pretty ugly. The plan was to go to the dive site furthest away and work our way back to Pensacola. We first went to the Pete Tide II (about 12 miles out). The visibility was about 20 feet which is extremely poor for this dive site. My instructor had been here many times and he said it was the worst he had ever seen. Also, I don't know if this is typical but , the surface currents (down to about 10 feet) were extremely strong. So, as soon as you hit the water, you need to be looking for the trail line. Once you were below 10 feet the current was almost non-existent. To the credit of the Wet Dream folks, they use a very good system where they have a weighted bucket hanging from trail line to descend to the tag line. The tag line runs at 15 feet to the anchor line. It made it extremely easy to get from the back of the boat to the anchor line. And, during ascent, you can use the transit from the anchor line to the descent line as part of your 15 foot safety stop. Despite the poor visibility, it was still a good dive. There were lots of different varieties of fish including large schools of Amberjack, Angels, Butterflies, tons of Urchins, and Arrowhead crabs.

Our next stop on the way in was the Ocean Wind Tug. As we got closer to Pensacola, the visibility got progressively worse. It was about 15 feet here. The big Goliath Grouper was there (see @Skeptic14s recent report). However, as big as he his (estimated at 700 lbs.), you wouldn't have know he was there unless he happened to swim past you. Still lots of cool fish including a large school of Spadefish. And, a Remora swam up and latched onto my fingers while I was doing my safety stop.

Our final stop was on the Russian Freighter (San Pablo). The visibility was little more than 10 feet here. It wouldn't have been a big deal but, the freighter is not a very well defined wreck. It's pretty broken up and would be easy to get lost. This was especially true given the fact that our deck hand didn't know exactly where we were tied into on the wreck due to the poor visibility. Even starting out from the anchor line with compass bearings, it wasn't really clear what direction the freighter was laid out. Consequently, my dive buddy didn't feel comfortable venturing out of sight of the anchor line. While we were down, we kept feeling vibrations and what sounded like a cell phone beeping. All four of us kept checking our dive computers. Later, we were told it was Toad Fish. On ascent, there were a bunch of Barracuda hanging out around the tag line and trail line checking things out. Lesson learned here is that if you're going to dive the freighter in poor visibility, take a wreck reel with you. Even given the poor visibility at all three sites, still a good day of diving and a lot learned.

Next came the tough part for us. When we got back to the dock, we found out that diving the next day was cancelled. There was a front moving in from the north and a small craft advisory had already been issued for the following day. So, we lost our dive on the Oriskany and Cheveron Oil Rig.

So, we were on our own for Saturday. My wife and I elected to go to the Naval Air Museum. It's actually part of the Smithsonian (a branch of). It was well work the trip and worth planning an extra day on your dive trip just to go there. You need to plan for a whole day. While it's free, there are some attractions/tours there that have a small fee. If you want to go on a guided tour, you need to get there early or make reservations in advance.

For accommodations in Pensacola, we stayed at the Sole Inn on Palafox Street. It isn't fancy but, it is reasonably priced and is right in the middle of the heart of Pensacola so, you can walk to everything. They have no swimming pool so, if you have kids that want to get in a pool, it is not the place for you.

Our first night there (Thursday), we ate at Jaco's Bayfront Bar and Grille. Good food, moderately priced, great view. Of course our second night we didn't eat and our third night we ate at Nick's Boathouse. Again, great view, great food but, more pricey than Jaco's.

Now for the backup plan part. We found out late Saturday afternoon that the boat would not be able to go out on Sunday. So, we instead packed up, checked out of the motel a day early, and headed to Vortex Springs. Vortex Springs is near Ponce de Leon. This was a good spot for us. Three of us "student" divers were working on our AOW certs. It was a good place for us to do our Navigation Adventure Dive. I really love Vortex Springs. However, it was packed and you should try to go there during the week. If at all possible, go there during the week while school is in session. One advantage that Blue Grotto has over Vortex is that BG does not allow swimmers or snorkelers. That being said, Vortex can handle more divers.

Well, that's all for now. Hope someone finds this useful.
 
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Nice report. Having never dived in FL, I'm happy to learn about where there is diving in case I wind up at one of those places.
 
Clark: great write up. As an FYI, you can carry a reel with you. If vis is really bad, clip off to the anchor chain and unreel the line as you explore, then when it's time to return, just reel the line in, following it back to the anchor. I've done that a few times in crappy vis conditions. Wreck and cave divers do this in overhead environments but it works in open water too.
 
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Very good write up. Too bad on the conditions deteriorating and missing out on the O and chevron rig, rainy summers can play hell on conditions along the panhandle. Vortex is a pretty good spring dive, I like to mix in a few dives there a season during the week as you point out... weekends are pretty packed!
 
Excellent dive report, please continue to post future ones!!
Did you see any lionfish on the Pete Tide II ?
 
We were battling the weather with you in PCB. Missed out three tank on Saturday. Extended our two tank on Sunday into three though so not all lost.
 
Clark: great write up. As an FYI, you can carry a reel with you. If vis is really bad, clip off to the anchor chain and unreel the line as you explore, then when it's time to return, just reel the line in, following it back to the anchor. I've done that a few times in crappy vis conditions. Wreck and cave divers do this in overhead environments but it works in open water too.

As fate would have it, we did have three wreck reels with us. However, we left them in the truck because we didn't think we'd need them. We all had finger reels with us but, they were all 40 foot reels. While we were down, I thought about getting my dive buddies' finger reel and putting it with mine so we could at least go out 80 feet but, couldn't figure out how to communicate that to him. True to form for that dive, I left my slate in my dive bag.

In retrospect, I could have gone out on my own finger reel and coaxed my dive buddy to come along. When we got to the end of my reel, he might have figured out that I wanted his reel also. But, every dive is a learning experience. I'll remember this one next time around.
 
Excellent dive report, please continue to post future ones!!
Did you see any lionfish on the Pete Tide II ?

Although we were told that there were Lionfish on the Pete Tide II, I did not see any personally. And, until you mentioned it, I didn't really think about the fact that I had missed seeing any. I think that my instructor and/or his dive buddy may have seen one.
 
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Morrison spring is 15 minutes from Vortex. It's owned by the county, has no facilities to speak of. No dive shop, fill station etc, but it's free & another option for when the gulf is blown out.
 
Morrison spring is 15 minutes from Vortex. It's owned by the county, has no facilities to speak of. No dive shop, fill station etc, but it's free & another option for when the gulf is blown out.

We considered Morrison Spring but, the water level was up 7 feet when we checked on Saturday. That's why we chose to go to Vortex even though one of our group had just been there a few weeks prior to this trip. Good suggestion though.
 
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