dford
Registered
I went out today with a group with Gary's Gulf Divers for a trip to the Pete Tide. With the thunderstorms we had the last few days and looking at the radar before we left I wasn't sure how the day would turn out. Gary's boat , the Cat-N-Round has a weather radar so he kept an eye on the approaching weather doing our trip. The sea's were really good going out so we made good time to the site. After gearing up , we dropped off the boat in pairs and made it over to the anchor line and there was no current that we could tell. Visibility wasn't that great at the surface and as we made our way down the line it didn't appear to improve that much. Another dive boat was onsite and they were tied off to the bridge so Brian had tied us off the the aft end of the ship. Visibility seemed to improve to around 40' as we made our way around but with the cloudy day and the depth , it was darker than usual . I had just bought a enclosure for my Canon 570 so I was eager to try it out but I did find out that I need to get a weight to keep it from floating. We saw the usual spadefish, porgys,angelfish, grunts, permit, jacks and snapper. We looked for the resident jewfish but did not see him but there were several barracuda cruising thru the bridge as we made our way around. We had several cruise us close when we were doing our safety stop which is always cool because they seem so curious. I reached a max depth of 97' with a bottom time of 35 minutes. Water temp at the surface was 85 degrees and 75 degrees at depth. As we made our way back to the boat raindrops were starting to fall with a distant thunderstorm approaching.
Gary decided to go to the PC Barge for our second dive as he kept an eye on the thunderstorm that was approaching our area. After snacking on fresh pineapple we made it there with a few raindrops falling and Brian once again tied us off. After a hour surface interval we made our way back down again and there did seem to be a little current here but not bad at all. I saw a number of jellyfish on the way down but there was not to many that it was a problem. Visibility and the water temps were about the same as the Pete Tide and there were alot of fish on this barge. There are some radio towers that stick off on each side that really are good structure for holding fish. There were some good size snapper under the bow of the barge and several pretty good size grouper down inside the barge which I had to use my light to see. I reached a max depth of 81' with a bottom time of 30 minutes. We got lucky with the weather because the thunderstorm stayed to our south so the day turned out great. It was a excellant day of diving and like always , Gary's trips are always enjoyable.
Gary decided to go to the PC Barge for our second dive as he kept an eye on the thunderstorm that was approaching our area. After snacking on fresh pineapple we made it there with a few raindrops falling and Brian once again tied us off. After a hour surface interval we made our way back down again and there did seem to be a little current here but not bad at all. I saw a number of jellyfish on the way down but there was not to many that it was a problem. Visibility and the water temps were about the same as the Pete Tide and there were alot of fish on this barge. There are some radio towers that stick off on each side that really are good structure for holding fish. There were some good size snapper under the bow of the barge and several pretty good size grouper down inside the barge which I had to use my light to see. I reached a max depth of 81' with a bottom time of 30 minutes. We got lucky with the weather because the thunderstorm stayed to our south so the day turned out great. It was a excellant day of diving and like always , Gary's trips are always enjoyable.
