August '05 Dive Reports

[SoCalAngel]

Hi Sean,

I'm not sure if Treefish are eatible or not, IMO, I don't think so. This is why I was so angered when I saw this poor fellow. I hope that I will spot him in the future to monitor his progress.
...

Treefish are edible. I don't know anyone around here that would eat them, but in other countries, if it is a fish, they are eaten. My half sister is Korean. She eats these gross dried out tiny fish (I think some kind of anchovy or sardine). The heads and eyes are still intact. They are small and smelly. But she loves them.

In Mexico, they eat Garibaldi all the time. The only reason we have them here is they are protected, as our state marine fish. Rockfish are eaten by a lot of the fisherman, although I could never imagine doing so. I would rather id them. But I and alot of divers around have different values than someone trying to feed their family.

I remember being in Thailand and seeing traps everywhere - no bouys attached. My impulse was to break the traps down. My instructor wouldn't let me. One had a couple of porcupine fish, an angel, a big snail, and several other fish in it. It was killing me to see all these animals stuck inside the trap. When we got topside, he explained to me that the traps are the livelihoods of many people. That is how they live. Although I don't eat these kinds of smaller fish, many do. I have to accept that.

Around Laguna, there are many that come to fish for their dinner. I also have to accept that, or work to change the regulations.

 

[California Diver]

i prefer to eat wolf eels

 

[Diver_Jan]

Jan,

I saw the sea lion when I was down at the Keyhole in Los Coronados. I'm sure things happen to these guys all the time. I commonly encounter fishing line off the Point Loma sites (on the reefs).

That sounds very cool to visit the sea lion! Can you tell us more about your visit? Here is some information I got off the net (loction and phone #'s)

http://www.killerorange.com/KillerRefs/Address/friendsofthesealion.htm

Thanks Jan!

Sean

Hi Sean,

The Northern Fur Sea Lion, is unique, for it has no ear flaps like our 'sea lions' down here in OC. They are about the same size, however, their fur is longer in length, and much thicker producing a wavy coat. Their flippers different, in that they are very long.

My daughter, now age 12, spotted the Sea Lion and mentioned that she was different from the rest. Couldn't put our finger on it, until a volunteer informed us of her orgin. She was amazed that my daughter was able to tell the difference. She proudly replied that she presented a state wide report to scientists when she was in the 4th grade on the Gallapagos Islands which was held at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Once the Northern Fur Sea Lion is rehabilitated, it will be taken back up north, and released up there.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

That would be because it's not a sea lion.
http://nmml.afsc.noaa.gov/CaliforniaCurrent/CalslNorthfs.htm

 

[SoCalAngel]

The Northern Fur Sea Lion, is unique, for it has no ear flaps like our 'sea lions' down here in OC. They are about the same size, however, their fur is longer in length, and much thicker producing a wavy coat. Their flippers different, in that they are very long.
...

Hi Jan,
So cool that your daughter spotted the difference. Sea Lions have ear flaps. Seals don't. I think you guys saw a Northern Fur Seal. I'm gonna try to get my boys there to see it. How cool!!

 

[Grey_Wulff]

Date: 8/27/05
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores, North Wall
Time: 08:11am
Bottom Time: 43 mins
Max Depth: 98ft
Vis: 15 - 20ft
Wave height: 1 – 2ft
Temp at depth: 54F
Comments:
While the vis was not as good as last week, it was still way better than most of the year. Having kicked well past the buoy out from the lifeguard tower, we dropped in 30ft of water and almost immediately found the gully. Headed straight down to the seal carcass that is now just bones. Sitting at 98ft it is surrounded by hundreds of squid egg cases. A bat ray soared up from the sand and did a complete 360 around us before going straight up the gully. Headed up to the beginning of the North Wall, lots of life out including sheephead, blacksmiths, yellowtail, black-eyed and blue-banded goby, nudibranch, spanish shawl and sculpin. A large sheep crab got a little agitated when I swam directly over the top of it. Turned back and spotted a nice sized wolf eel holed up near a lobster at the beginning of the wall. Once over the sand, it was alive with baby halibut.

Date: 8/27/05
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores, North Wall
Time: 10:47am
Bottom Time: 44 mins
Max Depth: 83ft
Vis: 10 -15ft
Wave height: 1 – 2ft
Temp at depth: 55F
Comments:
Basically, followed the same line-up going out. Dropped but stayed at 70ft once at the gully, located the wall and proceeded west. Made it all the way along till the wall disappears and gives way to a steep down slope punctuated by layered clay. By buddy spotted a moray eel after turning, and then we were forced to come off the bottom due to low deco time. While swimming some 15ft above the sandy peninsula spotted a large circular ray with a short tail. We dropped down to take a closer look - a pacific electric ray, and big too! With all this excitement, we were now low on air and surfaced well seaward of the buoy. A long, slow swim in surrounded at times by huge bait balls. In the shallows the kids were still going nuts over the leopard sharks and guitarfish. Another fun day!

Grey_Wulff

 

[ScubaSeanMaui]

Dive#1: 3 Fingers Reef
Date: 08/27/2005
Time: 08:24am
Swells: Flat Conditions
Temp at Depth: 54 degrees
Water Temp on Surface: 61 degrees
Air Temp: 63 degrees
Bottom Time: 56:40
Visibility: 20 feet

Dive#2: 3 Fingers Reef
Date: 08/27/2005
Time: 10:46am
Swells: Still Flat
Temp at Depth: 52 degrees
Temp on Surface: 61 degrees
Air Temp: 66 degrees
Bottom Time: 63:00
Visibility: 30 - 35 feet
Claudette and I headed down to Point Loma on the Dive Animal's Panga. We met up at Ski Beach at the crack of dawn and witnessed the sunrise. We got our gear on the boat and had a quick ride out to the kelp beds. We saw a "boiling" baitball on our way so we jumped in the water to check it out. We saw some baitfish in bunches, but when we saw the vis was pretty limited, we got back on the boat. quickly after we arrived at 3 fingers and donned our gear for the venture into the depths. We dropped down into 15 feet of vis right on top of a huge boulder covered with nudibranchs. We explored the cracks and rocks looking for and finding tons of life. It seemed whenever we weren't looking for a Lingcod one would be right next to us. We must have seen 5 Lingcods during the 2 dives. We also saw several types of rockfish: Starry, Rosy, Honeycomb, Copper, and Canary, Treefish, Scallops, Sculpins, Scorpionfish, Senorita Fish, Gobies, Garibaldis, Blacksmith, Black Perch, and much more. The male Sheephead were pretty small as well as the Lingcods. The 2nd dive had the temperature go down by 2 degrees to 52 and the visibility increase by 10-15 feet. We could get a feel for the structure around us and see one another from rock to rock. All in all the dives and company were top notch!

Thanks for the dives Claudette and thanks to Mike for being a boat operator for the Dive Animals!!

my photos: http://gallery.scubapost.net/v/seand/2005scubaphotos/3fingers08282005/

 

[headhunter]

Date:8/28/05
Dive Location: Redondo Beach - Veteran's Park
Time: 8:00 am
Bottom Time: 73 min.
Max Depth: 49 ft.
Vis: 15 - 20 ft.
Wave height: 1 - 2 ft.
Temp at depth: 63° below 20 feet, 61° below 35 feet
Surface Temp: 66°
Gas mix: Air (21%)
Comments:
We broke up into 2 dive teams. Mo2vation, dazedone and myself formed one team and iggy23 and super opus formed the other. The two teams stayed together until the second team hit turn pressure, said goodbye and turned around.

We had two missions on this dive.

The first mission of the dive was to try a different approach to finding the pilings for Old Redondo Pier #3 after trying the lineups in Dale Scheckler's book a couple of weeks ago with no success.

We went in at the stairs at Vet's park and swam straight out to drop down in 49 ft. We swam back up to 40 feet and followed the 40-foot contour south until we hit our turn pressure. Then we went up to 35 feet and followed the 35-foot contour north until we hit our rock bottom. We swam east to shore for 4 minutes and surfaced just outside the amost non-existant surf zone in about 9 feet of water for an uneventful egress.

We never found the pilings although we are confident that we passed the jetty where the contour curves out in a more westerly direction.

We did see quite a few purple jellies, halibut, a few perch, an unidentified bait ball that cast such a shadow that we thought we were about to mistakenly go under the pier until seeing the fish, lots of hermit crabs (they probably have a more official name) and varied assortment of some of the usual characters.

Oh yeah, I did say there were two missions didn't I?

The second mission was a bit of a science experiment with me playing the part of the lab rat! :mouse04:

Mo2vation, dazedone and I conducted our own little real world dive experiment with my Dive Rite Rec Wing after removing the bungie and using it on a single AL 80.

I saw some pictures that dazedone took of the wing's appearance and I looked like a manta ray with that huge taco on my back.

On the other hand, I had absolutely no problem with air trapping in the wing and also did not experience a drop in my SAC rate. I just calculated my SAC for that "leisurely but not quite at rest" dive at about 0.46. However, I will put that bungie back on to minimize the surface area and drag as I go through the water, until I get a new more appropriately sized single tank wing someday in the future. The bungie also keeps me from having to reach quite so far back for my dump valve, although that really was no big deal.

At the end of the dive, I'm sure that Mo2vation was wondering what I was doing "crawling" around in the sand. I wanted to make sure that I was getting all of the air in the wing out and I was a little overweighted because I was wearing his 18W can light on this dive. So, I proceeded to root around like a pig searching for truffles at the bottom of the ocean. We never actually talked about this afterward and I don't think that Ken asked about it after the dive out of either kindness or pity, I'm not sure which. This was about when he thumbed the dive though. :11:

The next experiment will involve trying this wing with doubles. It's been quite a few years since I have been diving with doubles and I'm not sure how long it will be before I put another set together. This wing might be really good for a set of twin 72s for beach diving.

After the first dive people needed to get back to their other tasks for the day and super opus and I had a great time hanging out in the parking lot talking for a while before deciding to call it a day. As a chef attending a great cullinary institute here in the southland, maybe we'll actually have someone around who really knows how to cook at one of our Wrinkles Dive and BBQ events. Of course, just because he'll be around doesn't mean that he'll want to spend his days off doing more of the same!

I look forward to diving with everyone on both teams again soon!

Christian

 

[California Diver]

if you dont want the wing ill gladly accept it.

 

[Mo2vation]

Date:8/28/05
Dive Location: Redondo Beach - Veteran's Park
Time: 8:00 am
Bottom Time: 73 min.
Max Depth: 49 ft.
Vis: 15 - 20 ft.
Wave height: 1 - 2 ft.
Temp at depth: 63° below 20 feet, 61° below 35 feet
Surface Temp: 66°
Gas mix: Air (21%)
Comments:
We broke up into 2 dive teams. Mo2vation, dazedone and myself formed one team and iggy23 and super opus formed the other. The two teams stayed together until the second team hit turn pressure, said goodbye and turned around.

When I got to shore, someone who dives the place a lot was there, and we spoke.

He confirmed that the "bait ball" were sardines.

He also stated that Vets (and the surrounding area) has been dredged twice in the last 3 years. He's seen people on the internet talking about looking for those pilings, and being unable to find them. He surmised that they are long gone.

Of course, he could've been some homeless dude.

---
Ken

PS: Mister truffel - I thumbed the dive cuz we were in about 7 feet of water, it was easily 70+, I was in a dry suit, it was 74 minutes later and well, I'm not into body surfing to the shore in full gear. Especially when I gotta pee, man. Why do you think I jogged up the steps...?

K