I went diving yesterday

DannieH42 · Post by **DannieH42** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 8:34 pm

The dives were amazing. We were diving on gas rigs about 50 miles out of orange beach. I saw 2 french angels, a couple of queen angels. I saw hundreds of purple tangs. One of them was almost a foot long. When I looked closely at the legs of the gas rig we were diving on I saw some really beautiful smaller creatures. There wer blennies, urchins, bristle worms ( some were as much as 9 inches long) and all kinds of anemonies and sponges. I saw hundreds of really cool things that I could not identify.
I ended up catching 3 gobies. One is redish, the other two are turquoise with orange spots. I got 2 pencil urchins. I also got a group of anemonies that are orange with yellow-orange tenticles. I in a litle clump of rock (really just a small chunk of dead barnicles)that I got I found 3 baby brittle stars.
I feel like I hit a gold mine. It was wonderful.
The clump of anemonies I don't recognize. Does anyone know anything about them. In the attached pic they are closed up, but when they open they are bright yellow.

andy4499 · Post by **andy4499** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:06 pm

It looks like a sun polyp. that I just bought.

http://www.mbrk.com/viewtopic.php?t=1667

wtrhed · Post by **wtrhed** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:10 pm

That's the same thing I was thinking!!! That thing is too cool. Did you do any fishing????? We hit the rigs ALL the time, but we have never dove on them. How deep did you find those? After seeing some of the fish we catch around them, I would be a little wary of swimming there.

KrazyPlace · Post by **KrazyPlace** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:32 pm

Didn't know we could get those locally!

By the way, welcome to the forum!

Snakeman · Post by **Snakeman** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 6:38 am

DannieH42 If you ever need somebody to go diving with you give me a call. There is some really cool stuff on those rigs.

sb1227 · Post by **sb1227** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 7:41 am

I've heard tthey are all over this area, mainly on the rigs...all the way along the Gulf coast.

Brandon · Post by **Brandon** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 10:45 am

Is that really a Sun Coral? We have that locally, for real?

DannieH42 · Post by **DannieH42** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 3:00 pm

yes, we did some fishing on the way out. When we got out about 50 miles we dove on 2 rigs. I saw so many more things than I could list here. There is a lot of stuff out there. Did I mention the 5 foot barracudas that were swimmming around us.
The guy I went out with has the ultimate setup. I get to go out diving with him about once or twice a year. The diving out there is great. I dove in the keys and the dry tortugas and I like the rigs in the northern gulf better.

wtrhed · Post by **wtrhed** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 4:35 pm

Barracudas and wahoos were exactly what I was talking about. Those fish are just mean!! I would rather swim with a shark any day. We were fishing around the rigs and hooked a small (20-25lb) king. We got him to the side and were fixing to gaff him when BAM, this 60+lb cuda hit him and in one bite cut him completly in half!! This was rite at the boat within gaffing distance!!! The king was probably about the size of my calf, that's one hell of a bite. Made me think twice about swimming out there.

DannieH42 · Post by **DannieH42** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 7:39 pm

They were watching us because we each had a 30-40 pound dead amberjack hooked to oour weight belts.

wtrhed · Post by **wtrhed** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:25 pm

What rig were you on? Were the jacks holding to the rig, or were they off it? How deep did you get them. See any big ones?

wtrhed · Post by **wtrhed** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:27 pm

That guy was about 63lbs. And NO, I'm not that short! I had my knees bent in the pic and my buddy is pretty tall. The pic made me look like a munchkin.

DannieH42 · Post by **DannieH42** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:43 pm

I saw some that probably went 60 punds or so, but they did not come close. We were at 130ft so we did not have very long to wait for them to get closer. We did not want to have to do a deco stop so went went down took a shot and came right back up to a more sensible depth (75ft) to look for aquarium stuff.