CALI68:
Jason, Can anyone dive with SubTidal or just DIR F and above?
I'm sorry Chris, I didn't see this in time. The SubTidal Experience Day (XP Day - demo days) is open to everyone. Janeane and I went to our first one back in January before taking our 1st (of 2) Fundamentals classes.
The water was really rough today at Breakwater, and you really had to time your entrance and exit. I was able to do 2 dives with a friend, and we were joined on our second dive by Mark (mweitz). The first dive was a low vis dive along the wall with a lot of surge. We spent most of the time fighting buoyancy issues caused by the up surge, but had a good time.
The 2nd dive started out horrible, but turned out to be great. We saw a large Ling Cod, 4 Isis Nudibranch's (
here's a pic from a previous dive), and a really cool translucent shrimp swimming (still working on getting an ID). When we first dropped down, we found ourselves in 10 FSW with about 2' of vis. We struggled a while trying to get everyone together and heading in the same direction, but had a hard time with the surge and thumbed the dive. Back on the surface we started drawing comparisons with how the Breakwater looked a lot like a protein skimmer from a salt water tank.
We headed down the wall a bit further, and decided to head away from the wall on a parallel course with the beach. Dropped down in 33 FSW, and the vis opened up to 15 to 20 feet. Not bad after our first try.
On a side note, with all the people diving/training/taking classes that day with the really bad surf and waves, there was a lot of excitement. We had several fire trucks show up, sirens blaring, to what turned out to be a happy ending. Someone lost their buddy, returned to shore, and called 911. Thankfully a large (read: larger than inflatable rib) fiberglass boat in the 25' range found and pulled the missing diver from the water, and jumped on their PA system to see if they could locate the diver on shore that called 911.
There was another situation that thankfully occurred while a Rescue Diver course was in progress. About 40 yards from the shore in the surf zone where the waves were building up before breaking, a diver surfaced and started screaming for help. There was the usual side line advice (i.e. drop your weight belt, put your reg in your mouth, and put air in your BC) along the wall, while not less than 10 divers were in the water on their way to help him. I saw 3 divers make it to him while the others waited a short distance away. The diver was able to drop his 40 lb. belt just as the rescue divers arrived on the scene. He was ok, but did swallow a lot of sea water.
Now comes the bad part. This same diver, now out of his gear and looking a lot different, came up to our group asking for 40 lbs. of lead weight. I didn't realize who he was, and after seeing someone in our group give him a few pounds, I decided to do the same. I immediately had a problem with his request for 40 lbs., especially considering that a BP/Wing usually reduces the amount of weight around your waist, but for some reason it didn't click right away. About 10 minutes later we realized we had just enabled this guy to get back in the water for a second shot at getting into trouble. It was at this point that we asked for our weights back. He did end up getting back in the water after we advised him he shouldn't, and thankfully he returned unharmed.
All and all, an extremely exciting day to say the least.
The next XP Day will be January, but it's not on Joe's calendar yet. Chances are that it will be before the 1/21/05 Fundamentals class, and it might be a good chance for you to meet everyone before taking your Fundies class.
~ Jason
