March '05 Dive Reports

[MaxBottomtime]

Date:3/05/05
Dive Location:February 19th wreck off Long Beach
Time:9:57 am
Bottom Time:19
Max Depth:80
Vis:6-8"
Wave height:2-3
Temp at depth:57
Surface Temp:57
Tide information:Low
Comments:Yuch! My HID ballast burned up before the dive and rocketed the test tube off in three pieces. Vis was so bad I thumbed the dive after about three minutes on the wreck.

Date:3/05/05
Dive Location:Olympic II
Time: 11:10 am
Bottom Time:30
Max Depth:93
Vis:6-8 feet
Wave height:2-3
Temp at depth:57
Surface Temp:57
Tide information:Low
Comments:At least we could see. Lots of juvie Sheepheads, one small Lingcod, not much else. Brown layer of water surrounded by dirty green water.

 

[pasley]

Date: 06 Mar 05
Dive Location: Long Point (Old Marine Land) Palos Verde
Time: 2:58 PM
Bottom Time:61:40
Max Depth: 47 FSW
Vis: 5-10 feet
Wave height: 1-2 feet
Temp at depth: 59 F Suunto degrees
Surface Temp: 66 F Suunto degrees
Tide information: 06:34 AM 6.07 feet High Tide, 1:43 PM -1.38 feet Low Tide,
8:10 PM 4.22 feet High Tide

Comments: Met up with Dave Eberhart down from SF area. Elected to dive Old Marine Land as figured it would have the best visibility around Entered off the point just after low tide. Made entry harder Swam out and dropped down. Proceed around the point and out to the pinnacles. Saw the usual and it was good to get back into the water after all this time. Then swam back along the cliffs.

On shore there have been a few small landslides along the tail to the point.

 

[Robert Phillips]

Dive Location: Crescent Bay/Deadmans
Time: 8:00 or so
Bottom Time: 42 mins
Max Depth: 53'
Vis: 10-15' Date: 3-6-05
depending on depth
Wave height: 0-2
Temp at depth: 58 degrees
Surface Temp: 60 degrees
Tide information: about high tide
Comments: Five of us hooked up a Crescent and made the swim out to Deadmans. We dropped right on top of the reef and headed east and followed the reef around to the south side. One of the group was having trouble with his ears any deeper than 45' so we moved up the reef to stay a little shallower so we wouldn't lose anybody. We followed a channel back through to the North side of the reef and back to the NE end and made the jump across the sand back towards the beach. After hitting the main reef and following it NE in about 29FSW I saw a VERY LARGE fish swimming towards us from about 20 feet away. "Damn that’s a big fish, its all silver and shiny so could it really be a giant black sea bass?" "Maybe it's a white sea bass?" "So what, that is soo cool to see a fish that big this close to shore, too cool!"
Only two of us saw it, as the stragglers were moving up, the fish took off in the direction of Seal rock. Oh well! Turns out he was the sometime resident Black Sea Bass that can be seen occasionally at Crescent and Emerald Bay this time of year.
These were the best conditions since December. If you have not been out, you should go soon!!

 

[Frenchy2005]

Dive Location: La jolla Shores
Time: 7:00
Bottom Time: 20-30
Max Depth: 80
Vis: 5ft
Date: 3-5-05
Wave height: 2-3
Temp at depth: 55 degrees
Surface Temp: 60 degrees

I went with Richard aka tall diverman. the original intent was to go to big rock reef and grab some bugs, but due to the conditions we decided on a wall dive. We saw several crabs, some weird looking silver fish, some fish that looked like small snakes and a lobster or two, over all it was a fun dive. Especially the first attempt at finding the wall, we over shot so we were looking at our depth guage and it kept going and going and then around 80 ft we decided to surface and swim further in towards shore, then and on the second descent we nailed the wall at 65 ft.

 

[pasley]

... some fish that looked like small snakes ...

Sounds like a Cusk Eel
http://www.divebums.com/FishID/Pages/cusk_eel.html

or maybe a Catalina Conger

 

[ICY ICE]

Date: 3/10/05
Dive Location: Veteran’s Park
Max Depth: 79ft
Vis: 10-20ft
Bottom Time: 55min
Wave height: 1-2ft
Temp at depth: 56
Surface Temp: 60

Met up with Scott and Claudette, we entered by the pier dropped and took a heading for 300 degrees to 65-70ft depth. We turned and parallel the shore for +/- 20min. Withen seconds we came across fields of squid eggs, they were lined up in rows, some 2-3ft wide. This was a great dive, so much to see. We also saw a few mating squids that had an "egg tube" attached to it. I was surprised not to see a bat ray, even though the usual suspects were roaming the canyon.

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Date: 3/10/05
Dive Location: Redondo Submarine Canyon
Time: 8 PM
Bottom Time: 50 minutes
Max Depth: 79 fsw
Vis: 20 in canyon, 12-15 on sand flats
Wave height: 1-2 feet, smooth/glass surface
Temp at depth: 56 F
Surface Temp: 60 F
Comments: Time to go back to the scene of the party: The Squid Zone!
Met ICY ICE and Scott R. at Vet's for a mid-week getaway...small surf, glassy surface, dark, quiet and misty night. No squid boats, no flocking birds, just the meter-jerks and curious pedestrians: "You're going out there???" We went straight to the spot where I had been engulfed by the giant squid schools and it was beautiful. The decent viz allowed us to wander easily over the thickest carpeting of squid eggs I have ever seen. Last week's 4-foot oval patches were now 8 and 9 feet long. Some looked like rivers of glowing white tubes, extending in straight lines perpendicular to the shore, at least 40 feet long and 2 to 3 feet wide. Our lights bounced off the huge expanses of eggs and lit up the dark, silent water. Beautiful, softly waving eggs, as far as we could see, from about 65 to 80 fsw. It all seemed so idyllic and quiet after the feeding, mating, swirling frenzy of last week. We saw about half a dozen lone squid roaming around, and even a mating pair. The female was holding a very small egg sac, swimming through the egg clusters, while the male followed. Found a small mating-mat of elbow crabs: hundreds of 1/2 to 2 inch crabs in a cluster about 18 inches across. The supporting cast consisted of Calif. Scorpion fish (several juveniles), cusk eels, flat fish, little horn sharks, all kinds of crabs, tube anemones, and lots of Kellet's whelks. All the dead squid were gone...completely. It was like the entire party had been cleaned away, leaving only the brilliant white shagadelic carpeting. The sand flats showed us a pipe fish, sand dollar beds, and more Spiny Mole crabs than I've seen before. Now there's a creature right out of an ALIEN movie! I'm grateful they don't grow past 5 inches...Killer claws!
Thank you, Scott, for a beautiful dive. It was great to meet you, Ice, and fun to dive with you. And thanks for driving all the way out here. I know it was worth it. We had a lot of fun for a trio of pretty tired working dogs.
I'm guessing that every last market squid may have mated and died in last week's Squidapalooza...but I'm still planning on visiting again on the next full moon: March 25 - 27. Because you just never know......
See you out there,
Claudette

 

[Frank O]

Vis: 20 in canyon, 12-15 on sand flats
Wave height: 1-2 feet, smooth/glass surface

Glad to hear that conditions were so copasetic despite the generally high surf in the past day or so.

The decent viz allowed us to wander easily over the thickest carpeting of squid eggs I have ever seen. Last week's 4-foot oval patches were now 8 and 9 feet long. Some looked like rivers of glowing white tubes, extending in straight lines perpendicular to the shore, at least 40 feet long and 2 to 3 feet wide. Our lights bounced off the huge expanses of eggs and lit up the dark, silent water. Beautiful, softly waving eggs, as far as we could see, from about 65 to 80 fsw. ...

All the dead squid were gone...completely. It was like the entire party had been cleaned away, leaving only the brilliant white shagadelic carpeting.

I've always wondered about this. Don't the diners at the all-you-can-eat buffet go for the egg sacs too? Or do the eggs sport a secret ingredient X that renders them relatively unpalatable?

 

[scottfiji]

Glad to hear that conditions were so copasetic despite the generally high surf in the past day or so.

I

There has not been high surf at Redondo the last couple days. Perhaps one of the channel islands offered some protection, I don't know.

 

[scottfiji]

Date: 3/22/05, 11:05AM
Dive Location: Point Dume Pinnacles
Bottom Time: 62 minutes
Max Depth: 57 feet
Vis: 20-24ft
Wave height: 2-4 feet, choppy surface
Temp at depth: 59 F

Claudette and I made a fairly easy entry at Point Dume, where there were very long lulls between sets of small to moderate waves. A 20-25 min swim brought us to our drop spot. Vis was fairly good, and a slight reverse current made the swim home easy. Cabezon, treefish, a moray eel, a swell shark, many rockfish, lobster, hungry red-rock shrump, a free-swimming octopus, spanish shawl, many blacksmith, and a few hedgehog hydroids were spotted. The highlight was getting propelled through this "slot canyon" from 30 to 40 feet at a high velocity - it was just awesome. It was a long, fast ride that never felt dangerous due to the large space between the walls on both sides. A great dive on a perfect diving day with a great diving partner.

Dive #2:
Location: end of malibu road
Vis: 0 feet
Max Depth: 28ft
Bottom Time: 9 min

Vis was zero, water was very brown. We hoped it would improve, but then it went to BLACK. True zero vis, who knew it was black? Could barely see even with the dive light. Spotted one rock at close range.

Scott