Whitehill Reef and Liberty Ship (Destin FL) Nov 3rd

[Skeptic14]

As the fall/winter weather pattern starts to assert itself in the Destin area, I jumped at the opportunity to get in a few more dives before potentially calling it a season. The forecast looked great for last Thursday, light south east winds after a few days of stronger east/south east winds. The wind combined with what also appeared to be current from the east seemed to offer the potential for nice visibility.

Even with the winds dying over night there were still some decent rollers but nothing too bad. The water temp was 77 all the way to the bottom. From the surface the water had a nice blue hint which was promising and sure enough descending on the first site, Whitehill Reef a natural reef in 85' of water, at about 40' the reef and bottom was already coming into view. Excellent!

The exceptional vis for this area was thoroughly enjoyed; all the usual critters were spotted, butterfly fish, angelfish, grunt, snapper, grouper, toadfish, frogfish, moray eel, barracuda and amberjack everywhere and several bat fish but unfortunately tons of lionfish. The highlight was a sighting of an ~6' shark that after some post dive research I'm pretty sure was a sandbar shark due to the large dorsal fin. It swam parallel to us several times within 20' so due to the exceptional vis we got a nice look, unfortunately not close enough for a photo op.

The second dive was on the Thomas Heyward Liberty ship and my main goal was to finally see my first goliath. On two previous dives goliaths were spotted by other divers but I'd missed them; today I was going to find the resident goliath! We were again treated to 40-50' of visibility and some nice marine life. A loggerhead swam by a few times, another shark that didn't come quite as close and finally... the goliath! I was surprised at how timid it was, it wouldn't allow a close approach at all. I was able to follow it to a hiding spot and snap one mediocre shot to record my first goliath sighting though. I have much more appreciation for the great goliath shots I've seen now... it was also interesting to stare a fish as big as myself in the face for a few seconds before it swam away.

Another great day of diving in the Destin, Fl area!

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[flyingDiver75]

Vis has been really amazing the last two week. I dove Labor Day Rock on Friday and we were able to explore some nearby structure that usually isn't seen. Fingers crossed for good weather and vis again this Friday and Sunday.

Lucked onto a Goliath on the Strength wreck in Panama City on Sunday. He would scoot as soon as we shined a light into the structure. It took replaying our video about 5 times on slow motion before we were able to catch the 2 seconds or so he stayed in view. My dive buddy saw him shadowing us after - always staying just at the edge of visibility behind us.

 

[sportxlh]

Nice photos again! Remind me what you're using for you photo rig.

I have a fair amount of experience diving with GG's in Jupiter and West Palm Beach: some are shy and some quite brave. What I've found is that once other divers clear out (I dive with a 120 cf and 100 tank) even the shy ones might pull in closer if there is only one or two divers left and the divers move really slowly. A goliath on the LuLu off of Gulf Shores AL let me climb in the wheelhouse with him during the summer once all the other divers were gone. Got within an arm span of it. On one of the bridge spans in Panama City Beach, a couple of the goliaths made several very close passes of me and another diver once the rest of the divers surfaced. Both of us divers simply clipped off to the span and barely moved a muscle, letting the GG'S come to us. Given the unusually good vis that day, it was a spectacular experience.

The key is to make no sudden moves, move slow and try to stay down longer that all the other divers.

In WPB, there was a resident goliath on one of the wrecks that came right up to divers like a lost puppy

 

[Skeptic14]

Vis has been really amazing the last two week. I dove Labor Day Rock on Friday and we were able to explore some nearby structure that usually isn't seen. Fingers crossed for good weather and vis again this Friday and Sunday.

Lucked onto a Goliath on the Strength wreck in Panama City on Sunday. He would scoot as soon as we shined a light into the structure. It took replaying our video about 5 times on slow motion before we were able to catch the 2 seconds or so he stayed in view. My dive buddy saw him shadowing us after - always staying just at the edge of visibility behind us.

How did you like the Strength compared to Thomas Heyward?

The visibility has been great, only 1 of my last 4 trips had mediocre vis (<=20).

That's what the sandbar shark(s) like to do too at whitehill and heyward... stay right on the edge of visibility; gotta come up with a strategy for getting shots of both.

Nice photos again! Remind me what you're using for you photo rig.

Thanks, I'm using an olympus tg-4, pt-056 housing, ys-03 strobe and uwl-04 fisheye lens.

I have a fair amount of experience diving with GG's in Jupiter and West Palm Beach: some are shy and some quite brave. What I've found is that once other divers clear out (I dive with a 120 cf and 100 tank) even the shy ones might pull in closer if there is only one or two divers left and the divers move really slowly. A goliath on the LuLu off of Gulf Shores AL let me climb in the wheelhouse with him during the summer once all the other divers were gone. Got within an arm span of it. On one of the bridge spans in Panama City Beach, a couple of the goliaths made several very close passes of me and another diver once the rest of the divers surfaced. Both of us divers simply clipped off to the span and barely moved a muscle, letting the GG'S come to us. Given the unusually good vis that day, it was a spectacular experience.

The key is to make no sudden moves, move slow and try to stay down longer that all the other divers.

In WPB, there was a resident goliath on one of the wrecks that came right up to divers like a lost puppy

I will have to get a 100cuft tank and give that a shot!

 

[iamrushman]

thanks for sharing your dive report and the great photos....

 

[flyingDiver75]

How did you like the Strength compared to Thomas Heyward?

The visibility has been great, only 1 of my last 4 trips had mediocre vis (<=20).

That's what the sandbar shark(s) like to do too at whitehill and heyward... stay right on the edge of visibility; gotta come up with a strategy for getting shots of both.



Thanks, I'm using an olympus tg-4, pt-056 housing, ys-03 strobe and uwl-04 fisheye lens.



I will have to get a 100cuft tank and give that a shot!

The Strength has a lot more structure to it - in three or four large pieces (the wreck has been rolled at least twice by storms). It was also not put down 'clean' -- it's got all sorts of remnant pipe, cables, deck boxes, etc that the Hayward lacks (not to mention the Strength went down will all of it's upper decking). Lots and lots of places to explore without getting into overhead. The bottom around the Strength is only 70' -- so you can also dive longer before you time out on deco - average depth probably 55-ish.

My buddy was on her 1st open-ocean dive trip so we barely scratched the surface of trying to nose into hiding spots. I didn't want to get her down around a lot of scrap metal and torn cables while refining buoyancy.

Besides the big Goliath, we also noted:

• big schools of grunts in every interior space
• large spadefish schools around the wreck
• schools of amberjack and hardtails in the mid-water
• plenty of smaller tropicals and queen angel fish
• 2 large batfish
• juvenile black grouper

+1 on HP100's! I've got about 10 dives on mine now and rarely do a dive shorter than 45 minutes and have managed some 2nd dives to within 5 minutes of nodeco limits on EAN32. I'm also down to 6lbs of weight with a full 3mm + 3mm vest and 5mm hood thanks to their negative buoyancy.

 

[Skeptic14]

Sounds like I need to get over to PCB before it gets to cold for my 3mm!

What dive op did you go out with, would you recommend them? I've only dove with divelocker out of PCB, I thought they were good.

A less square profile sounds nice too.

 

[flyingDiver75]

We went out on the Island Runner which is Panama City Dive Shop's larger boat. Deck setup is very similar to the Sea Cobra. It was a crowd with 20 divers, but the boat and wrecks were large enough that it really didn't feel cramped. Friendly crew, and they got everyone in and out of the water without issues.

I know they were already booked for Sunday -- and the weather forecast is pretty bad right now for PCB in any case. Jac and I are booked next Saturday (19th) for their 2 tank 'inshore' trip which is pretty similar to a Scubatech trip in terms of distance and time. They offer 3 tank and 2 tank 'offshore' trips to some of the historic wrecks over that way, but I don't think they have those this time of year very often.

Temps bottomed out at 74 degrees on the Red Sea which is slightly more offshore than the Strength. Pretty comfy still with my 3mm + vest. Surface interval was a bit chilly - I'll pack a better jacket next trip.

 

[sportxlh]

Here's a couple of crappy screen shots of the goliath on the Lulu wreck in Gulfshore Alabama that I saw in the summer taken from a GoPro Hero 2 video. In the wheelhouse shot, it was an arm's distance away.

 

[Skeptic14]

Cool!

That's very close, I'm going to have to get a 100cf and give it a shot if not this season next season, the bridge span off PCB sounds very promising.