Catalina 10/11/2014

[SKMoss]

Just a quick trip report.

The WAVES Project did 3 dives on an Advance Open Water class on Saturday at Catalina. 3 DM candidates monitoring the class as well.

Vis was pretty good. Maybe not quite as good as some of the other summer weekends, but still in the 50ish range. (that range was tape measured as we were doing an AOW nav dive).

Water temp as 78-80 on the surface. Not much cooler until you hit about 50-60.

We hit the water pretty close to high tide the first dive, and the current kicked up pretty good by the last dive.

Casino Point was moderately busy with divers. Big jazz festival at the Casino, was pretty good music all day long.

 

[drbill]

Was down at Casino Point that day (and night) with Japanese divers from Shibuya Diving Industry who were out to study our giant kelp and the Asian invasive seaweed Sargassum horneri. Visibility had declined from two weeks ago, but was acceptable. The divers were surprised to see the devastation of the giant kelp forest in the dive park since they were last here in July.

Persistent warm water and the accompanying low nutrient levels, storm surge from the recent hurricanes (especially Marie) and the dominance of the invasive Sargassum have teamed up to remove the great majority of the giant kelp (Macrocystis) from the park.

 

[SKMoss]

Think I saw you around the steps a couple of times, but didn't want to make a fool of myself if it wasn't.

 

[drbill]

I'm a bit harder to recognize these days since none of my current wetsuits have developed that "holy" appearance