It’s been a month

[Gary Schulte]

To my Tampa area divers. It’s been a whole month with no posts. Are things really that bad out there since the storms? Wishing you flat seas and good hunting.

[jbsrq]

Gary, I'm an hour south of Tampa in Sarasota but it's a wreck up and down the coast. Most area beaches are closed as the barrier islands we seriously damaged from Helene and Milton. Haven't heard of any vis reports but the dirty runoff/stirred up water looks to stretch 100 miles out. On top of that there is a big area of red tide offshore and swim advisories nearshore for Vibrio (flesh eat bacteria). Probably won't be any reports for a while.

[Gary Schulte]

Well that suck. Keep your chin up. I feel sorry for the dive shops

[sharpshooter]

There's the East Coast of Fl. for those having sub surface withdrawals. Going to be awhile for our coast to clear up. Soon the fall/winter windy cold fronts will be here. The favorable seas will be far and few.

[Diverboy067]

Well, here's my take on things....we had 57,000 homes in Pinellas County alone that got flooded, many with 5-6' of water. Many homes are currently uninhabitable and won't be for months and people are more focused on getting a home they can live in than boating. My boat wasn't on the lift, but I can't bring it home for two reasons. 1) My lift control box was flooded and isn't working, so I couldn't put my boat on the lift if I could bring it home. 2) There were so many downed power lines and poles that they ran temporary lines to a lot of houses, but the lines are very, very low as they were just tied into an existing line and a few in my neighborhood are only 12' high. There are also low hanging lines and trees that leaned over or fell throughout the county and my boat sits 14'3" on the trailer, so it's sitting right where it is. For those that didn't have hurricane damage and trailer their boats, alot of the ramps are open, but only a few lanes are operational as people have towed half sunk or random boats that showed up at their house to the ramps and just tied them up for the county to deal with. If you did get your boat in the water, the Intracoastal is littered with sunken boats, broken off channel markers, floating pilings, debris, etc....anything faster than an idle and you're rolling the dice. If you do make it offshore, there is more debris out there and shit visibility. Add in the fact that there are a lot of closed seasons on many fish right now and it's just not worth it.

[Spear One]

Vibrio is also a concern. I was told a couple guys got it diving in 50’ off Bayport a week or so before Helene hit. One could assume that Helene and Milton has made it even worse as 94 cases have been reported and 13 of those folks died. I was told that Vibrio will die off when the water cools down but I don’t know how low the temp has to go to kill it.

[Gary Schulte]

Vibrio? I’ll need to look that up. I’m so sorry for All of you guys. Time will heal I believe but in the meantime know that you’re not forgotten

[sos26]

Yep, what a terrible mess you all have up there.. We got nailed 2 years ago with Ian down here in St James City.. And Milton came within 1 inch of destroying all the work that I put into rebuilding the place,,,
I'm getting too old for this "krap".....! Ian put a nasty hurting on the reefs,,
looking like it snowed a couple of inches of mud over all the rock ,, fish were gone ! Probably wont be able to get out there to check out the damage from the last two storms till January.... we'll see !
Hang in there ..........