Dive no.: 7 Aug 1 2007Location: Panama City FLDive site: St Andrews State Park JettiesWeather Condition: Stormy, 84 degWater Condition: Jellyfish infested, Stormy WavesWater Temp: 81 deg
High Tide at: 12:30Entered the water at: 11:15
Max Depth: That depends. 2 inches if you just count my face, otherwise 5ft 8 inches, if you include my feet.Bottom Time: 2 seconds

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Remarks:

Today was a character building day!

We still need to allow for extra time preparing for a dive.


Ready?






Approaching Storm

Recently, there was a diver killed by lightening (story about it here). So naturally I was a bit apprehensive, since the lightening was not too far from us. I asked some other divers who seemed unconcerned. They acknowledged they were aware of that diving accident, but they pretty much shrugged it off with a chuckle and pressed on.

Hmmm. OK.




Here we go...

Not a lot a talking goes on before a dive. But our minds are racing.




Dang storm better miss us

There are some other divers out there, so it can`t be all that bad. Let`s try to catch up with them!






ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!

Daniel seen them first, "Oh my god! There`s tons of jelly fish!" As he said this, we all felt them. They scraped our arms and legs like red hot razer blades. Ben started screaming in pain. Then I saw them too. MILLIONS! It was a generous swarm of little ping pong ball-sized Stinging Jellyfish as far as I could see. Daniel later said they got inside his shirt and even inside his shorts.

They stung his "nethers!"

Adding insult to injury, the waves from the storm tossed us around on the big jetty rocks for a final good lashing before we managed to struggle back into the shallows. Then we high tailed it out of the water and joined dozens of other dissappointed beach bums and scuba divers under the pavillion to wait out the storm.

A short while later, some other divers joined us under the pavillion and were excitedly talking about how cool the lightening looked from below the surface of the water.


It was a very quiet drive home. We didn`t even bother to unload the car.

Heck with it.



The day`s not a total loss.


But a few hours later, our spirits improved and so we drug the kayaks out to the bay for a relaxing paddle.

Well. What a day. I expect this won`t be the last dive that turns into a total bust.

Stay tuned tho.... we went right back two days later and had a GREAT dive!