DAN safety barge dive in Panama City.
We here in the Big Bend area dodged a serious bullet a couple of weeks ago. When Ian hit the Gulf waters it looked like it would have nailed us head on. As the days progressed we saw it start to turn to the east and make landfall at Sanibel Island and Fort Meyers. It is sad to see all the destruction that the storm made in that area.
I had several students over in Panama City Beach the Sunday before Ian got to the Gulf and on the dive sites we where diving we noticed a curious phenomena going on under the water. The jellyfish that where there started to make their way to the deeper water. I’m not talking a few I’m talking a few hundred.
No one who was diving got stung but you had to really dodge them on your way back up to the boat ladder. Once on board you could see them just below the surface moving out to the deeper waters.
The dive sites we dove were the lost pontoon and the DAN safety barge, both dives were good but the visibility was only 20-25 feet. Besides the jellyfish there were lots of fish from medium amberjacks to small mangrove snapper.
At the lost pontoon there are lots of nice shells and the students were able to get a few because the max depth is 60 feet. We then moved to the DAN safety barge for our second and final dive for the day. The visibility as about the same as the last dive but on the top of the barge as I have mentioned before was a lot of sea fan type soft coral and some hard coral. The depth there is also 60 feet to the bottom where the students found some more shells.
They could explore around the outside of the structure and even look at the top of the barge but I instructed them before the dive not to swim over the top of it. By staying off the top of the barge there is less chance of kicking and destroying the soft fans.
This brings me to my biggest peeve and that is the skill of buoyancy, as I was swimming around with my students I was showing them some of the different marine life at the edge of the barge, when I noticed a new instructor from another agency swimming on the top of the barge dragging his fat stomach across the tops of several sea fans and breaking them off at the top.
I was furious because if any diver that should have near perfect buoyancy it should be the instructor. Fortunately his two students stayed well above the coral.
Buoyancy will be another article that I will share some helpful techniques to help you out. The students made their way up the anchor line to their safety stop while I swam around and looked inside the barge with my flashlight.
The first big hole I looked in I saw a huge Goliath grouper just hanging out waiting for all the divers to leave. We just starred at each other for a few minutes then he just slowly made his way out the other side while I decided that I better go to the anchor rope and make my way back to the boat.
When I got on the boat I was greeted by the captain with “So you finally decided to come up.”
I just smiled, sat down removed my gear and looked at the newly certified divers and the big smiles they each had on their faces.
That is the truly rewarding part for me is when I can bring new people in the diving community.
Russell Miller NAUI #59999
Editor’s Note: This is a repeat of a column from 2022.
