 | GROUNDHOG TALES |
Panama City Florida by Don Mosher | |
|
Diving in Panama city Florida by Don Mosher For the past four years my wife,son and I have been traveling to panama city beach at christmas to visit family.This trip would be a little different as I was now a certified diver. Before we left to go to Florida I checked out some dive sites on www.scubadiving.com and was pleased to find out about their artifical reef project that has been ongoing for years.
They have sank bridgespans, boats, frieghters, hovercrafts, tankers, tugs, minesweepers, boxcars,jets, etc. So upon arrival (21hrs drive time) I went to a local dive shop Divers Den on thomas drive,and inquired about a dive trip. This was on thursday ,they said that they were probably going out on saturday and needed a minimum of five divers to go, so I left our phone number for them to reach me.They also told me that the water was cold 60oF,after telling them of being certified this past spring in 39oF water I think that they think we Canadians are all crazy. The next day Debi from divers den called and said the trip was on for saturday and to meet at their dive store at 8.30 to get our gear together and the boat would go out at 10. When saturday came the weather forcast was good sunny,calm and a high of 62oF ,I arrived at 8.30 to get a rental suit/bc/regs/tanks and paid for the day $50 for the boat trip and $40 for the rental.At the dive shop i met debi's husband Casey who would be the boat captain for the trip. I loaded my gear into my truck to drive around to the other side of St Andrews bay and seen dolfins swimming when i went over Hathaway bridge . After parking in the parking lot I loaded my stuff onto one of their carts to take it down the dock to their boat "Splash" other divers were arriving at the same time. We were met at the boat by divemaster Dave who helped getting our equipment onboard.In a short time we were underway seven divers alltogether. Casey informed us it would be 40 minutes to our first destination the Black Bart.On our way out I buddied up with Ricardo an army special forces soldier just back from Aphganistan,he was an army trained diver with lots of experiance,after telling him this was my first saltwater dive,and I didn't know what to expect he said no problem just relax. Casey told us in about 10 minutes we would be at our destination so we started suiting up. The Black Bart was a steel hulled fishing trawler in 70 ft of water.When they arrived at their gps heading Casey used a narrow beam colour graph depthfinder to put us right on the wreck. Divemaster Dave backrolled off the boat to secure a line from the bow of the boat down to the wheelhouse of the Black Bart. Casey and Dave helped us all with our equipment the it was just a giant stride off the stern platform into the water and down the line we went. I went down slow as I couldn't equilize very fast, Ricardo was right their keeping close.The vis was good eventhough their was a storm a few days earlier, I was surprized at the brightness at the bottom of the gulf, as it is nice white sand with no rocks or weeds and being a sunny day it reflected alot of light. At max depth of 70 ft the water temp was 60oF with no thermocline. We seen a school of fish that look like aquaruim angel fish and also seen some amberjacks cruising around, they were 2-3ft long and shaped like a torpedo.The black bart has large holes cut in it for diving through but no one went in it.Me being the air hog was the first to head to the line to go up.After all the divers were back on board we proceded to our next destination the navy hovercraft, only about 10 minutes away.Upon arrival again divemaster dave backrolled to attach a rope to the wreck.When Dave came up he grabbed a fishing spear and went back down only to return with a flounder wriggling on it. I understand that flounder lay on the sand making it easy to spear. During our s.i.t. we had a chance to meet the other divers on the boat. There was divers from Sweden, Georgia, Tennese, and Florida. It was very comfortable on the boat as the waves were only about six inches.Then it was dive time again it was down the rope to a sunk navy hovercraft, the craft was made of aluminum and fairly void of marine growth, again as we desended down the line I was impressed with brightness and visability underwater. The hovercraft was quite big with loading ramps at both ends, we seen amberjacks and a bright yellow and blue fish,also some one seen a sea turtle. Again me being the hog it was time to asend. After all were on board back to the dock we went. We were back at the diveshop around 3pm after turning in my equipment I purchased a cool SHUT UP AND DIVE t-shirt. My next florida dive adventure was a spring with underwater caverns. On New Years day we drove to Vortex springs in Ponce de leon Florida,it was about a 45 minute drive from panama city beach. Vortex springs advertise "GIN CLEAR WATER 68oF YEAR ROUND" upon arrival at vortex i paid for the rental and air and admission to the spring $77. Their were only two other divers their so I buddied up with them,Hollis and his nefew from Pensacola. The water was very clear as you could see fish swimming around from there dock. Entry and exit was very easy as they had stairs into the water. Hollis gave me an underwater tour down to the entry to the caverns max depth at this spot was 45ft. The caverns travell 350ft to a max depth of 110ft, they must do alot of training here as they have an underwater diving bell and these box like structures for training in tight quarters. Most of the dive was at 20ft so my air lasted 50mins. If I were to go their again I would arrange a cavern diving course to keep it interesting. Vortex has a campground,bunkhouse and a well stocked dive store. The spring at vortex is vacuumed daily to keep silt down and they say 25 million gallons of water per day come out of it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it Don.. |