paulwall
Contributor
Met up with a coworker who is staying in Orange Beach with his family this week on vacation. He kindly put me up on the sofa of the family condo Saturday night, so I didn't have to trek from NO to OB and back in one day.
Hit the jetties a little after 8:15 am and took the last available parking spot at the time. My buddy wanted to borrow tanks, so I brought him my "new" doubled 72's, that I haven't even dived yet. Since he hadn't been diving in quite a while, we took some time to examine and assemble his gear, and go over the dive plan. I expected Shagman and Tom Wicker to show up, but I didn't see them.
Around 9am we headed for the entry point, as we were roasting in the parking lot. Spent a few minutes in the shallows getting acclimated, cooling off and doing final equipment checks. The water on top was very clear (15-25'), and the dive looked promising. There was a slight incoming current, consistent with the expected High tide time.
Descended and started heading South along the rocks. It was pretty clear that the excellent vis on top was not going to last when we got to depth. Vis dropped to a soupy 10-15, and lots of Plant life floating in the water. The jellyfish were out in force, as well, making parts of the dive a dodge-em course. In some places there were groups of 5-10, in other places 1-2 and others, none at all. There were also (apparently) the invisible stinging nematocysts which were responsible for most of my discomfort during this dive. The currents were strange, going from incoming on one section, slack on another, then incoming, slack, outgoing, slack, incoming, and outgoing. We turned the dive near the end of the jetties, due to a strengthening outgoing current, that disappeared after about 20 ft of our turn.
Fish Life: Jellies (duh!), schools of pinfish, blues, a small barracuda, butterflyfish, damsels, blennies, spades, mangrove (or vermillion) snapper, small grouper, soapfish, etc. We came across a HUGE octopus dining on a catfish, and another smaller one, hanging out in a hole. I put my finger outside of his hole, and he shook "tentacle" with it briefly.
Dive time: 70 mins, max depth 30ft, temps in the 80's.
Upon returning to the parking lot, we came across a Rescue class from Downunder whose instructor chatted with ups a while about how she prefers to do the wall to the rocks, and described the debris pile and what she likes to see. Definitely a must-do in the future.
Dive 2 coming up...
Hit the jetties a little after 8:15 am and took the last available parking spot at the time. My buddy wanted to borrow tanks, so I brought him my "new" doubled 72's, that I haven't even dived yet. Since he hadn't been diving in quite a while, we took some time to examine and assemble his gear, and go over the dive plan. I expected Shagman and Tom Wicker to show up, but I didn't see them.
Around 9am we headed for the entry point, as we were roasting in the parking lot. Spent a few minutes in the shallows getting acclimated, cooling off and doing final equipment checks. The water on top was very clear (15-25'), and the dive looked promising. There was a slight incoming current, consistent with the expected High tide time.
Descended and started heading South along the rocks. It was pretty clear that the excellent vis on top was not going to last when we got to depth. Vis dropped to a soupy 10-15, and lots of Plant life floating in the water. The jellyfish were out in force, as well, making parts of the dive a dodge-em course. In some places there were groups of 5-10, in other places 1-2 and others, none at all. There were also (apparently) the invisible stinging nematocysts which were responsible for most of my discomfort during this dive. The currents were strange, going from incoming on one section, slack on another, then incoming, slack, outgoing, slack, incoming, and outgoing. We turned the dive near the end of the jetties, due to a strengthening outgoing current, that disappeared after about 20 ft of our turn.
Fish Life: Jellies (duh!), schools of pinfish, blues, a small barracuda, butterflyfish, damsels, blennies, spades, mangrove (or vermillion) snapper, small grouper, soapfish, etc. We came across a HUGE octopus dining on a catfish, and another smaller one, hanging out in a hole. I put my finger outside of his hole, and he shook "tentacle" with it briefly.
Dive time: 70 mins, max depth 30ft, temps in the 80's.
Upon returning to the parking lot, we came across a Rescue class from Downunder whose instructor chatted with ups a while about how she prefers to do the wall to the rocks, and described the debris pile and what she likes to see. Definitely a must-do in the future.
Dive 2 coming up...
