Farnsworth Trip Report - Short Video

[Rainer]

I really enjoyed the last dive of the day. I managed to find 6 (SIX) shark eggs strewn along the reef as well as a eel. We were also buzzed by a sea lion. Drift dives are always a treat at the end of the day, plus I got to do a post fundies fun dive with Steve M. How can I beat that?

The last dive was great. Visibility was significantly better, navigation was stupid easy (just drift), and the site was quite interesting.

Sounds like a number of people learned some important lessons, too, from the first dive. If you haven't done so yet, it's probably worth discussing what happened in some detail with your dive buddies to avoid any such issues in the future.

 

[fnfalman]

I know the Farnsworth is a deep and difficult dive. You guys are definitely tech divers. Is the trip worth it and safe for a new diver or should you have a certain number of dives under your belt before attempting a trip there?
Get Wet!

It's not necessarily the number of dives, but how comfortable you are. If you have to struggle with gears, with buoyancy, with navigation, it's probably not the dive to do...unless you do it as part of Deep Dive AOW with an instructor right next to you.

I think that I had 55-dives when I went to Farnsworth the first time. However, I've been diving with my own gears right out of AOW, got everything dialed in and had some excellent mentorship, and pretty good with navigation (8-years as an Army infantryman does that for you). My first Farnsworth's dive was simply epic. Viz was near tropical. You looked up from 100+ and you saw the boat (Seabass). No current, no nothing though the surface wasn't pleasant with all the chops.

Then a year after that came my second dive (maybe low-100s dive by now) at Farnsworth, it was decent. Viz dropped to around 20-ft, some minor currents that turned out to be bad at the end of the dive. Surface chop went from 2-ft to around 6-ft. This was with the Sundiver.

My third time at Farnsworth was about this time last year and it was epic again.

To me, Farnsworth is almost as bad as oil rig diving or perhaps worst because there are no columns to hide from the current or hold onto. You must be good enough to relax and dive without having to think about maintaining trim & buoyancy yet still have the presence of mind to observe the water condition and react accordingly. Getting blown off the pinnacles and can't get back to the anchor point would be very sucky for a diver.

 

[Rainer]

Had meant to include this in my original post, but a big thank you to ligersandtions for helping organize this charter. Her effort was very much appreciated!

 

[ligersandtions]

This trip was....a challenge....for me, at least. I planned to kick the first dive, scooter with Stephen for the second dive, and drift the third dive with whoever wanted to buddy up. The dives worked exactly like that, but not without some complications.

Dive #1 had a recreational team descending down the anchor line with a tech team (with wing failure) hand-over-hand ascending the anchor line. We moved off the line to let them by and promptly got swept away from the line. It took just a few moments to lose the line and know that the dive was doomed. We tried to make the best of it, but when we were 10 feet deeper than our planned max depth, I knew we needed to just call it. We began the ascent, and Cody shot a bag to let the boat know where we were....the only thing we saw on the dive were three mola molas and a tiny bit of the pinnacle for a quick moment. There was nothing easy about this dive and it certainly wasn't the prettiest thing I've ever done, but I learned a lot from it and will hopefully do a better job next time a situation like this has the potential to arise.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, I flooded myself pretty badly....bad enough that my thinsulate was saturated down to my knees (right arm was dry, but that was a bout it). Unfortunately for everyone else, but luckily for me, the anchor was stuck and had to be retrieved. This gave me time to strip out of my drysuit and undies and hang them up to dry.

We motored to a second site and Stephen and I splashed with scooters. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of scooters....they're just too damn much work for me. We got in the water and my battery came loose. Stephen offered to trade with me after I couldn't get it back in place. He found that the scooter didn't work at all, so I towed him back to the boat and he got out to try to fix it. Ten minutes after everyone splashed, we finally started our descent. The site was nice, nothing spectacular....I was thankful for having the scooter as the current was ripping....but also cursing the fact that I did because I'm a total spaz on it.

Finally, it was time for the third dive. Chris and I buddied up for a mellow drift dive. It was the first time that day that I didn't feel like maybe diving just wasn't for me. I felt comfortable, relaxed, and had a lot of fun drifting with the current....and finally got to see how the adjustments I had made to my rig felt....so much better!

All in all, it was a challenging day, but hopefully it will help me grow as a diver.

Oh, and dinner was a ton of fun, despite Quintin breaking multiple glasses