OysterBoot74
Guest
We towed the boat across the bay from Mobile and reached Boggy Point landing around 9:30am. This was my first time launching here and I was suprised at how nice it was. The skies were mostly clear and there was a light breeze. We had no problems at the launch and were headed out of the pass quickly. Seas were calm and we had a beautiful ride out to our first spot. This was my first time with a replacement GPS too so I was pleased when we found structure on the bottom finder at the first site. My old, reliable GPS 12 finally died. I'll miss it. lol.
First Dive - Western most I-10 Bridge Rubble Site ( not sure the nickname ) ~80ft
On the way out there were so many moon jellys that you could have nearly walked on them to the dive site. However, about a mile shy of the waypoint they began to thin out and were not a problem gettting in and out of the boat. Brandy and I dove first and as we reached bottom we were greeted with 40-50 ft viz. I'm always fascinated by large bridge rubble sites because I feel like I'm exploring. The debris field was cool. lol. I had a spear but brought the camera down on the first dive...strangley enough I hardly used it. We saw one nice flounder, many read snapper, many amberjack, some large blue anglefish, a huge sheephead, the usual tomtates (however the were some large schools of juveniles that were cool), many murdered urchins, quite a few triggers, and a few really nice sized scamp ( or yellowmouth grouper, I have a hard time telling the difference) and some decent gags. I used the low res camera for a very short video. That makes me want to buy the grotesquely expensive housing for our digital camcorder. We made about 40 minutes on our AL80's and surfaced with no problems. We had some friends with us that went down as we surfaced. They were surprised at how calm the fish were at this site. Most of the game fish would come right up to you if you were still for a few minutes. Where was this during snapper season? lol. I noticed my license was expired just prior to leaving the bridge rubble site. So, while waiting on the other divers to surface, I found one spot on the boat where I had enough bars on the cell to call and renew it. I looked pretty funny hanging off the T-top an a weird angle shouting credit card numbers.
We headed out from there to try and find the 3 deck tug and I think I had bad numbers on the site so no luck. So, we headed back West.
Second Dive -The Allen ( aka LS William T Barry). There were some pretty strong showers (no thunder) brewing to the south and West as we approached the site but managed to stay dry until dropping in. This was my first dive on a Liberty Ship and I was excited. The moon jellys were a bit thicker here but still wwere not a problem. We dropped in and my first reaction was, "That thing was huge". Viz here was about 20-30 ft but I didn't mind. I abandoned the camera for the spear on this dive. I've had flounder on the brain for a couple of weeks now and was excited that I might be able to spear a few. We saw some fat scamp ( or yellowmouth), big blue angles, small snapper, a big holed up octopus, and the other usual suspects. This site was a little barren compared to the rubble site but still a great dive. We explored the different compartments, collected some lead, and then exited the hull to explore the sand on the exterior. No flounder. This was another ~40 minute dive and we surfaced to dark skies. As the other two dropped in and we were stowing gear the bottom dropped out and it rained steadily until they surfaced again....then the sun came out. Grr. lol.
We had an easy ride back in and then ate and watched some football at San Roc Cay. I can't think of any other way I'd have rather spent the day.
First Dive - Western most I-10 Bridge Rubble Site ( not sure the nickname ) ~80ft
On the way out there were so many moon jellys that you could have nearly walked on them to the dive site. However, about a mile shy of the waypoint they began to thin out and were not a problem gettting in and out of the boat. Brandy and I dove first and as we reached bottom we were greeted with 40-50 ft viz. I'm always fascinated by large bridge rubble sites because I feel like I'm exploring. The debris field was cool. lol. I had a spear but brought the camera down on the first dive...strangley enough I hardly used it. We saw one nice flounder, many read snapper, many amberjack, some large blue anglefish, a huge sheephead, the usual tomtates (however the were some large schools of juveniles that were cool), many murdered urchins, quite a few triggers, and a few really nice sized scamp ( or yellowmouth grouper, I have a hard time telling the difference) and some decent gags. I used the low res camera for a very short video. That makes me want to buy the grotesquely expensive housing for our digital camcorder. We made about 40 minutes on our AL80's and surfaced with no problems. We had some friends with us that went down as we surfaced. They were surprised at how calm the fish were at this site. Most of the game fish would come right up to you if you were still for a few minutes. Where was this during snapper season? lol. I noticed my license was expired just prior to leaving the bridge rubble site. So, while waiting on the other divers to surface, I found one spot on the boat where I had enough bars on the cell to call and renew it. I looked pretty funny hanging off the T-top an a weird angle shouting credit card numbers.
We headed out from there to try and find the 3 deck tug and I think I had bad numbers on the site so no luck. So, we headed back West.
Second Dive -The Allen ( aka LS William T Barry). There were some pretty strong showers (no thunder) brewing to the south and West as we approached the site but managed to stay dry until dropping in. This was my first dive on a Liberty Ship and I was excited. The moon jellys were a bit thicker here but still wwere not a problem. We dropped in and my first reaction was, "That thing was huge". Viz here was about 20-30 ft but I didn't mind. I abandoned the camera for the spear on this dive. I've had flounder on the brain for a couple of weeks now and was excited that I might be able to spear a few. We saw some fat scamp ( or yellowmouth), big blue angles, small snapper, a big holed up octopus, and the other usual suspects. This site was a little barren compared to the rubble site but still a great dive. We explored the different compartments, collected some lead, and then exited the hull to explore the sand on the exterior. No flounder. This was another ~40 minute dive and we surfaced to dark skies. As the other two dropped in and we were stowing gear the bottom dropped out and it rained steadily until they surfaced again....then the sun came out. Grr. lol.
We had an easy ride back in and then ate and watched some football at San Roc Cay. I can't think of any other way I'd have rather spent the day.
