Texas Rigs, August 30, 2000
Author: Cory Robertson

Hey everyone. Just starting my workday and I thought a good way to extend my weekend would be to write up a trip report on the rig diving I did on Sunday. I guess one word to sum up the trip would be fantastic! Those of you who haven't taken advantage of the wonderful diving in our backyard you should really consider booking a trip. I'm calling the dive store I dove with this morning and reserving as many spots as I can for a week from Sunday. Anyway... My day started at 5:30 from Rockport so I could make the 7 O'clock boarding time at Fisherman's Wharf in Port Aransas. I don't know how many of you have driven to Port A in the early AM, but the road is lousy with fisherman towing their boats to launches, and they are usually not too considerate of other traffic. I tried to pass one such boat puller, just as he decided he was going to turn left without his blinker on. Needless to say, I ended up driving in the "Cory lane" as I like to call it to avoid missing the boat. The guy then proceeds to stop in the middle of the road, too confused or high on shrimp heads to know what to do, and honked his horn like there was no tomorrow. I just happily scooted on by, tooted my own horn, and escaped another close call on the "Redneck Riviera." The boat, Pacific Star, picked us up at the Wharf at 6:45 for a 7 AM sail. The boat carries 12 divers comfortably, and makes 14-15 knots with no problems (more on this later). The boat is set up Cozumel style, with 2 long benches with tank holders and a nice ladder and platform. This is a very easy boat to dive off of. They have a warm water shower, but no large rinse tanks for you photogs, so make sure you rinse your camera off real good with the shower. I like to drape a wet towel over my camera to keep the saltwater from crystallizing on my o-rings, which works like a charm. This operation is definitely a la carte, so here is a list of what you need to bring: tanks(2) drinking water all you gear, including weights towels, clothes, etc. Bonine, Dramamine, etc. Ice chest with mucho water and food. Camera sunscreen drinking water speargun (check with the dive store to make sure they allow it on their trips) scuba repair kit (o-rings, mask strap, dive tool, fin strap, etc.) tip money and last but not least, drinking water. This list is in no way complete, but the moral of the story is that you have to be self-sufficient; they provide the ride and the supervision, that's all. The rig we dove was about a 30 mile cruise, and was 11 miles offshore. I didn't see the nameplate, so I don't know which one it was. Let me tell you, you couldn't have asked for better conditions--1 ft seas that got better as the day progressed, 75 ft of vis, and a negligible current. The drive out took about 2 hours, which gave everyone plenty of time to get to know one another and hang out. The boat is very spacious, with a nice flying bridge and an air-conditioned cabin. A word of caution, if you are prone to sea-sickness the cabin is not the best place to be. You need to be in the breeze where you can see the horizon. If you do start to feel icky, drink a coke, keep the back of your neck wet, and "feed the fish" if you get the urge. The diving: Rig diving is vey similar in style to any other boat diving, you gear up onboard, giant stride into the water, and descend down a line that the crew ties off to the rig. The boat captain will explain all the rules in detail on the trip, so I won't get into it. We had two hunters on the boat, and they enter the water first. I went with them to try to get some shots, but the big fish were shy, so they ended up putting 7 dog snappers in the box (they provide a fish ice chest, as well as another one just for drinks and food). The rest of the boat joined us on the rig about 10 minutes later, and everyone just had a ball diving through the rig structure and enjoying the mini-ecosystem in the middle of nowhere. The bottom was at 125 ft, and the boat made a max of 100. All rigs have a silt layer around 15 ft from the bottom, which looks like smoke, but above that the water was crystal clear. The rig structure was covered in red sponge, barnacles, sea lettuce, worm polyps (little white fan colonies), bird's nest coral (white, small hard coral), and bristleworms (if you couldn't guess by the name, leave these buggers alone!!). The fish life was fantastic--schools of dog snapper, 4 or 5 tarpon, queen angels, little cowfish, banded butterflies, spadefish schools, tons of barracuda on the periphery, ocean triggers, ling (cobia), amberjack, jack crevali, and the piece de resistance--a 100 lb jewfish. He was just sitting in 100 ft of water, right above the silt layer, getting cleaned. These are magnificent fish, and you won't see them anywhere else usually but the Texas Gulf coast. Both dives were fantastic, and I burned a whole role trying to be artistic (we'll see in a day or two). Definitely mount your macro, or if you are feeling adventurous, your wide angle. If you have some experience, wide angle is the way to go in my opinion. There is a lot of macro life on the rigs, but it is pretty uniform. Besides, with a WA lens, you can get close and still get other parts of the structure. If you want to photo the fish, you should probably use a 50-60mm or so since they won't let you get close enough to get individuals with wide angle. After the dives, which were both on the same rig (why leave a great thing?), we loaded up for the 2 hr ride home only to find the port engine starter was ****** up! They spent an hour trying to get it going to no avail, and we limped into port at a whopping 8 knots. Between the time I surfaced from the second dive, to the time I got off the boat, 6.5 hours had gone by. On the plus side, we saw a large manta right off the jetties in Port A. Packed my car, picked up Ann, and made it back to Austin around 12:30.

Cory

©1999-2007 DiveAtlas Web Publishing.  All Rights Reserved
This entire domain and all associated e-mail addresses are located in the State of Washington,
and sending mail to addresses at this domain is subject to the provisions of the Revised Code of Washington.