I grew up in central Texas. Our family vacation most years was a stay on Port A at one of the resort hotels, La Mirage’ if I remember right. We’d hang around the pool and play on the beech. We’d see “porpoises” (really bottle nose dolphins) playing in the bow wake of the ferry crossing onto the island. Later in life I became a diver and some of my first dive trips (at least those not into the murky depths of fresh water lakes) were into the gulf. Dr Sieben and Dr White took us into the gulf to dive one of the liberty ships there as part of my dive training. Later I started going on Flower Gardens trips on the Fling and Spree.

Time has passed and I’m getting back into the swing of things diving wise after a while off. Darin instigated a rig diving trip out of Surfside Beach (don’t let the name fool you, it is near Galveston/Freeport). We set out mid morning for our 2 tank dive.

The rig we visited was about 18 miles out and was ensconced in a circle of fishing boats, including some jet skis. No matter, the conditions were as good as they can be in the gulf. The water was warm and the swell non-existent. There was no current. That doesn’t happen in the gulf very often.

As dives go, this was pretty easy: single cylinder, no wet-suit (83F water temp). Of course the camera came along.

Lets dive.

Gulf fish aren’t that spectacular unless you are on an actual reef (i.e. the Flower Gardens). We saw mostly Atlantic Spade fish and a bunch of other small bate fish. There were bottle-nose dolphins circling the platform, but none came close enough for us to see.

The dives were uneventful. We hung out around the legs of the platform just shy of an hour and saw a lot of a spade fish. It was good to be back in salt water regardless.

Our trip home was more eventful than I would like. One of the engines on the boat went down which made it slow (like walking pace) and a little nerve wracking when the captain tried to slide it into the slip.