SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
After a long time of not diving this dive site, I finally went back to the Whiskey Wreck with Mikey Paul as well as Matt(from UWW) and his wife. I had dove it twice before, since Hurricane Ivan, and had failed to find any relief from the wreckage as the sandbar was sitting directly ontop of it. All the sand the hurricane pushed in as well as the beach renourishment projects that dump even more sand right off the beach had caused for a shallower bottom than before the hurricane. The last time I tried diving the site was in December.
After hearing some 3rd hand info from the diveshop that the wreck was starting to uncover, as well as the ramblings of a drunken hippy at Flora-Bama's Mullet Toss, we decided it was time to go check it out again and see for ourselves.
The weather was nice when we were headed out to Gulf Shores, but there were thunderstorms heading our way. The surf had grown from choppy ankle snappers in the morning to a 3' choppy windswell. Visibility had been good this week until this point, unfortunately, the surf killed it for the most part. There was a current running to the East that was light-medium. The surge was pretty bad at our depths(maxing out at 13', worse in the 7-8' range where I found the wreckage).
It took us a pretty good amount of time to find the wreck, even though we fanned out a bit to cover more ground. Eventually, I did come across it. We had 2-4' of visibility with alot of surge, so basically it came into eye-sight and the surge pushed me into it. There wasn't much to it at all. It had 6"-12" of relief that stretched ~25' of length on the sandy bottom. The sandbar still sat ontop of it, but it had shifted or washed away enough for the wreck to peak out just a bit. I didn't spend much time on it, I wanted to let everyone else know that I had found it. After surfacing for 5-10 min waiting to see if anyone else would surface(none did in that amount of time) I descended again and lost the wreck. I never found it again over the course of the night. Atleast I know its out there and its working its way into being uncovered again. While diving sand, other than my brief stint on the wreck before losing it again, we saw Flounder, a small white fish with wiskers, some white trout, hermit crabs, cone jellies(non stinging), a few stinging nettles(D'oh), and quite a few electric skates.
It was a fun dive anyway, a bit more challenging than the Whiskey Wreck usually turns out to be. Low visibility, a bit of a current, and alot of surge made for quite a dive while trying to keep an eye on your buddy. Gave us a great opportunity to test our navigational skills though.
After hearing some 3rd hand info from the diveshop that the wreck was starting to uncover, as well as the ramblings of a drunken hippy at Flora-Bama's Mullet Toss, we decided it was time to go check it out again and see for ourselves.
The weather was nice when we were headed out to Gulf Shores, but there were thunderstorms heading our way. The surf had grown from choppy ankle snappers in the morning to a 3' choppy windswell. Visibility had been good this week until this point, unfortunately, the surf killed it for the most part. There was a current running to the East that was light-medium. The surge was pretty bad at our depths(maxing out at 13', worse in the 7-8' range where I found the wreckage).
It took us a pretty good amount of time to find the wreck, even though we fanned out a bit to cover more ground. Eventually, I did come across it. We had 2-4' of visibility with alot of surge, so basically it came into eye-sight and the surge pushed me into it. There wasn't much to it at all. It had 6"-12" of relief that stretched ~25' of length on the sandy bottom. The sandbar still sat ontop of it, but it had shifted or washed away enough for the wreck to peak out just a bit. I didn't spend much time on it, I wanted to let everyone else know that I had found it. After surfacing for 5-10 min waiting to see if anyone else would surface(none did in that amount of time) I descended again and lost the wreck. I never found it again over the course of the night. Atleast I know its out there and its working its way into being uncovered again. While diving sand, other than my brief stint on the wreck before losing it again, we saw Flounder, a small white fish with wiskers, some white trout, hermit crabs, cone jellies(non stinging), a few stinging nettles(D'oh), and quite a few electric skates.
It was a fun dive anyway, a bit more challenging than the Whiskey Wreck usually turns out to be. Low visibility, a bit of a current, and alot of surge made for quite a dive while trying to keep an eye on your buddy. Gave us a great opportunity to test our navigational skills though.
