SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Still had some half full tanks(I'm an optimist, who woulda thought?) sitting in the shed from last weeks dive and I was able to enlist Mikey P again for a night dive. We'd be hitting a different beach wreck tonight as not to double tap the same site constantly. DogHouseDiver and I had been talking about getting a weeknight dive in this week, but his work schedule and sinuses were bothering him early on, but to my suprise, he called with the ability to come out. I picked up Mikey P and headed to Gulf Shores. The water was choppy, but no real surf to speak of and the water had a nice green/blue hue to it. DogHouseDiver showed up shortly afterwards.
The tanks I had from the previous week had 1700(what I left) and 1200(what Mikey left), LOL. So I had planned to take the mostly dead tank, and let Mikey use my mostly alive tank. DogHouseDiver(DHD) brought an extra AL80 though, so Mikey got that, and I got to hang onto the lesser of the two evil tanks(1700), w00tage.
We geared up on the side of the road and made the short trek over sand to the water, then made a little surface swim before plunging into the 'depths'. It didn't take us long to find the wreckage. Visibility was between 5-12', not so much due to particulation, but from a halocline that was sporadic around the wreckage. The bottom has washed out quite a bit of the boilers and paddle sections, allowing quite a bit of relief to observe. The southwest side still hasn't uncovered like it had several years ago, but there's alot of wreck to view regardless. The boilers, paddles(both) and axel, along with some of the weird machinery on the southside of the wreckage are all quite visible. I managed to lose my knife early on(thought I secured it in the sheath, but obviously not) while dispatching some dinner. Flounder were everywhere, I passed on lots of legals, just because they weren't bigger - since there were so many bigger ones available. There were also sheepshead available. Spades, pigfish, mangrove(short), pufferfish, southern rays, electric rays, lots of pissed blue crab, and baitfish also were in abundance. All in all, it was a great dive. DogHouseDiver managed to find my knife early on, which I didn't find out until we called the dive lasting about 45 minutes with a max depth in the 15' range.
We paid the toll, found fresh parking tickets on our vehicles and decided to celebrate them(surely not the 8 fish I strung up) with a few beers at Bahama Bobs afterwards. It was a good night with great buddies. Hoping to hit another one next Wednesday.
The tanks I had from the previous week had 1700(what I left) and 1200(what Mikey left), LOL. So I had planned to take the mostly dead tank, and let Mikey use my mostly alive tank. DogHouseDiver(DHD) brought an extra AL80 though, so Mikey got that, and I got to hang onto the lesser of the two evil tanks(1700), w00tage.
We geared up on the side of the road and made the short trek over sand to the water, then made a little surface swim before plunging into the 'depths'. It didn't take us long to find the wreckage. Visibility was between 5-12', not so much due to particulation, but from a halocline that was sporadic around the wreckage. The bottom has washed out quite a bit of the boilers and paddle sections, allowing quite a bit of relief to observe. The southwest side still hasn't uncovered like it had several years ago, but there's alot of wreck to view regardless. The boilers, paddles(both) and axel, along with some of the weird machinery on the southside of the wreckage are all quite visible. I managed to lose my knife early on(thought I secured it in the sheath, but obviously not) while dispatching some dinner. Flounder were everywhere, I passed on lots of legals, just because they weren't bigger - since there were so many bigger ones available. There were also sheepshead available. Spades, pigfish, mangrove(short), pufferfish, southern rays, electric rays, lots of pissed blue crab, and baitfish also were in abundance. All in all, it was a great dive. DogHouseDiver managed to find my knife early on, which I didn't find out until we called the dive lasting about 45 minutes with a max depth in the 15' range.
We paid the toll, found fresh parking tickets on our vehicles and decided to celebrate them(surely not the 8 fish I strung up) with a few beers at Bahama Bobs afterwards. It was a good night with great buddies. Hoping to hit another one next Wednesday.
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