December '04 Dive Reports

[So Cal Divin]

Date:12-4-04
Dive Location:Leo Carrillo, South
Time:11:33 am
Bottom Time:38 min
Max Depth:25'
Vis:30+
Wave height:none
Temp at depth:57 Suunto deg.
Surface Temp:59 deg.
Tide information:9:22 am low tide
Comments: My dive log books last entry was 7-24-04, 4 months of salt water sobriety. It's been 3 months since my back surgery. Time to get wet, damnit!
Ended up at Leo, South straight out from the stairs. My great dive buddy Anatoliy huffed my gear from my truck into the water back out and back to my truck! Nice to have great friends!!
Absoulutely beautiful dive. On the swim out there were tons of bait fish circling us as we made our way to the edge of the kelp forest. Dropped down into the erie underworld. A small dog sized fish with a broad tail stayed just out of range to get a good pic. Schools of small perch hung suspended in the kelp gliding along like ghosts in the shadows.
Moved thru the kelp out into the moonscape setting of bright reefs and busy garibaldi. Baby purple anenomes and large reds were everywhere scattered among the big *** starfish.
Lots off life little senoritas and rubberlip perch hangin with their possies and a couple of female sheephead were spotted flitting about. Ended up hovering like the Goodyear blimp over a short lobster that was hanging way out of his crib. He didn't even move when I put it in reverse (beep, beep) to take his pic. Only when I pointed my Oly at him did he back up a little. Do the dumb ones taste as good, assuming he was legal? LOL. Searched the area and found 6 more of his buddies mostly shorts but one good sized one snuggled in his hole. Started running low on air, oh yeah forgot to mention. I started of with 3000 psi in my tank and my dive buddy with 1000. We ended up buddy breathing for the first half of the dive. What you didn't think that was going to stop me? Besides it was good practice.
We did a slow ascent from 25' and were greeted with high tide coming in and a long surface swim back. No real drama surf was maybe 2-3' and I had no problem exiting over the rocks. It was a beautiful day with the sun poking thru the storm clouds out over the water. Glad to be back in the Na H2O!!!

Sea ya Jeff Gray

 

[keelhaul123]

Date: Wednesday 12-01-04
Dive Location: Casino Point, Avalon, CA
Time: 09:06am (#1), 10:43am (#2), 12:32pm (#3)
Bottom Time: 0:50 (#1), 1:01 (#2), 12:32pm (#3) 0:35
Max Depth: 61’ (#1), 32’ (#2), 36’ (#3)
Vis: 40’ – 50’
Wave height: N/A
Temp at depth: 62
Surface Temp: 64
Tide information: Rising to 5.0 @10:32am

DIVE #1:
I was a little concerned the day before this dive, since there had been some storms over the past few weeks, and Avalon Harbor had been closed due to heavy waves. I PM'd Dr. Bill and asked him about conditions at Casino Point. He said it had been pretty bad over the weekend and he wasn't sure if it would clear up by Wednesday. But I called both Scuba Luv and Diver's Supply on Tuesday, and they said it was clearing up nicely, so my buddies Jim and Greg and I decided to give it a chance. We planned on doing three dives and not going too deep, so we could have shorter surface intervals and finish in time to have some drinks and nachos at the Catalina Cantina before catching the 3:30pm Express back to Long Beach.
It turned out to be a great day, but it was COLD. The water temp wasn't any lower than normal, but the chilly weather topside made it feel absolutely frigid, and it was hard to warm up between dives. The park was deserted when we arrived. Something seemed to be wrong with the scenery as we swam out to the buoys, but it took me a minute to figure out why. Then I realized what it was - the farther of the two buoys directly in front of the stairs was gone, having broken off in the last storm. Nothing but the anchor weight and the nub of its mooring chain remained at the bottom. We descended and headed east, towards Little Casino Reef.
Lots of life along the reef today. All the usual fish (garibaldi, sheephead, kelp bass, senoritas, rock wrasse, etc.), and still a lot of baby blacksmith, blueband gobies, and senoritas. Large schools of sargo in the canopy at about 20'. Oscar showed up for a few minutes, looking bigger than ever, but didn't stick around long. Greg found a small moray in a crevice, and a couple of octopi under a ledge nearby. One of them seemed to be a little larger than what we usually see, and was wrapped around a beer can. He didn't seem inclined to let it go, so that's one piece of litter we couldn't clean out of the park. I found a crevice filled with a swarm of cleaner shrimp, but no moray in sight. Saw a few uprooted clumps of kelp, with the holdfasts hanging 10' or so off the bottom. I also saw a lone opaleye foraging along the reef who was noticeably larger (about 1½’ long) than most of the others in the dive park.
I went a little deeper than planned, but only for a couple of minutes. Most of the dive was 50' or shallower. Vis decreased a bit along the reef, but improved again when we got back to the area of the buoys. Greg found a giant kelpfish in the undergrowth near the stairs. The tide was high and getting higher, which made for a very easy exit.

DIVE #2
We kept it really shallow on this dive by heading west from the stairs. Not much to see in that direction if you go deep, since it turns to sandy bottom deeper than 30' or so. Greg found a very small moray peeking out of the rocks within 20' of the stairs. We swam past the old pier pilings, where we found some more octopi wedged into the crevices. I saw a really colorful baby garibaldi on the reef nearby, and spent a frustrating few minutes trying unsuccessfully to get its picture. No dice - he was moving too fast and wouldn't hold still long enough.
We kept swimming west until we reached the edge of the dive park. I tried to get a picture looking straight up the buoy chain, with bubble rings floating up into the light - also unsuccessfully. I'm usually pretty good at making rings, but I couldn't get one to hold together today. Saw a C-O turbot along the bottom, but not much else in the way of sand-dwelling critters.
We headed back slowly, and found some spots definitely worth exploring in the future. I always thought the area west of the stairs was boring compared to the park's eastern reefs, but it turns out I just never went shallow enough. We stayed in the 10' - 20' range, hugging the rocks along the shoreline. Absolutely beautiful area, with lots of shallow crevices to explore, and the ambient light at that depth was so bright that a flash was unnecessary for many of my pictures. Unfortunately, my camera's auto focus crapped out on me on the way back, and I couldn't fix it for the rest of the day. Lots of perch in the shallow zones - zebra, black, kelp, and a few rubberlips as well. Jim and I found a lingcod resting on the rocks about 10' from the stairs. He was about 18" long, and would have made a great picture if my camera had been working.
The tide was at its highest at that point, and we swam halfway up the stairs before exiting. Greg said that when I took off my mask and pushed my hood back, my entire face was as blue as a corpse. Although I couldn't see it for myself, I believe him. Our hands were all shaking so bad that we could barely swap our empty tanks for full ones.

DIVE #3
We agreed in advance to limit this dive to about thirty minutes, since we were craving nachos pretty badly at this point and wanted enough time to sit around and enjoy them. We stayed shallow again, exploring the topside of Little Casino Reef. We saw several schools of sargo in the canopy at that depth, and quite a few more juvenile and baby garibaldi than we'd seen on the previous dives. Visibility stayed good, only decreasing a little bit as we went further east.
We found an area that had a lot of soft purple corals, with baby blueband gobies clustered all around the base. We also saw two female sheephead doing their ritual challenge at each other by opening their mouths as wide as possible and occasionally liplocking before breaking it off. They kept this up for a few minutes, and then swam off in opposite directions. It wasn't immediately obvious who won the contest, but they both seemed satisfied with the outcome as they left. We looped around until we were swimming over the Cousteau plaque, where I saw a school of adult blacksmith picking around the base of the plaque. Vis was good enough that I could clearly see the stairs from the spot where the second descent buoy used to be. Despite the cold, it was a great day of diving.
As we were thawing out over drinks and nachos at the Catalina Cantina, we saw Dr. Bill walking by. He stuck around and talked with us for about half an hour, patiently answering all our questions about the dive park and telling us some good stories. My new bit of Casino Point trivia courtesy of the good doc: the wreck labeled on Franko's dive park map simply as the "Glass-bottomed boat" is actually called the Pisces, and was a navy surplus boat before getting its glass bottom (and then unceremoniously heading for the actual bottom several years later). Thanks again for the stories, Doc – we’re going take you up on that offer to dive the park with you sometime. We’ll PM you next time we head your way.

Beautiful pictures! Your making me jealous since those conditions look alot more tropical than I am used to up here in New England. But if it makes you feel any better as to how cold the weather was, I went diving two weeks in Gloucester, MA ( ya know---"The Perfect Storm") and the water temp was 42 degrees which was a relief from the air temp of 30 degrees and the falling snow too!

 

[divinman]

Date: 12/07/2004
Dive Number: 216
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores/Vallecetos Point
Time: 17:35
Bottom Time: 56 minutes
Avg Depth: 49
Max Depth: 89
Vis: 15-20
Wave height: knee to thigh
Temp at depth: 58
Surface Temp: 58
Tide information: High tide
Images: La Jolla Shores at Night
Comments:


Sean and I met at Vallecetos and marveled at the calm seas. Unlike the Chicken Little prophecies coming out over the weekend, the swell was small and weak. Sean and I quickly geared up and headed out. While walking in through the "surf" zone I kept stepping on something. Finally I looked down and discovered it was kelp debris. The entire bottom was covered in it from the weekend storms. Hoping for the best, we continued out to chest deep water, pulled on our fins and started the kick out. With tide at its peak, it can feel like forever before you reach the canyon edge. Pausing occasionally to check depth we encountered more and more floating kelp mats. I made the mistake of shining my light on the surface and man the water looked NASTY. Brown slick covered the surface. It didn't smell so I think it was just bio waste from the kelp. I haven't developed any infections yet so knock on wood. Anyway, we decided that struggling through the kelp field was less than fun and dropped in where we were to continue our western trek to the canyon edge.

We descended to the bottom at 45 ft and turned west. Immediately I spotted a dozen market squid darting in and out of the beam of my light, flashing color changes faster than I could follow. Moving deeper in search of the wall we found many tube anemones and starfish. The bottom here was covered in a thick detritus mat. Some people would simple swim by this uninterested on their quest for the structure of the wall. Sean and I are not some people. As we hovered slowly over the matt, life would "appear" from the chaos. Juvenile scorpion fish as long as my thumb, barred sand bass youngens had slumber parties with their cousin kelp bass. Life was everywhere if you held still and looked. Bright red rock shrimp moved through the debris field like marauding gangs. Octopus from fist to thimble size were out in abundance as well.

Moving up over the edge on our return trip we spotted thorn back rays. Like the octopus they came in all sizes from palm sized to a big 3 footer. Life was everywhere tonight. Surge picked up slightly as we got more and more shallow. At 500# we surfaced and made the short swim to the shallows and walked back to cars to change. It was a great dive with a good friend.

As I was preparing to leave, a large owl landed in the palm tree next to us. We took it as a good omen for coming dives.


Terry S.
http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/Night-Moves

 

[ScubaSeanMaui]

I went diving with Terry and did a 2nd dive with Simon at the North/East wall at the shores. I don't have time to do a report, but here are my pictures:

http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/shores12082004

Sean

 

[rossjc]

Date:12/12
Dive Location:24000 Malibu Rd.
Time:830 am
Bottom Time:35min
Max Depth:27ft
Vis:15-20
Wave height:up to 4ft
Temp at depth:61deg
Surface Temp:
Tide information:~+7ft
Comments:
Tried to replicate a 'Scottfiji' lead dive, with only little success. I forgot to take tide info into acct., so I missed the major reef section (what a rookie!). Nonetheless, I had plenty of fun puddlin' around in some rocks. My partner battled his latest gizmo purchase, so much of the dive was ascending - descending - ascending - descending. Some itty bitty lobsters, the usual fishes and plenty of garbage. All in all, even the worst day diving is pretty fun!

 

[mccabejc]

Date: 12/12/04
Dive Location: Malibu, Corral Beach
Time: 8:42
Bottom Time: 61:50
Max Depth: 29 ft.
Vis: 17.4 ft. max
Wave height: 1-2 ft.
Temp at depth: 59
Surface Temp: 59 water, 59 air
Tide information: High
Comments: Went to join the Sandeaters for a dive at Corral Beach in Mabilu. Met up with JDog, and Andy, Bernie (?) and another guy (a little help here, JDog??). The weather was overcast foggy, and the surf was small. Not toe-slappers, but not much more than 1-2 ft. Photos below show the whole deal. We all geared up, JDog and I buddied up, and eased into the water right near the house. Entry was very easy. I was trying out a new weight configuration with my weight integrated BC, and also trying out a new handheld depth finder. Previously I had been having trouble maintaining horizontal at depth when motionless, and I tended to nose dive a bit. So I decreased 4 lbs from my upper back, non-ditchable weights, and added 2 lbs. to my ditchable waist weights, for a total decrease in weight from 24 to 22 lbs.

Before entering we saw a very long line of pelicans cruising low along the water. Looked like roller coaster cars following each other, over an invisible hill and then down the other side. Wierd. We kicked out to a kelp bed which became visible on our way out. I checked viz with my depth finder. None of this 15-20 ft. stuff. Viz was EXACTLY 17.4 ft. Yeah, baby. We dropped down at the edge of the kelp bed. Took a bit of effort to get down, but when I did I suddenly felt wonderful. Seems to be the perfect weight configuration. JDog and I followed the group thru the kelp forest, then to the west along the reef. The reef here is more of a rocky bottom than a big honkin' reef. Marine life was pretty sparse and sporadic. Saw a free wheeling octopus just cruising along the bottom. Also some individual senioritas, some bass (I think), some big crabs, lots of blue starfish, and a bunch of other stuff I don't know the name of. Though I just bought that "Coastal Fish Identification" book, so maybe I'll figure them out. We all cruised around the reef for a while, then turned back. When we returned to the kelp forest where we dropped down, JDog and I watched the others head slowly into the very dense group of kelp, and looked at each other and said, "Nah...". So I headed around the edge of the kelp until I found what looked like a place to cut thru. Made a left, and we headed North towards the shore. We came upon a big (3ft.) bat ray that scooted out in front of us. After a little over an hour underwater, we finally got real close to shore, and viz dropped quickly, so we decided to head up.

Since it wasn't really much of a beach day, and still overcast when we exited, we decided not to do another dive. So Myrna and I headed over to Leo Carillo to scout out the beach for next weekend's dive. I'll put some stuff in a separate post in that thread.

Great dive, and it was good to finally meet JDog. Thanks also to the Sandeaters for showing us around. This dive was also my best SAC to date, a 0.48. Now if I can just cut that in half....

By the way, when we passed Malibu pier we saw a whole bunch of divers parked on PCH, congregating on the sidewalk. Is that a dive spot? I figured with all the surfers there, any divers would be target practice.

 

[JDog]

Sandeater members were Craig, Bernie, and Andy. Many thanks to them for showing me around the dive sight. I am looking forward to a return trip.

Thanks go out to Jim McCabe as well for the accurate visability report. As well as the dive report.

Good diving with you, I am sure we will meet up again sometime in the near future.

Have a good one.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

My buddy and I went out to a wreck several miles offshore yesterday and despite the Santana winds the last couple of days we had only six inches of vis at the bottom. It didn't look as if we would go out today, but we decided to give it a try. We made a dive at one spot off Palos Verdes that shall remain nameless because we found more than a dozen large male Sheephead and over 100 lobsters! My buddy even freed a Swell shark from a lobster trap. Vis was poor to fair at 6-10 feet. We surfaced to choppy seas, wind and cold, and blustery skies. We talked about calling it a day, but decided to check out one more spot. I'm so glad we did. We went to Buchanan's Reef, offshore between Marineland and Cardiac Hill. When we got in the water we could see the bottom clearly at 70 feet below us. Horizontal visibility was a good forty feet. This site is famous for finding Bruce anchors lost by non-diving boaters. We were not disappointed. We found a nice Bruce with lots of newer chain on it.
I felt bad for anyone that tried to dive Marineland. The waves were crashing on the rocks, keeping everyone away from the water, but just a couple hundred yards offshore was some spectacular conditions.

 

[blitzpb]

Date: 12/11/04
Dive Location: Casino Point, Catalina Island
Time: 9:00, 10:30, 12:00
Bottom Time: 34, 22, 47
Max Depth: 71, 95, 44 ft.
Vis: 40-50 ft. max
Wave height: minimal
Temp at depth: 61
Surface Temp: 70's
Tide information: High to Low
Comments: First off, this was my first dive at Casino Pt so I wasnt sure what to expect. When I first looked under water at the ScubaLuv diver bouy, though, I knew it was going to be awesome! The sun was out, and there was not a cloud in the sky!
Dive #1
On our first dive we wanted to get to the Glass Bottom boat. As I havent been diving in over a year it took me a little while to get calm and used to my surroundings. On our entry from the stairs the tide was up to the middle landing and entry was very easy. An interesting thing happened to us right off the bat. We were in about 50 feet of water when I felt a tugging at my fin. Another diver had seemed to join us and was trying to communicate with me. After some odd hand gesturing and him showing me his pressure gauge at 500psi He finally wrote down on his slate. He wanted to know if he should continue the dive or surface. I gave him a blank look (as best I could with my mask on) and told him to surface. He must have lost his dive party (a class I would imagine) and thought we were a part of it. Anyways, plenty of large sheepshead and kelp bass among the ever present Garibaldi. We took our time getting to the GB boat and as such it was almost time to turn around by the time we got there.to the GB boat it was almost time for our return. On our way back we peaked in to some crevises in search of some eels to no avail.
Dive #2
Our SI was awesome! The sun felt so nice we almost didnt want to go back in! Our second dive was in search of the SueJac. On our way out we passed by the Jauque Cousteu Plaque and happened upon a small aluminum boat. We decided to do some fishing and rowing from it (picture 3 divers doing underwater miming) but when I couldnt get the engine to pull over we decided to head on. Unfortunately, we never made it to the Sue Jac. I believe we were a little too west and we stopped at 95' depth. At this point it started to get really sandy and there wasnt much to see other than what looked like yellow tail off in the distance. Even at 95' I could look up and make out the surface!
Dive #3
Entry was a little difficult at this point (around 12:00pm) as the tide was down past the stairs and you had to crawl over a few rocks for entry. Slippery rocks and lots of weight on your back is no fun. This was to be our last dive and was going to be much shallower than the previous dives. We went out to feed some of the fish and just have some fun. We happened onto a couple who was feeding the fish fresh Sea Urchin. That was quite a site to see. The fish semmed to know exactly what the divers were doing. As soon as one of them pulled out a dive knife the fish started going crazy! This was our shallowest dive, our most relaxed dive, and our longest dive and it felt pretty good. Our exit was even worse than our entry as the tide had gone out even further! Many more rocks to climb over.

Im glad to have finally been able to dive Casino Point and I cant wait to return.

Nick C

 

[scubapro5]

Date: 12/15/04
Dive Location: Redondo Breakwall
Time: 7pm
Bottom Time: 35
Max Depth: 35
Vis: 10ft
Swell height: 4ft
Temp at depth: 56
Surface Temp:59

The breakwall had alot surge from the big swells and even at 35ft the surge would swing you about 10-15ft back and forth. My buddy Yutaka managed a limit of 7 lobsters with the biggest at 5lbs for family dinners this xmas.

Date: 12/15/04
Dive Location: Redondo Reef
Time: 8pm
Bottom Time: 35
Max Depth: 95
Vis: 20ft
Swell height: 4ft
Temp at depth: 56
Surface Temp:59

On my dive I was a bit deeper and only had a slight current and real good vis. This spot has alot of life and I saw sand bass,sculpin,one octopus,some yellow rockcrabs,baby halibut,lobsters,small sting rays,and 3 small/baby Black seabass. I also got a limit of lobsters.