First off we have a gift for everyone. Stop by the shop and pick up our new Coral Reef Dive Shop decal.
The trip this past weekend was a blast. We had seven Open Water students and six certified divers. At Vortex Spring Friday we shared the facility with a class from the University of Tennessee. They had 28 students to go with our seven so visibility was about 10ft. All our divers handled the situation extremely well and we managed to do three dives and complete most of the skills.
Saturday we hit the gulf and did the Strength as our first dive. The Strength has never been known for great vis but the 10ft. we got was a lot less then expected. Next was Span 2 and surprise, 10ft. vis. Even so a few of our divers were thrilled to see a giant Southern Stingray along with a very large turtle.
Sunday we decided to run further west in search of better visibility and wound up on Span 14. When the deckhand returned from tying in, the report was 10ft. vis. For the last dive of the weekend we did the wreck of the Chickasaw. The visibility wasn’t any better but it was still a great dive. I hadn’t been on this wreck in a number of years and had almost forgotten how good it could be with small groups. All in all it was a great weekend with some really fine people.
Our newly certified divers are Stephanie Loman, Lori and Raegan Taylor, Tiffany Furey, Tony Hammack and Shane Bellanger, congratulations to all.

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