Report: YDT-14 & 15, Whiskey wreck 5/31

[mrmccoy]

At the last min. Sunday afternoon I decided I wanted to dive Monday. So I called Down Under at 5:00 Sunday afternoon and booked one of the last spots open. The boat left at 8am so I got a few hours of sleep and jumped in the car at 3am and drove over.

I got stuck with insta buddy which really wasn't much of a buddy at all! Never got a single hand signal from them on either of the two dives........that's a story by it's self!
In the first ydt there were 16 divers in the water at one time, the vis was around 30ft and the water temp was around 66. My dive lasted 22mins with a max depth of 92fsw and 1100 psi left in a tank that started at 2800psi.
On the second ydt I decided to swim up current and drifted over the wreck and I did that most of the dive. I had a max depth of 89ft and the dive lasted 27 mins. The second dive was much better then the first because I was the last person to splash(waiting on insta buddy) and most of the nitrox divers were headed up when I decended.
On the way in we were stopped and boarded by Flordia wildlife and fisheries. They saw a pineapple top that was tossed over board and wanted to know what it was. They were also looking for speared fish. It took more time to get the officer on and off the boat then it did to figure out there were no fish on board.

The down under is a really nice boat and the crew were a great bunch too!

After making it back to the dock I ran over to the dive shop to get fills then headed to meet Chris at the whiskey wreck.

Neither of us had dove this site so we jumped in and headed south. I dropped down to see the great 5ft vis but landed on top of the wreck, Must have been beginners luck!
Chris just towed the dive flag and we lost each other after about 10 seconds.

I saw cooler stuff on the whiskey wreck then I did the ydt's. I saw a red colored sea horse that I brushed picking up a shell. I watched that little guy for a while then moved on to find this fish that crawled on the bottom but had what looked like wings behind the gills. It saw me and swam off then dropped back on the bottom. It almost looked like a shrimp waking on the bottom but could swim like a fish. I will have to look this thing up, it was weird looking!
That dive lasted 62mins with a max depth of 15ft which was my first dive over an hour.
By the time I got in the drivers seat it was after 5:00 and I headed home.

It turned out to be a great last min. trip and I go to dive the bp/w I picked up last week.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

You're walking fish was likely a Robinfish, or maybe a Flying Gunard.

The Whiskey is awesome, SO much wildlife to view there at times

 

[chris_b]

Thanks for the report and for meeting up yesterday for the dive. The visibility on Whiskey Wreck was pretty bad. Once separated more than 5 feet or so the only way to find each other was either by chance or by surfacing and looking for bubbles. Thankfully the average depth was less than 15 feet so that wasn't so hard. There was definitely some cool sea life. Notable for me were a large flounder--about four of my stretched handspans long (~36") and a large ray. The ray seemed quite grumpy and swam away every time I happened upon him; he seemed to be choosing poor hiding spots, though, because I saw him many times. He was 3-4 feet in diameter. I couldn't find the funny bottom-crawling fish guy in my sportfishing book, but that just means he's not good eating. Pretty sure he wasn't a flying gunnard, I've seen those in south Florida but they looked different; this guy didn't have the "wings." He didn't appear to have any pectoral fins, it's like they were replaced with spindly crablike legs.

This site would be a really spectacular dive with good visibility, as the wreck is spread out over a very large area, it's shallow (making for long dives), and if you can get a good parking spot is a really short walk to the water. Lots of beachgoers and people in the parking lot were very inquisitive but also didn't seem to "get" the fact that just looking at fish is fun. It seemed they thought we should have been searching for sunken treasure or something...

Had a slow leak from my power inflator into the wing and had to dump air every couple of minutes; the problems this creates are exacerbated when in 10~15 fsw. Now I get to rebuild the inflator valve (relatively cheap) or buy a new valve assembly if that doesn't fix it (not so cheap). Stopped to refill my tank on the way back to Pensacola and got a really short fill (2000psi on a ~2500 working pressure tank). Not sure if it was because the shop was near closing time, a hot fill, confusion about what the "+" on the hydro means, or a combination. I guess I'm lazy about checking fill pressure at the shop and need to directly mention proper fill pressure.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Probly a Robinfish then.

 

[mrmccoy]

You're walking fish was likely a Robinfish, or maybe a Flying Gunard.

The Whiskey is awesome, SO much wildlife to view there at times

Robinfish looks like a winner! I saw a small amberjack and a few red grouper(I think).

 

[chris_b]

Yes, found pictures of "Sea Robin" and "Robinfish" and that certainly look like the one, thanks!

 

[sontek]

I love the Whiskey but its definitely a tide specific dive

 

[mrmccoy]

Yes it is tide specific. Next time I will make sure I time the tide better, we were in the water 2-3 hours after high tide.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

The Whiskey is NOT a tide specific site. Visibility and currents vary extremely little from high to low tide there. The Gulf in that area is very tempormental, low visibility is common, and averages only in the 10-15' range. I dove the paddlewheeler low tide last week with 10-12' visibility and the Whiskey at low tide the week before that with up to 15' visibility. I would expect no better at high tide.

Its more dependant on wind, rain, and swell than anything else.

 

[mrmccoy]

That's good to know! So on a good calm day vis should go up......that makes sense.