Doug Terry's Dive Log

Don't over look the Santa Fe River at Ginnie Spring. Follow the spring run down to a deep hole where the spring enters the river. There are logs, slabs of lumber and lots of fish there. At times there is luxuriant growth of water plants, early in the year almost none. You can also drift the river from The Devil's Eye and Ear area down to Ginnie or on down to Deer spring. When the river's clear, usually in summer and the current is not too strong, the river drift is a terrific dive.

We've done the dive at the Fort Pickens several times. Viz is dependent on the tides and there can be lots of fisherman at times. The actual jetties are quite short but there can be a good dive up the channel from the jetties too. There are fish attractors sunk along the slope to the ship channel. We've seen octopus there as well as good variety of fish. The only guitar fish I've ever seen was there. It's not Bonaire but it's well worth doing.

1000 Steps is a great dive and the 72 actual steps are short steps too. I enjoyed everything about this site but was particularly impressed with the stag horn coral growing on top of the reef, piles 3 to 4 feet high. You pick your way around it to get to the drop off. I had a great encounter with an octopus on the way to the drop off.

This can be a great dive or not so great depending on currents and tides. With an slack high tide I've seen 40 feet of viz and good variety of fish and shell fish. Low tide or tide going out viz is poor and currents can be strong during tide changes. The shore entry is easy but getting across to the channel side can be tricky. The safest bet is to swim down where you can swim across rather than try to climb over the rocks but you can get beat up and speared by sea urchins if you are not really careful where and how you cross.