JamesBon92007
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Ah yes, my dive log has many entries with single-digit visibility
Laguna Shore Dives February 4th and 5th
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Ah yes, my dive log has many entries with single-digit visibility
I dive Laguna frequently, mostly Heisler Park and Crescent Bay. I dove last Sunday in 5-8' viz at Crescent Bay. This Fri and Sat the Magic seaweed surf forecast (Thalia St.) is 2'-4' for Laguna, with Socal West facing Beaches receiving a High Surf Advisory from the National Weather Service. I wilI dive low viz, but I do not dive high surf (generally, when the forecast is 3+'). I have already called off my dive for this weekend because the viz is going to be poor again. Have you considered going to the dive park at Casino Point in Avalon?
OP
I am seeing 2-3' surf via Magic Seaweed dropping to 1-2' by 0900. We should get down to Laguna around 0730. I will get there and asses conditions prior to diving but I am at least going to head down and see what things are like.
If I need to wait an hour or so for the surf to die down I will.
Yes I have looked into Casino Point and we will be diving there shortly but I was hoping to get in a shore dive (free other than tank rental) and test out my new wetsuit and some minor changes to my gear config. I have a hard time diving as I do not own a car (long story short I cycle to work and am planning on leaving the country within the next year) so being able to get from Huntington Beach to a dive location is tough when none of my friends dive.
JamesBon92007
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The surf has a tendency to die down at the peak of high tide. I generally plan my arrival accordingly.
OP
We are heading down to Shaw's to do a visual check. Leaving HB at 0700 and stopping at Laguna Sea Sports to get tanks and weights. Feel free to meet us if you are thinking about diving today.
OP
The dive went well. There was little to no surf so entry was super easy however the viz was less than desirable at 5-7' max. We tried to do the swim through between the reef but the surge picked up a bit there and made it a total whiteout with viz less than 1'. Although i did happen to look down while trying to find my buddies and saw a large group of fish. Maybe 15 Garibaldi, 10 or so kelp bass and about 15-20 other fish I didn't recognize.
Water temp read at 58 degrees but that seems a bit warm..although I wouldn't know because my Bare Reactive wetsuit was incredibly warm. I couldn't be happier with that purchase.
After getting caught in the whiteout and surfacing to team back up with my two dive buddies , we swam back out of there and stuck to the outside edges of the reef for the remainder of the dive.
This was my first dive without an instructor present which was exhilarating and also had my nerves on edge a bit. My other two dive buddies have 3 dives between them (apparently they did the OW class and there OW dives were actually just one dive)
Some things I learned:
1. I still have weighting issues to work out as there were times when I had a hard time descending but I did have a knife, three page slate and a brand new wetsuit.
2. My nav skills suck! I need to spend a lot of time on underwater navigation as I want to really excel at this.
3. Still have issues with buoyancy but there was a moment, a very special moment as we were swimming towards the swim through channel where the reef rose up about 2'. I saw it coming, took a nice long slow breath and almost crapped my new wetsuit as I rose to the perfect height, passing just over the reef and the exhaled once on the other side to get back down to about 8-10" from the bottom.
I had a hard time repeating it (by hard I mean I couldn't repeat it) but wow!!! I know what it feels like to have buoyancy and breath control down pat and I can't wait to splash again to work on it more.
4. I need to work on my cardio; coming back up those steps strapped with soaked gear wasn't easy.
5. My back loves boat dives more than shore dives.
6. I need to change gloves. My 5 mil gloves make it hard for me to tell what I am touching when trying to make small gear adjustments. Something thinner which I think I can pull off as I wasn't cold at all today in my 7 mil full with no hood.
7. I need to dive with people that are much more experienced than me, I love that my friend and her boyfriend came with me today and we will dive more often together but having someone much more experienced would be nice for tips and advice.
All in all it was a Super day to splash, everyone that descended also ascended. The quiet time underwater helped me to regain focus and put some things into perspective. I have a lot of skills work to do but am more than ready to put in that wok and be the best diver I can become!
Water temp read at 58 degrees but that seems a bit warm..although I wouldn't know because my Bare Reactive wetsuit was incredibly warm. I couldn't be happier with that purchase.
After getting caught in the whiteout and surfacing to team back up with my two dive buddies , we swam back out of there and stuck to the outside edges of the reef for the remainder of the dive.
This was my first dive without an instructor present which was exhilarating and also had my nerves on edge a bit. My other two dive buddies have 3 dives between them (apparently they did the OW class and there OW dives were actually just one dive)
Some things I learned:
1. I still have weighting issues to work out as there were times when I had a hard time descending but I did have a knife, three page slate and a brand new wetsuit.
2. My nav skills suck! I need to spend a lot of time on underwater navigation as I want to really excel at this.
3. Still have issues with buoyancy but there was a moment, a very special moment as we were swimming towards the swim through channel where the reef rose up about 2'. I saw it coming, took a nice long slow breath and almost crapped my new wetsuit as I rose to the perfect height, passing just over the reef and the exhaled once on the other side to get back down to about 8-10" from the bottom.
I had a hard time repeating it (by hard I mean I couldn't repeat it) but wow!!! I know what it feels like to have buoyancy and breath control down pat and I can't wait to splash again to work on it more.4. I need to work on my cardio; coming back up those steps strapped with soaked gear wasn't easy.
5. My back loves boat dives more than shore dives.
6. I need to change gloves. My 5 mil gloves make it hard for me to tell what I am touching when trying to make small gear adjustments. Something thinner which I think I can pull off as I wasn't cold at all today in my 7 mil full with no hood.
7. I need to dive with people that are much more experienced than me, I love that my friend and her boyfriend came with me today and we will dive more often together but having someone much more experienced would be nice for tips and advice.
All in all it was a Super day to splash, everyone that descended also ascended. The quiet time underwater helped me to regain focus and put some things into perspective. I have a lot of skills work to do but am more than ready to put in that wok and be the best diver I can become!
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I had five students today at Shaws. The visibility was about as bad it gets, so it can only be better from here for you. I hate to take students out when its like this, 1st impressions do matter.
OP
By chance were you the one with the red float positioned off the reef and directly over the sand?
As for the vis, yeah it was bad but I look at it as another experience to help elevate my skills and comfort level. I have 5 total dives under my belt and the max vis I have experienced is a about 20' if that. Probably more around 15-17' mark. If the vis today was my first OW experience and I was normal (i am finally learning to dive after wanting to since I was about 5 and now thoughts of diving consume me), I may have been a bit deterred.
My next experience I think I want to do a trip to Catalina or the Channel Islands although I heard the Channel Islands are more suited for divers with the AOW cert.
If you ask ten divers what the visibility was on a dive you will likely get nine different answers. It doesn't need to be as precise as using sonar or a Secchi Disk to measure but there is a simple way to get pretty close. Horizontal visibility, which is what divers use when describing vis is about half of the vertical visibility. When you can no longer clearly see the surface check your depth. If you are twenty feet below the surface and can still make it out visibility will be ten feet. You can also check how far off the bottom you are and divide that by two. You will be surprised at how little vis was compared to what you thought it was.
With fins on, most divers are about six feet long, give or take a foot. You can also estimate visibility in body lengths and multiply by six. I never consider something I can barely make out or a shadow ahead as visibility. I only report what I can clearly see. Merry and I mad a dive at Shaw's once and had eight feet vis. We could barely see more than a body length. The only other diver in the Crevice with us reported twenty five feet.
With fins on, most divers are about six feet long, give or take a foot. You can also estimate visibility in body lengths and multiply by six. I never consider something I can barely make out or a shadow ahead as visibility. I only report what I can clearly see. Merry and I mad a dive at Shaw's once and had eight feet vis. We could barely see more than a body length. The only other diver in the Crevice with us reported twenty five feet.
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