I picked up Claudette at about 6:15 this AM to head down to OCal. We wanted to arrive at Crescent early enough so we could make an early dive out to Deadman's with Robert Philips. I brought two scooters, an Claudette had hers - so the three of us were gonna scoot out. I've never been out to Deadman's, so I was pretty fired up.
We brought down 8 e8-130 tanks, figuring we'd run into some SoCal's that would like to dive larger tanks - so 8 tanks, 3 scoots, dive gear for two, an ice chest of coldies, a pelican case full of camera gear and some other stuff, I was low ridin' to OCal.
As we drove down Cliff we saw Ken Liu, and literally handed him a 130 of 32 EAN as we drove by. Our first stop as Nitrox Clause done, we went to park. We saw John Manos - he handed us a Spool and an SMB, and asked us to mark the reef for the shore dive patrol that was to follow soon. Robert Philips can find this thing in his sleep, so we knew we'd have no issues tying off the SMB for the team(s) to follow.
We parked and geared up. We walked around the corner and started down the block to get Robert - and I could hear crashing waves. I was a little worried until I realized it wasn't rough - just a very high tide.
With a height of +5.3 at 10:05 Am, we were still two hours off of the real high tide - but it was pushing and water was literally at the bottom of the steps. I'd never seen it there before, but the waves were powerless. The thing about this site is the beach is so long that the water that comes in all draws out at once... so its really tough to walk or stand against the draw. This much I remembered - so we walked across the sand to the entry point, pushed out and scooted for a bit on the surface.
We dropped and Robert led a perfect bee-line to Deadmans. With the Scoots we were able to make a complete circuit rather quickly - but I was looking for stuff to shoot. We banked left (reef on our right) and after a few minuted Robert directed Claudette to tie off the bag to a very secure chunk o' rock.
Deadmans Dive #1
That done, we continued to look for stuff. Viz wasn't much more than about 10 feet - so not good. I pulled Robert over and wrote a page in my wetnotes and showed him. It essentially said this is probably an excellent dive site on a good day. I was very pleased with the relief and the topography. SOOOO many Octos. Tons of big dorid egg rings (but we only saw one Sea Lemon), many Clown Nudis, some Fed Ex and not much else but the usual suspects - Sheephead (all small - this place gets fished), Garabaldi, Wrass, Blacksmith, Gorgonians, some small kelp, etc.
I couldn't believe how many large scallops I saw. If I lived in OCal, it'd be grilled scallops over mint pesto with a dry Riesling for dinner every Thursday night!
We turned it and headed back in. Robert put us perfectly on the beach and we had a walk-out exit. All in all, a pretty good dive. The very best part was diving with Robert again. You are one of my main guys, RJP - I'd drive to OCal to dive with you any time again - say the word and I'm back.
On the SI, Chica and I went up to Laguna Sea Sports to hang out, meet some of the people from Dive Matrix and the Laguna Sea Dwellers dive club and make some new friends. We were there for about an hour (the best part was locking Manos in the head... from the OUTSIDE) and it was time to head back in. While at LSS we ran into Cody, so he and Ken Liu joined Chica and I for dive two. Destination: Shaws
The dive plan was simple - splash, two out with the scoots to the crevice and shoot some shots of the Hopkins Rose Nudi's that grow there, and then play around that reef a bit.
We walked in, dropped and were met with really bad viz - at times 2 to 5 feet. We completely missed the crevice - like three times. We were the Lost Patrol. The four of us were going back and forth like four people waiting for a dive to suddenly break out and interrupt our aimless wondering.
Dive Two - "the Lost Patrol" - this is the graph of a dive that just isn't working real well... OY!!!!
After popping up through the Champagne and into the washing machine that is the CENTER of those big rocks out there, we dropped again, and headed south (away from the rocks) and then down the coast (away from the rocks) and then North (back home...)
After some long scootering over the sand, my scooter started to sputter (I was on the same battery from the first 77 minute dive) so we did a slow ascent to see where we were.
The answer was, of course, nowhere. The steps were a small dot on the horizon... so we dropped to about 10 feet, pointed north and scooted until my scooter finally died. We came up, kicked in, and got out of dodge.
I was able to get a shot of a Tylodina chewing on a sulfur sponge and I did spot one nice Hopkins Rose - but this dive was otherwise quite forgettable.
HOWEVER - an excellent day - dived with someone new (Cody - you're solid and I enjoyed having you on the team today), met several new friends, connected with some old friends, and had a really good day.
Some pics below.
Enjoy.
---
Ken
=======================================
Fed Ex from Deadman's - these guys love eating Hydroids. This one is just chewin'. I don't like shooting Fed Ex from the right, as you get their reproductive stoma (that crater on his body) but it was the only way to see his breakfast - the shots from the left weren't working for me. Also, from the right you can usually see their eye spot (that dot in front of his rhinophores - the red antenna things)
There were several Clown Nudis at Deadman's. In fact, I think this is the first dive I've ever done where the Clown's outnumbered the Fed Ex, and I'm talking about the Nudis...
Phat Clown
With nothing to shoot at Shaws, and viz stinking up the place, I decided to try to get some shots of these colonial worms. Back when I was shooting the Oly 5050 (about 3 or 4 years ago) I did a series on these guys. I love them. I had on the 105, and that's too much lens for what I wanted to do, plus the worms aren't dense enough here. I'm putting a pin in this and gonna come back to these subjects sometime soon. The shots I did with the 5050 back in the day have excellent composition, but they're over-saturated and lit wrong, blah, blah, blah. Now that I have better Macro chops, I can't wait to get back and shoot these beautiful reef dwellers.
Tylodina Fungina - We saw two. This one was upside down, munching on a sulfur sponge. I just flipped the image so you could distinguish the Nudi from the sponge better. The little hat in the middle is the Nudi.
Hopkins Rose - well, the Lost Patrol never found the crevice and never found the rose garden, but somehow, in 3 feet of viz Cody and I stumbled onto this little guy. I love it when the Rosies have the split cerata (that pink rasta hair - see the split end's on the right?) - it reminds me of Staghorn Ferns... only pink. And on a tiny animal. In the water... OK - well, the split ends sort of look like antlers...
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Thanks 'dette for an excellent day. The drives are always so short once we start gabbing and blasting the iPod. Loved the day, everyone!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
We brought down 8 e8-130 tanks, figuring we'd run into some SoCal's that would like to dive larger tanks - so 8 tanks, 3 scoots, dive gear for two, an ice chest of coldies, a pelican case full of camera gear and some other stuff, I was low ridin' to OCal.
As we drove down Cliff we saw Ken Liu, and literally handed him a 130 of 32 EAN as we drove by. Our first stop as Nitrox Clause done, we went to park. We saw John Manos - he handed us a Spool and an SMB, and asked us to mark the reef for the shore dive patrol that was to follow soon. Robert Philips can find this thing in his sleep, so we knew we'd have no issues tying off the SMB for the team(s) to follow.
We parked and geared up. We walked around the corner and started down the block to get Robert - and I could hear crashing waves. I was a little worried until I realized it wasn't rough - just a very high tide.
With a height of +5.3 at 10:05 Am, we were still two hours off of the real high tide - but it was pushing and water was literally at the bottom of the steps. I'd never seen it there before, but the waves were powerless. The thing about this site is the beach is so long that the water that comes in all draws out at once... so its really tough to walk or stand against the draw. This much I remembered - so we walked across the sand to the entry point, pushed out and scooted for a bit on the surface.
We dropped and Robert led a perfect bee-line to Deadmans. With the Scoots we were able to make a complete circuit rather quickly - but I was looking for stuff to shoot. We banked left (reef on our right) and after a few minuted Robert directed Claudette to tie off the bag to a very secure chunk o' rock.
Deadmans Dive #1
That done, we continued to look for stuff. Viz wasn't much more than about 10 feet - so not good. I pulled Robert over and wrote a page in my wetnotes and showed him. It essentially said this is probably an excellent dive site on a good day. I was very pleased with the relief and the topography. SOOOO many Octos. Tons of big dorid egg rings (but we only saw one Sea Lemon), many Clown Nudis, some Fed Ex and not much else but the usual suspects - Sheephead (all small - this place gets fished), Garabaldi, Wrass, Blacksmith, Gorgonians, some small kelp, etc.
I couldn't believe how many large scallops I saw. If I lived in OCal, it'd be grilled scallops over mint pesto with a dry Riesling for dinner every Thursday night!
We turned it and headed back in. Robert put us perfectly on the beach and we had a walk-out exit. All in all, a pretty good dive. The very best part was diving with Robert again. You are one of my main guys, RJP - I'd drive to OCal to dive with you any time again - say the word and I'm back.
On the SI, Chica and I went up to Laguna Sea Sports to hang out, meet some of the people from Dive Matrix and the Laguna Sea Dwellers dive club and make some new friends. We were there for about an hour (the best part was locking Manos in the head... from the OUTSIDE) and it was time to head back in. While at LSS we ran into Cody, so he and Ken Liu joined Chica and I for dive two. Destination: Shaws
The dive plan was simple - splash, two out with the scoots to the crevice and shoot some shots of the Hopkins Rose Nudi's that grow there, and then play around that reef a bit.
We walked in, dropped and were met with really bad viz - at times 2 to 5 feet. We completely missed the crevice - like three times. We were the Lost Patrol. The four of us were going back and forth like four people waiting for a dive to suddenly break out and interrupt our aimless wondering.
Dive Two - "the Lost Patrol" - this is the graph of a dive that just isn't working real well... OY!!!!
After popping up through the Champagne and into the washing machine that is the CENTER of those big rocks out there, we dropped again, and headed south (away from the rocks) and then down the coast (away from the rocks) and then North (back home...)
After some long scootering over the sand, my scooter started to sputter (I was on the same battery from the first 77 minute dive) so we did a slow ascent to see where we were.
The answer was, of course, nowhere. The steps were a small dot on the horizon... so we dropped to about 10 feet, pointed north and scooted until my scooter finally died. We came up, kicked in, and got out of dodge.
I was able to get a shot of a Tylodina chewing on a sulfur sponge and I did spot one nice Hopkins Rose - but this dive was otherwise quite forgettable.
HOWEVER - an excellent day - dived with someone new (Cody - you're solid and I enjoyed having you on the team today), met several new friends, connected with some old friends, and had a really good day.
Some pics below.
Enjoy.
---
Ken
=======================================
Fed Ex from Deadman's - these guys love eating Hydroids. This one is just chewin'. I don't like shooting Fed Ex from the right, as you get their reproductive stoma (that crater on his body) but it was the only way to see his breakfast - the shots from the left weren't working for me. Also, from the right you can usually see their eye spot (that dot in front of his rhinophores - the red antenna things)
There were several Clown Nudis at Deadman's. In fact, I think this is the first dive I've ever done where the Clown's outnumbered the Fed Ex, and I'm talking about the Nudis...
Phat Clown
With nothing to shoot at Shaws, and viz stinking up the place, I decided to try to get some shots of these colonial worms. Back when I was shooting the Oly 5050 (about 3 or 4 years ago) I did a series on these guys. I love them. I had on the 105, and that's too much lens for what I wanted to do, plus the worms aren't dense enough here. I'm putting a pin in this and gonna come back to these subjects sometime soon. The shots I did with the 5050 back in the day have excellent composition, but they're over-saturated and lit wrong, blah, blah, blah. Now that I have better Macro chops, I can't wait to get back and shoot these beautiful reef dwellers.
Tylodina Fungina - We saw two. This one was upside down, munching on a sulfur sponge. I just flipped the image so you could distinguish the Nudi from the sponge better. The little hat in the middle is the Nudi.
Hopkins Rose - well, the Lost Patrol never found the crevice and never found the rose garden, but somehow, in 3 feet of viz Cody and I stumbled onto this little guy. I love it when the Rosies have the split cerata (that pink rasta hair - see the split end's on the right?) - it reminds me of Staghorn Ferns... only pink. And on a tiny animal. In the water... OK - well, the split ends sort of look like antlers...
.
.
.
.
.
Thanks 'dette for an excellent day. The drives are always so short once we start gabbing and blasting the iPod. Loved the day, everyone!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
