Miss Louise

[Admin]

County Decription:
Deployed:
Depth:
Relief:

[BQ]

6/5/07 - Completed a dive on this site. The site is still intact although the debris pile that used to be the pilot house which was removed after Erin and Opal on the East side of the wreck is almost gone, either washed away or buried in the sand.

The wreck still lies N to S. with the bow to the N and about 2/3rds of the deck has collapsed, there is a small entrance to access the stern of the boat that is very small and would make penetration difficult.

[spear]

I dove on the Miss Louise last week, 8/23/07, and saw a Yellowtail Snapper that was approximately 13 inches fork length. I have caught a lot of these fish in the Keys and have seen lots of them when diving for lobsters there, but this is the first one here I have seen in twenty years of diving these waters.

[Bayesj]

25 Sep 07,
Dropped in on the Miss Louise thinking the vis would be terrible but there should be some flounder. Wrong on both accounts. No flounder but the vis had the potential of being great. Water clarity was very good but the 6" grunts were so thick they literally blocked out the light. We had to wave out guns in front of us to clear a path and let some light down to the bottom. I have never seen the bait fish so thick. Saw a nice 150 # Goliath Grouper holed up in the interior of the wreck.
__________________

[captfrankie]

Has anyone managed to catch any of the yellowtail snapper that are showing up? I would love to see a picture of them.

[Candy]

Dive Report on the Ms. Louise

Date: May 25, 2008
Time: 1:18 pm
Dive Partner: Stone Hansard
Depth: 57’
Water Temp: 71 Degrees
Vis: approximately 15’-20’ with lots of particulate matter in the water.
Seas: 3’ swells
Dive # 3

We decided to dive the Ms. Louise since we haven’t been there in a long time and I wanted to document the condition of the wreck. I only took the digital still camera because I didn’t expect the vis to be very good after the storm passed through the night before. Once on the bottom, I tried to take pictures and the camera lens jammed in the housing making the camera useless. After spend a few minutes messing with it, I sat it down next to my reel to go inspect the reef.

Someone has placed a large memorial stone on the deck of the reef. I didn’t make note of the deceased divers’ name.

Stone signaled that there was a huge Goliath Grouper in the wreck and I went to investigate. Sure enough, there was a Goliath Grouper down below deck that was at least 300 + lbs. It looked like he was too big to get out but surely he can turn sideways and get free. In the past when I’ve approached GG, they have barked at me but this one must be accustomed to divers and was not threatened by our presence. The Ms. Louise is one of the most used wrecks by dive instructors to certify new divers in Okaloosa County.

The wreck was covered with thousands of sardines that were approximately 5” in length. They were so thick I had to wave my arms to clear them away so I could see the wreck. There were approximately 30 juvenile Red and 20 juvenile Black snapper and I saw 1 juvenile gag grouper on the wreck and 1 small trigger fish was spotted outside the wreck. Sand perch were around the perimeter of the wreck. All of the snappers were congregating in a part of the wreck that was too small for the GG to access. There were no recreationally targeted fish of legal size except 1 gag grouper that exited the reef as soon as he spotted us.

A school of approximately 50 Spade fish swam by us as we were doing our safety stop.

This wreck also had a nice variety of tropicals in residence. There were many types of growth on the wreck but since my camera malfunctioned, I am unable to identify them in this report. I spent most my time making note of the fish on the wreck.

Fish Count
(S) Goliath Grouper
(A) Sardines
(M) Red Snapper Juvenile
(M) Black Snapper Juvenile
(S) Gag Grouper Juvenile
(S) Gag Grouper Adult
(S) Trigger Fish
(M) Sandperch
(M) Spadefish
(F) Spotfin Butterfly Fish
(F) Cocoa Damsels
(F) Queen Angel Fish (One was approximately 16 inches!)
(F) Highhat Adult
(M) Highhat Juvenal’s
(S) Toadfish
(F) Spotfin Pinfish

Reef Creatures
(F) Sea Cucumbers (Unable to identify exact species in book.)
(S) Hermit Crab

Reef condition
The Ms. Louise, while being a very small wreck, in shallow water and close to shore, is still in good condition and has not moved at all since the first time we visited her in the year 2000. She will continue to serve as a fine dive training location. The Goliath Grouper, that has been there for years, adds to her charm for those that are interested in seeing a very large fish.