When most people think of scuba diving, it brings an image of tropical shores; palm trees, white sands, those sparkling blue water and lovely warm temperatures. Sometimes I actually get to live that dream myself. The winter of ’24-’25 however has brought me vastly different images of scuba diving paradise.
The diving season in Gulf Shores generally runs from around March through October. Or at least that is what I used to think. This winter those delusions were certainly shattered. I thought the group of students I had for the first week of October were going to be my last for several months. NOT! A few more showed up for the first week of November. Once again, I thought I was done for the season. Nope! One of those guys wanted to start on his advanced the week of Thanksgiving. I showed up for the boat trip but it was canceled at the last minute. So I was off the hook for a few days Then came two more in December. They drive trucks out of Missouri and spend winters down here. They were going on a cruise in January and wanted to get certified. I said we could do t. It wasn’t gonna be fun but we could get it done. And we did just before Christmas.
In January, we had what passes for a blizzard on the Gulf Coast. My house got about 7-8 inches of snow. It was the biggest snowfall in thirty-plus years. And guess what? I was supposed to have a new student in mid-January. But fate intervened and I was able to push it back to the first of February. Then I had two brothers. One had to get certified by March 1 to go to Sea Base with the Boy Scouts in June. Where were y’all last summer? Once again, days in the cold water.
Being close to some springs on the Florida panhandle allows us to train year-round. We take students to the rec center pool in Gulf Shores to teach them their basic skills. Vortex Springs in Ponce de Leon is about two hours away. There is another spring near there called Morrison Spring. I’ve never been in Morrison’s. But I made three trips to Vortex this winter. Then there were three dives under the Perdido Pass Bridge to finish up. Vortex has a constant temp year round and clear visibility. Under the Pass Bridge, everything varies on a daily basis. The water was cold and salty, the visibility sucked, the tides were backward of what we normally dive. I got the sugar-cookie treatment a time or two. (A Navy Seal term where one gets rolled in the sand and comes out coated it with it, looking like a Christmas sugar cookie.)
It’s now early April and I’ve gotten a bit of a reprieve. Spring Break season has started and we’ve been overrun with people renting ebikes and kayaks. I was supposed to take an advanced student out this week but the wind had everything churned up. So we will try for next week and add two more besides. Then to get them on the boat to finish. It’s looking like we are going to have an even busier season than last year.
The Red Fins 