fnfalman
Contributor
2014 already seemed to start out well for me. Despite gettin' into the water a bit late in January (damn work), it was a good start. First dive of the year and first time at the Valiant wreck, who can complain?
Friday and Saturday divers got to enjoy the nice sunshine, but came Sunday and it was nothing but fog and cloud. Nonetheless air temp was into the 60s and water temp was high 50s. Is it summer already?
The Sundiver took about 15-divers out. I didn't do headcount, but that sounded about right. Only one person was doing OW check out, the rest were certified divers of various experiences. Tony the owner of Sharky's Eco Dive was on board to mentor a couple of folks from his shop who were trying out new toys (drysuit & BC). Captain Kyaa asked for first dive destination and people were calling out different spots. I called out for Little Farnsworth, but somebody said Valiant and lots of heads were bobbing, so I capitulated.
We came and saw beautiful blue water. You can see the bottom!!! On a cloudy day!!! So, the boat moored up, we geared up and hit it!!! My buddy and I were on Nitrox (31 for me and 34 for her), so we had to cap the depth off to no more than 100-ft, though we spent most of the time between 85-90 ft. Tony of Sharky's Eco Dive was kind enough to run a high-viz yellow line from the mooring point to the Valiant in case viz turned bad.
Currents were mild but funky. One direction at a certain depth, and another direction at another depth. You look at the kelp stalks and they're doing an "S". I hate to cast aspersions on other divers, but damn, five minutes into the dive and the place looked like the bottom of a lake with all the silts being kicked up. Viz went from 60-ft horizontal (probably 100-ft vertical because we can see the Sundiver clear as day) to about half that.
My buddy and I saw some Porter's and Limbaugh's. We were hoping to see more but that's all we found while cruising back and forth, and around the bow. We were hoping to see more exotic animals like rays, eels, skates, flat fish, but it was the typical fishies that we saw. Still fun as heck and the blue water was epic. Since that we were on Nitrox, we stayed down a little bit longer checking things out. My computer's report called for 58-F, my buddy's was 59-F.
Second dive was at Kroll's, and viz was still blue water...until the silt got kicked up. Temp was a hair colder here, I saw 57-F at the coldest. Cruised around the rocky reef and saw the biggest concentration of eels. They were everywhere!!! You can throw a rock and it'd land on an eel. Captain Kyaa said that there were some gigantic eels down there but we didn't see any. The ones we saw were all small to baby. We even saw a small moray sitting right next to a small wolf eel. Is that unusual? Also saw two octopi. I wiggled my fingers in front of them and hoping that they would come out but nope, too shy. So we left them alone and kept on cruising. We also saw some small scallops, no bigger than 2" in diameter. Our mission was to get as close as possible to them before they detect us and clam up. All in good fun.
Last dive was at Empire Landing and I sat this one out. My buddy went with another person and she said that it was blah after Valiant and Kroll's.
We did notice a lot of sea lions floating in groups as we traversed from Casino Point to Kroll's.
All in all, a damn good day of diving and funning.
Friday and Saturday divers got to enjoy the nice sunshine, but came Sunday and it was nothing but fog and cloud. Nonetheless air temp was into the 60s and water temp was high 50s. Is it summer already?
The Sundiver took about 15-divers out. I didn't do headcount, but that sounded about right. Only one person was doing OW check out, the rest were certified divers of various experiences. Tony the owner of Sharky's Eco Dive was on board to mentor a couple of folks from his shop who were trying out new toys (drysuit & BC). Captain Kyaa asked for first dive destination and people were calling out different spots. I called out for Little Farnsworth, but somebody said Valiant and lots of heads were bobbing, so I capitulated.
We came and saw beautiful blue water. You can see the bottom!!! On a cloudy day!!! So, the boat moored up, we geared up and hit it!!! My buddy and I were on Nitrox (31 for me and 34 for her), so we had to cap the depth off to no more than 100-ft, though we spent most of the time between 85-90 ft. Tony of Sharky's Eco Dive was kind enough to run a high-viz yellow line from the mooring point to the Valiant in case viz turned bad.
Currents were mild but funky. One direction at a certain depth, and another direction at another depth. You look at the kelp stalks and they're doing an "S". I hate to cast aspersions on other divers, but damn, five minutes into the dive and the place looked like the bottom of a lake with all the silts being kicked up. Viz went from 60-ft horizontal (probably 100-ft vertical because we can see the Sundiver clear as day) to about half that.
My buddy and I saw some Porter's and Limbaugh's. We were hoping to see more but that's all we found while cruising back and forth, and around the bow. We were hoping to see more exotic animals like rays, eels, skates, flat fish, but it was the typical fishies that we saw. Still fun as heck and the blue water was epic. Since that we were on Nitrox, we stayed down a little bit longer checking things out. My computer's report called for 58-F, my buddy's was 59-F.
Second dive was at Kroll's, and viz was still blue water...until the silt got kicked up. Temp was a hair colder here, I saw 57-F at the coldest. Cruised around the rocky reef and saw the biggest concentration of eels. They were everywhere!!! You can throw a rock and it'd land on an eel. Captain Kyaa said that there were some gigantic eels down there but we didn't see any. The ones we saw were all small to baby. We even saw a small moray sitting right next to a small wolf eel. Is that unusual? Also saw two octopi. I wiggled my fingers in front of them and hoping that they would come out but nope, too shy. So we left them alone and kept on cruising. We also saw some small scallops, no bigger than 2" in diameter. Our mission was to get as close as possible to them before they detect us and clam up. All in good fun.
Last dive was at Empire Landing and I sat this one out. My buddy went with another person and she said that it was blah after Valiant and Kroll's.
We did notice a lot of sea lions floating in groups as we traversed from Casino Point to Kroll's.
All in all, a damn good day of diving and funning.
