Weekend Dives 9/25/2009

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Hetland

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Location
Gulf of Mexico
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MUCH too tired for a full report, but Saturday I hit Destin Jetties, Whiskey Wreck and Ft. Pickens' Jetties with MrXRay for a great day of challenging dives (due to conditions) Here are some pics:

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Saturday I hit Tug Heron and the Brass Wreck with XRay, Recharge, and Brandon. I missed a video shot of a very large shark passing by (camera accidentally switched to lo-rez mode :depressed: ) XRay missed some shots of a nurse shark, but got at least one photo of a requiem shark, so I don't know why he's crying ;) Here are some photos:

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Hows the Whiskey fairing?
 
Hows the Whiskey fairing?

Just the one wall is uncovered, but there are two sections separated by perhaps 20ft of sand. Highest point is about 2.5ft high. Barry saw two flounder and I saw one, but they were all on the smallish side, and not worth the trouble of cleaning imho. We both saw a few stingrays, including two that had wingspans almost 3ft across. Barry also got a jolt from a torpedo ray that was hidden below the sand :shocked2:
 
I'm having some PC issues so It's been keeping from uploading photos, I'll try to get some pics up soon though.
 
OK. Looks like I'm cooking again. As Hetland mentions above we got together for what was supposed to be a mega shore dive weekend. We met at my house for what was to be a 9:00am departure. We headed out aftr getting the 'ole Van packed up at about 9:30 or so for our first stop of the day the Destin Jetties. We knew we would not be diving at a high or low tide but we did not quite prepare ourselves for the pumping current, otherwise I would have stretched first...... Wow, what a workout! We did however manage to get about 50 yards past the tie in before we decided to start back slowly. In true hard core fasion we did manage more than a few great photos although it took a bit more work than we either wanted or expected. Dive time was 72 minutes at 44 feet and a min temp of 84*.

Here are a few of my better photos from the Destin Jetties Dive:

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Well we orgianlly planned to hit Navarre next but with time being a factor and with our desire to visit Gary's going out of business sale we decided to head for Orange Beach next (Bad planning on our part as most of our day we spent in the car), but after a great stop and some awesome buys at Gary's we next headed to the Whiskey Wreck. Which Alex pretty much covered above. I might add that we swam underwater the whole way, starting in about waist deep water and with only our compasses and one visual on Bahamma Bob's on our first and only decent we we swam right into the wreck with no searching at all. Dumb luck I guess! Bottom time here was 45 minutes and max depth of 10 feet and mn temp of 84*. I had the viz here at around 5 feet! No pics as were trying to spear flounder.
 
Next we headed for some air at Dive Pros and on to Ft. Pickens. We rolled into the parking lot to find the water was glass as the sun set over the horizon....Great timing! We entered to find the water at the shore a dark chocolate brown, much darker than the tannic water that Alter and I had seen the day before, but our hopes were high as we submerged at 1915. We made our way down to the twin tires and tied out flag in and made our way west and toward the sand stopping to photo and video almost everything you can imagine. We saw a Guitar Fish, Electric Ray, Flounder, Grouper, Snapper, a ton of cowfish, file fish, shrimp, sheepshead, spades, crabs, catfish, three different types of puffer fish, a large variety of reef fish, my buddy the French Angelfish, some Blue Angelfish, and probably 7 or so Octopus....Our favorites! What an awesome dive, I was real disappointed to call the dive after 66 minutes and a max depth of 50 feet with temps of 84*.
Here are some of my better shots from this night dive:

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We followed the whole day up with some much deserved food (Juicy steaks topped with Blue Cheese) at McGuire's! We were both exhausted from the long day and after a great meal we headed to my house top rest before our offshore trip early the next morning. The dive at Ft. Pickens could have only been better with the siting of some sharks, that however would have to wait until tomorrow!
 
OK. Fast Forward a short amount of sleep and we are meeting up with Recharge and Brandon to go dive off of Recharges boat. We decided to head to the Tug Heron and LCM first which turned out to be a great call as the viz was great and we had a great smooth ride on the way out. Brandon and I splash on the Heron/LCM at 0947 and after a few feet of particulate we can see the wreck. As we approach I can see a huge Nurse Shark sitting on the aft hold and I start what I think is taking pictures, but little did I notice that I had a stuck density button on the housing which was preventing me from photographing. As I hit the deck of the Tug, the Nurse shark turns and looks at me nearly putting its head in my lap and then slowly swims off as I am now pounding on my housing cursing, why?, WHy? WHYYYYYYYYY? I the end I ended up with one parting shot of the nurse shark swimming away:

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So it's not like two minutes in to the dive and Brandon is signaling me Shark! And I'm like, No crap, I just didn't get any photos of the Shark! (That's some tough communication underwater). Then he's like, no another shark! I'm still screwing around with my housing trying to get the density button unstuck when another shark comes sttraight toward me and turns away at the last minute......*HIT! Not twice...... As he spins around I finally get the button free and the camera rebooted as he swims right next to me and alas, I get this shot and at least some redemption!

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The rest of the dive goes off without a hitch and we don't see the shark again, we decide not to shoot any fish and so I focus on trying to get more pcis of the shark. So, I shoot my gun into the air.....Here comes the shark.....But he's a bit more camera shy now!

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The experiment of shooting the gun, just into the air is repeated a few more times and up until the fourth time the shark came everytime. Here's Brandon sitting on the tug shooting and reloading the gun as I take pics!

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Here are a couple of pics of the tug and the LCM, very nice dive!

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We eventually call the dive on no deco limit and head up getting this one last parting shot of our buddy:

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It was a great dive!! 93 feet for 42 minutes, temp of 84* and viz was 80-90 feet, we could see the bottom of the boat from the wreck!
 

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