Dive in Earth Day April 17th

[fofo]

Guy and I had talked about searching for the techno-cow at the Breakwater, but he told me about this event and we did go. I did find it a strange concept to pay for cleaning up a beach, but as part of the deal lunch was included and an air fill (plus a brush, soap, nail clipper, toothpaste, water bottle, "diver" wrist band, etc), so I guess that all in all we more or less got our money's worth of stuff.

But I would think that a big part of the money collected went to pay for a crane that was on the pier for lifting the really heavy stuff (close to the end of the pier there is still a lot of large, heavy debris). That part was lots of fun!

 

[Guy Alcala]

Did anyone go?

Fofo and I went to Del Monte. Spent over 2 hours in the water, although my computer only logged 72 minutes as we were bouncing up and down alternately hooking and signaling for the crane. We also filled our bags and got them emptied once (they would lower buckets from the pier, you'd put your bag in the bucket, they'd haul it up, dump it and return it to you). Good vis, probably 30-35 feet, but the tide was well out when we got in about 9:30, so it was a long walk until we could gear up. There was lots of junk, small motors, compressors, clothes frames, various pieces of steel. We eventually stopped out about one of the fish warehouses, because there was so much big stuff there that we needed the crane for that it was pointless to go any further. We could easily have spent the entire dive in that area and still would have only made a dent. As it was, we managed to pull out several pieces of steel from there. There were also several large truck tires closer in, but I don't know if anyone got them out.

I think the two of us were the last ones out, maybe 11:45 or so, and we got over to the food just as they started calling the raffle numbers. Neither of us won anything, although a couple of guys who'd each bought $60-$80 worth of tickets each won five or six times.

All in all I think a fair amount got done, although there's an awful lot to go. Even restricting yourself to stuff that hadn't been down all that long and become part of the ecosystem, you could easily spend an entire weekend cleaning big (crane) junk up. The nice thing is that there's a lot less garbage in close to the beach, from the corner out another 100' or so, especially when compared with two or three years ago, so the cleanups are having an effect.

Guy

 

[cheeseman]

Yeah, i went, thanks a ton for posting this -- I wouldn't have known otherwise! The dive was great, we had 30ft+ vis in beautiful, 57 degree water. Did you go?

Edit: we found 2-3 boxes of unfired small-gun ammunition, which was pretty cool.

 

[Jeepguy099]

Yup I sure did go! Had I known you guys were there I would have made sure to say hi! Oh well, there's always next time!