YDT-14 & 15 Dive Report 2-9-08

[wjefferis]

Woke up this morning and was pleased to see clear skies and no wind. There was a little fog on the roads during my drive out to Orange Beach, but it soon burned off. The plan was to meet up at Gary’s Gulf Divers and then all head out to the boat. We headed out to the YDT-14 and YDT-15 in about one foot or less seas and clear skies. Gary’s boat, the Cat-N-Around, made quick work of the trip in about an hour or maybe a little less. The first dive was the YDT-14. Upon splashing in there was a bit of a snotty layer at the surface, but once down to about 20 feet visibility started jumping up quick opening up to 50 ft on site, with water temps at 67*. This site was covered with amberjack, a few nice sized trigger fish and an assortment of other life. This is probably my favorite dive aside from the Oriskany. After returning to the boat and completing a little over an hour surface interval it was time to check out the YDT-15. The water had cleared up a bit bringing the visibility to about 60, water temps the same. Tons of fish, awesome site, what else is there to say? If you have never dove these two sites you should really consider checking them out, they are the bomb!!!! Here are a few pictures from the dive:

 

[GLENFWB]

Great pictures....sorry I missed that dive. We will have to do that one again soon. Hopefully conditions will be good for our jetty dive tomorrow.

 

[SeaYoda]

Wow, nice viz. I'm game to try there some time.

The pics are great! I'm jealous of the Doctor fish - I can never get them to hold still!

Good luck on the jetty dive - take lots of pics.
Here is what it looked like today at about 2pm:

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Great pics, glad to see conditions finally allowed for the boat getting offshore to some of the great sites out there!

Thanks for the report, sorry I missed you guys for dinner. Had a family thing to attend.

 

[philmottrek99and02]

Thanks for the report! Beats my yesterday; stuck with home repair chores.
Howard

 

[wjefferis]

It was defintely a good time. I couldn't make it to Tacky Jacks for the post dive bushwacker festival either. I had a date with the wife. I Definitely had a good time on this trip as it is always fun to get a boat full of scubaboarders together. Gary and DM John also did a great job at making the trip fun. I am already looking forward to the next adventure. I think it will be the new I-10 bridge rubble and the 50/50 tug. Here are a couple more pics:

 

[Doll_Fin]

That looks like fun!! I will make a point of signing up for a future trip to that site!

 

[wjefferis]

Gary has this site scheduled once each month. I will definitely be on another trip to this site this year.

 

[ShagMan]

Wow, is that a real SPS head in this type of water??

Great pics, I'm jealous!

 

[denisegg]

What a wonderful day at Sea!!! The best ocean dive I have had in months. The conditions were superb and it was a great bunch of folks on the boat. The only nonscubaboarder was Neal who has moved here from Wisconsin and he said he would be getting on the board so he could keep up with plans for future dives. The other divers were Donna, Walter, Andreas and Me. As Walter said, Gary and DM John did a great job as usual!!

First Dive I did a 24 minute dive with a max depth of 91 and an avg of 69 with a water temp of 64*. The vis was around 50 and the fish were abundant. The size of these ships make for a great dive because you can see all of it in one dive and have time to explore what is hidden in pipes and cracks.

Second Dive after a SI of 1hr and 51min I did a 25 minute dive with a max depth of 96 and an avg of 72 with water temp to 66*. The vis was even better on this dive. I got a little chilly toward the end of this dive even though the water temps were not bad at all. I was diving wet with 3 layers of wetsuit so maybe one suit that is thicker would be warmer? It was still an awesome dive and a great day.

Everyone from the dive made to Tacky Jacks except Walter who had made a date with his wife. I told him I couldn't believe he made a date with her instead of Donna and Me.