Saturday night, I over-nighted in the Sunrise hotel. Okay hotel, they offer a park, stay, and cruise package in which parking was certainly cheaper than the terminal. There was only one choice to get to Two Harbors, and that was the Catalina Express terminal launching from San Pedro.
Sunday morning, I am on the shuttle to the terminal to get on the bus. The Sunday outbound ferry was not very busy, but the inbound had a crowd. There was no weighing of luggage or anything, I can only guess it was not a problem due to the light load. We had a nice crossing, and I met a classmate on the way.
Arriving at the dock, we were to look for someone holding up an ERD sign. I spotted him, . . . and there was TC!!!!! Hes my hero, for suggesting this class. I so wish he didnt have to take the ferry back . . .
I have been learning a lot about the Catalina chamber operations just chatting with those that work it this chamber is run by volunteers who train up, do their internship, and then come over to log 12 days per year. That is an incredible dedication by some super people, who take time from their jobs to give back to the dive community. Thanks, TC, and all your brethren chamber ops, for being there.
We took the afternoon to get an orientation briefing, put our dive stuff down the hill and our room stuff in our rooms. The Wrigley campus is set in a canyon-type environment, with buildings on left and right as one climbs up. As the two gals (M and me) were in the apartments over the cafeteria, we got to walk the entire up / down about 3-4 times a day. Im going to have buns of steel by the time I leave!
The rooms were in have two twin beds, a six-drawer chest, two desks, a small 2-cf fridge, all of your typical dorm style arrangements. The cafeteria serves food during a short ½ window for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Soft drinks, coffee, hot chocolate, and milk is always available, as are fruits and cereal. There is a sweet little lounge area with a big, flat-screen TV, although we in the ERD did not have time to watch it.
At the bottom of the hill is a really nice dock part on stilts and part floating. There is also a concrete boat ramp that makes a nice, but slippery, water entrance and egress. All in all, this is a very well set up place.
One problem. Since you are here for class, USC says you cannot dive except as part of the class. ARRRGGHHHH. You can snorkel, though. Grumble, grumble, well, at least thats better than nothing.
The three of us that came across on the ferry all decided to hit the drink. We walked down a ramp on the south side of the dock, and swam off to the south. OMG, we saw all KINDS of critters and couldnt dive!!! About 15 feet deep, I saw at least six leopard sharks, four or five guitarfish, and a huge bat ray. One of the guys, about 20 away, says he counted eleven in one area. Im taking pictures from the surface, and the swells kept taking things out of focus.
After our snorkel trip, we saw two boats coming in. It was the largest contingent of our class; there were eleven people (a team) of the Las Angeles Port Police. This was a bunch of young, healthy folk full of piss and vinegar, who got along famously and kept us laughing the whole time. They have absolutely the best dive boats, emblazoned with the Los Angeles Port Police name, excellent gear, everyone in the same equipment . . . make you DIR practitioners proud!
We ended up with four civvies and the eleven police in the class. Dinner was ribeye steak, mashed taters, and asparagus.
After dinner, we reported to the classroom. We slowed down for nothing.
The nights class was to go through the process of being the first responder. Bottom line is to get rid of the victim into the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system. We practiced round-robins of CPR, rescue breathing, mask and bag, and Automated External Defibrillator. We were rather clumsy, taking about 5 minutes to cycle each time.
