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Spent the day on the water with some friends, no not sailing but with my buddy Chad and his wife Randy on their center console. Justin was there too snorkeling and singing songs. We hit a fresh water spring that bubbles up in the intercoastal just south of Crystal Beach, climbed on a sunken sailboat and then threw some horseshoes on Three Rooker.
Justin, Chad and I snorkeled the spring at about 10:30am. It was about 20 ft deep, and the visibility was poor. The outflow was impressive, pushing me out to the edges of the spring if I did not actively swim against it. Due to the poor vis I never saw the actual spring opening, just some cool rock structures and some annoyed fish. we goofed around there for about 20 minutes then headed for the spoil islands just west of there.
About a month or two earlier someone had anchored a30 - 35 foot old pilothouse sailboat in about 8' of water between two spoil islands. We had driven past it a few times and checked it out. It was in rough shape. Sometime in June she swamped and her hull sits forlornly in the shallow water. I wanted to check it out up close, so Chad came alongside and I stepped onto the sharply heeled deck. The deck house was severely rotted, so I am going to guess this boat was left there to sink on purpose. Quite a shame actually. I carefully picked my way around the deck, and checked out the wooden mast. Lots of cool brass bits if I had the equipment to salvage any of it. Aft towards the cockpit I took a few picks of a small lizard in the pilot house rafters. There wasn't much of a diesel slick, but enough to discourage me from putting on my mask and checking out the interior (probably better that I didn't, given the shape of the hulk).
After that adventure we motored out to Three Rooker on the Gulf side. There we ate lunch, had a few beers and tossed horseshoes for the rest of the afternoon.
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