Farnsworth Bank and Wild West 8/22/2020

[Dizzi Lizzi]

Magician Dive boat. We anchored just off of High spot.
Conditions: calm, flat, no current Plan 80' max depth, find Yellow wall.
Vis 50+
After the briefing, I was suitably scared and the plan changed to dive within sight of the anchor line. We buddy checked but missed a small glitch on my set up. Splashed and while swimming to the anchor line I started sinking a bit and inflated my bc, but only heard a gurgling bubbling sound on my right shoulder. I yelled at my buddy and swam to a bilge hole (?) and hung on there. My buddy told me to inflate (duh) and I realized it was easier to show him my problem so inflated. He immediately inflated his BC to help hold me up and as I considered ditching my weights a yellow line appeared in front of my eyes! Captain Carl with my lifeline. I caught hold, calmed down then explained to Buddy that my dump pull was caught in the BC. He freed it, I calmed down, caught my breath and gratefully accepted a tow to the anchor line. DIVE ON!

We descended on the anchor line thru a school of fish then the pinnacle came into sight. Beautiful purple hydro coral and guess what? Yep, we were right on the Yellow Wall. Yellowfin tuna, scorpionfish, sheepshead, a stray garibaldi, sea cucumbers, urchins and the highlight was an octopus. Lucky for me I forgot my camera and got to enjoy the sights.
Dive 2 same site. Spanish shawl, Senoritas, more scorpionfish, kelp greenlings and opaleye. brought my camera and my buoyancy was all over the place, so I put it away. I'm easily task overloaded. Plenty of other fish, I just can't ID them.
Dive 3 Wild West. Fantastic kelp beds and rock structures. We saw a 6-gill shark at about 40 ft just cruising the bottom. On the way back we were under a glorious golden canopy of kelp. It was a magical day.

 

[Sam Miller III]

@Dizzi Lizzi

A dive on Farnsworth is not to be taken lightly !

Prior to December 1960 it was considered too dangerous to dive by the commercial divers as well as recreational diving community therefore the pre dive briefing should contain a warning of the many dive obstacles when diving the banks; such as the depth, the current, the marine life .

By the late 1960s diving was emerging from the experienced knowageable pioneer divers with strong water skills and experiences to the armchair variety of divers who were exposed to diving via TV. They placed their TV guides down with minimum watermsnship or experience enrolled in a dive class. They would require would require specialized often still to be developed equipment to participate and fully enjoy recreational diving - they became people who dive - Not Divers who dive

Diving at Farnsworth can be a very dangerous dive, as recorded in now long forgotten dive history, . Not one, but 5 fatalities occurred at the banks : 3 off one boat on one trip , the following weekend 2 from another boat. These events which happened almost 50 years ago made local, national ad possible international head lines.

It thrust the name Farnsworth banks into the welcoming arms of the local politicians who rightfully so along with the local populace were outraged at the needles loss of five lives in two successive week ends at a far off unknown place near Catalina Island called Farnsworth Banks.

This resulted in many meeting both private and public and almost created excessive governmental control; over rececreatinal diving known as the LA Co Diving ordinance -- but cool heads prevailed and no ordinance was passed.

Diving was saved from governmental control and opened the eyes of the manufactures to the needs of a growing population who had a desire to dive but had minimal water skills. Son products began appearing to address diving's expanding market .

It is now recognized any individual with a certain amount of cash and free time with no water skills can join this ever growing population of people who dive, but are not divers and the are known by a declining numbers of divers as modern late model tube sucking bubble blowers


FYI a little history on the very first dive at the Banks
Suggest reading the following old thread
"Farnsworth on 4th November 2012 - it was nearly perfect"
A lot of forgotten people who are no longer with us and Farnsworth banks diving history

Samuel Miller, 111

CC
@Akimbo
@Ken Kurtis
@Dr bill
@Scuba Lawyer
@Wookie

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> CE @Marie13

And good ole @Rose Robinson for her 25000 words or less

 

[Dizzi Lizzi]

Thanks Sam, I know how lucky we were. I was certified in 2014 winter and in 2015 I first heard of Farnsworth bank. It is one of the main reasons I got my AOW (in addition to just being safer of course). I have a fear of currents and with the covid shut down I was unable to train/swim as I usually do. Thinking of going to a site with known currents was daunting, I ended up making a stock tank pool and I prepped for this trip by swimming almost every evening. So of course there was no current. Water temp was 64. I couldn't ask for more, except a seal would have been nice.