Bridge Span 14.
Hello Wakulla
We just finished our surface interval and headed to the bottom to explore the bridge span. We descended and saw thousands of small to medium baitfish. They would swim over us like a big cloud blocking some of the sunlight. The visibility was about 30 feet which is about normal for this year.
I was amazed how much this span had deteriorated since last year when I dove it. When it gets this bad you need to be careful as you swim around the bottom under the span just in case something falls on you.
There were a lot of different species of fish that make this span their home year round. The bottom was about 72 feet and had a lot of shells and sand dollars. I was taking video of this dive so I took my time to capture as much sea life as possible.
I was swimming along the bottom when I noticed a pile of empty shells in the middle of what looked like a hole with sand piled up around the rim of a volcano. I then noticed as I settled to the bottom there was movement coming out of the hole and it was a small octopus cleaning out his den. I got so in to watching it that I never turned on my GoPro.
I swam around the span slowly trying to see if there were any other creatures crawling or lounging around the bottom. I saw the typical crustaceans and the small colorful fish trying to protect their little plot of sand.
I finally got to where I started and decided it was time to make my way up the brand new stainless steel anchor chain to my safety stop before I make my final journey of this trip.
It’s pretty interesting what you can see when you are just hanging out at your safety stop. There was the biggest moon jellyfish that had hundreds of tiny silver (what I call hatchet fish) just swimming around where other fish get caught and absorbed for food for the jellyfish. I would say that that jellyfish measured about 18-20 inches across.
Well my 3 minutes was up and I headed back up to the boat ladder to get back on the boat so I could break down my gear and place it in my dive bag for the return trip back to the dock.
Until next week keep making bubbles.
– Russell Miller, NAUI instructor #59999