Finally here are my Sunday Dive Reports. Sorry they are late, had to attend a birthday party Sunday evening.
Friday I successfully completed my Enriched Air Diver class over at Aquarius, and today was my first Enriched air Dive!
As if I hadnt had enough of the friendly seas on Saturday I was back out on Sunday.
I had arranged on ScubaBoard to meet up with Devin (dhammer) Sunday morning at 9:00am at Lovers Cove. Being my fist time there I arrived at about 9:00am and wasnt sure which of the three places I should park. I ended up in the lot and started roaming about when I ran into Devin. He told me there was still a spot behind him on the street (near the restrooms), so I moved over there. We did a quick survey of the site/conditions and he (being familiar with the site) came up with a plan, and it sounded good to me. Off we were to gear up.
I was amazed at the amount of kelp already growing at this site. There was already enough to be an inconvenience to me, id hate to see it in the late summer. We swam out maybe 50-70 yards and then dropped down. Wow vis was bad, apparently the rough seas the day before stirred up a lot of debris. Where we dropped in it was about 23 feet deep, and still slightly sandy. Devin was leading since he was also photographing (I have decided I enjoy diving with photographers). I could tell if the vis had been better this would be a very cool site to dive. Lots of kelp and rocks to have tons of life on them. I saw a lingcod at one point swimming under us, some alive and some dead jellies as well. There were a few nice large anenomies as well.
I took advantage of the bad vis to do some skill development. Still I was working on my breathing and I have to say at first it takes quite a bit of thought and reminding of ones self to break the normal breathing habit. Also being that these were slightly demanding conditions of good buoyancy due to the surge I also got to work on that a lot as well. I was actually quite impressed that I was doing as well as I was. I guess it helps to have a more experienced diver with you, because you can mimic them some. The final two skills are really half skills I suppose. Diving in moderate surge and low vis navigation/buddy swimming. This was my second surgy dive (Lobos being the first) and I did much better. The low vis diving made me get more comfort in relying on the compass and developing internal homing pigeon skills
.
In the end we made it out to a very large rock that Devin got a few (hopefully) good photos at. It at least looked good at the time to me. We also made it back almost exactly to where we descended, I was very impressed with his navigation skills in the crummy vis.
DIVE #11: 38′ Depth for 00:46 minutes (Started with 3400 PSI ended with 1045 PSI) with 52F water temperatures. We had about 8-10′ of vis. This dive was with EANx21, and I finished with a PO2 of 0.46.
After our 1:57 surface interval our next dive was much the same as the first. However this time I saw a lot more jellies, especially dead ones and or pieces of jellies. We did come across a sea cucumber and also a harbor seal stopped in to check us out, but I missed it. I did notice a crab hanging from a piece of kelp that he looked too large for. Not sure what he was doing there but he looked content. I couldnt tell for sure but it looked like we also made it out to the same rock we went to the first dive. Again id love to see this place on a good vis day.
It had seemed to me (and afterwards Devin agreed) that the vis had actually gone down this dive from the first. Perhaps the surge was a little less but it was difficult to see far. I have to say Devin did another great job with the navigation on this dive. Also when doing our tank pressure checks I was surprised to learn that I was almost on par as with Devin on air consumption. When we surfaced we did an air check and decided to swim back underwater to avoid the kelp.
Lovers Cove had almost no surf so they were both very easy exits. We both apparently also had gotten a little chilly on this dive.
DIVE #12: 35′ Depth for 00:57 minutes (I started with 3100 PSI and at final ascent had 710 PSI and 620 PSI at the end of the dive) with 51F water temperatures. We had about 6-8′ of vis. This dive was with EANx34, and I finished with a PO2 of 0.70.
Friday I successfully completed my Enriched Air Diver class over at Aquarius, and today was my first Enriched air Dive!
As if I hadnt had enough of the friendly seas on Saturday I was back out on Sunday.
I had arranged on ScubaBoard to meet up with Devin (dhammer) Sunday morning at 9:00am at Lovers Cove. Being my fist time there I arrived at about 9:00am and wasnt sure which of the three places I should park. I ended up in the lot and started roaming about when I ran into Devin. He told me there was still a spot behind him on the street (near the restrooms), so I moved over there. We did a quick survey of the site/conditions and he (being familiar with the site) came up with a plan, and it sounded good to me. Off we were to gear up.
I was amazed at the amount of kelp already growing at this site. There was already enough to be an inconvenience to me, id hate to see it in the late summer. We swam out maybe 50-70 yards and then dropped down. Wow vis was bad, apparently the rough seas the day before stirred up a lot of debris. Where we dropped in it was about 23 feet deep, and still slightly sandy. Devin was leading since he was also photographing (I have decided I enjoy diving with photographers). I could tell if the vis had been better this would be a very cool site to dive. Lots of kelp and rocks to have tons of life on them. I saw a lingcod at one point swimming under us, some alive and some dead jellies as well. There were a few nice large anenomies as well.
I took advantage of the bad vis to do some skill development. Still I was working on my breathing and I have to say at first it takes quite a bit of thought and reminding of ones self to break the normal breathing habit. Also being that these were slightly demanding conditions of good buoyancy due to the surge I also got to work on that a lot as well. I was actually quite impressed that I was doing as well as I was. I guess it helps to have a more experienced diver with you, because you can mimic them some. The final two skills are really half skills I suppose. Diving in moderate surge and low vis navigation/buddy swimming. This was my second surgy dive (Lobos being the first) and I did much better. The low vis diving made me get more comfort in relying on the compass and developing internal homing pigeon skills
.In the end we made it out to a very large rock that Devin got a few (hopefully) good photos at. It at least looked good at the time to me. We also made it back almost exactly to where we descended, I was very impressed with his navigation skills in the crummy vis.
DIVE #11: 38′ Depth for 00:46 minutes (Started with 3400 PSI ended with 1045 PSI) with 52F water temperatures. We had about 8-10′ of vis. This dive was with EANx21, and I finished with a PO2 of 0.46.
After our 1:57 surface interval our next dive was much the same as the first. However this time I saw a lot more jellies, especially dead ones and or pieces of jellies. We did come across a sea cucumber and also a harbor seal stopped in to check us out, but I missed it. I did notice a crab hanging from a piece of kelp that he looked too large for. Not sure what he was doing there but he looked content. I couldnt tell for sure but it looked like we also made it out to the same rock we went to the first dive. Again id love to see this place on a good vis day.
It had seemed to me (and afterwards Devin agreed) that the vis had actually gone down this dive from the first. Perhaps the surge was a little less but it was difficult to see far. I have to say Devin did another great job with the navigation on this dive. Also when doing our tank pressure checks I was surprised to learn that I was almost on par as with Devin on air consumption. When we surfaced we did an air check and decided to swim back underwater to avoid the kelp.
Lovers Cove had almost no surf so they were both very easy exits. We both apparently also had gotten a little chilly on this dive.
DIVE #12: 35′ Depth for 00:57 minutes (I started with 3100 PSI and at final ascent had 710 PSI and 620 PSI at the end of the dive) with 51F water temperatures. We had about 6-8′ of vis. This dive was with EANx34, and I finished with a PO2 of 0.70.
