Date: July 9, 2005
Dive Location: Marineland
Time: 9:04 am
Bottom Time: 32:40
Max Depth: 53 ft
Vis: 3-5 ft.
Wave height: 1-3 ft.
Temp at depth: 54 degrees Suunto
Surface Temp: 63 air, 59 water
Tide information: 0 ft., going high
Comments: Met up with Pasley at the Marineland gate a little after 8am. There were some movie set construction guys also waiting, and they asked us if we were in the Pirates of the Caribbean production. I didnt think I was, so we told them how we were going diving. A few more divers also showed up and, suddenly to our amazement, the front gate opened. I think it was magic or sumpin
. We all drove over to the parking lot, and got talking about the platform. They asked who discovered it, and I said We did. They were slightly in awe, so I told them the story of Headhunter Reef. After I declined to sign autographs
, we went down to check conditions. From the bluff the water looked okay (no obvious red tide that I could see) and the surf looked maybe 1-3 ft. We geared up, and decided to try entering at Long Point. When we got there and climbed down to water level, we saw the tide was pretty low and the sets were pretty powerful, and couldnt find a do-able entry. So we decided to hike back up the cliff and walk back to the cove and enter there. The entry went well, and we decided wed drop down close to shore and head 210 degrees (almost paralleling shore, but heading more south, towards Long Point) and flip around and come back on a 30 degree heading. We dropped down to about 14 ft of very sandy water, with viz maybe 3 feet at best. We immediately noticed an offshore (southbound) current taking us in our intended direction. We hugged the sandy bottom and, since I had my afterburners on, we rode the current pretty quickly thru the murky water. After 15 minutes we had hit 50 ft. depth (and probably travelled about 900-1000 ft), with no reef in sight. And the viz was no better at 53ft. than at 15 ft. Go figure. Anyway, I figured wed be huffing and puffing against the current on the way back, so I decided to make a U turn and head a little norther than our intended 30 degree return heading to see if we would hit the reef. After about 12 minutes of fighting the current over a sand bottom, we finally hit the reef. Viz did clear up a bit on the way back (again, go figure), but not by much. We checked out the reef a bit (around 15ft depth), and were hand over hand grabbing the reef to fight the surge, and finally decided to surface. We came up not too far from our drop down point, and timed the exit pretty well in between some 2-3ft. waves, and made a nice exit with only a little stumbling. All in all it was a good dive for navigation and rocky entry/exit skills, and also to see a lot of sea pens. Not much else though. Unfortunately we had to break the bad news to a bunch of other divers who were heading down on our way up. The divers who entered when we did had gone out to the platform, and their report was that the viz out there was no better than what we had. So I decided Id had enough for the day, and Myrna and I drove over to the nearby Golden Cove shopping center for an early Subway sandwich on their outdoor patio overlooking the ocean. Then we stopped at the Pt. Vicente lighthouse for the first time and climbed to the top. Surprisingly, the water looked very nice and clear and blue. And this was only about ¾ mile west of Marineland. By the way, that area looks like some wonderful diving, but its probably only accessible by boat. Beautiful day, invigorating dive, world class dive buddy.
