Mo2vation SEPTEMBER 3rd, '05 Boat Dive planning thread - Sundiver

[Mo2vation]

Great to dive with some folks I haven't seen for a long time.

Somewhere in my not too distant past I grinched the Sundiver. I can't remember what it was - I was probably in a bad mood last time I dived it. This trip was excellent. Ray was Ray - funny, attentive, professional and wickedly wry (dude can run it...) and the rest of his team was great.

The conditions were excellent. Dive one was at Italian Gardens. Headhunter and I were the second ones in, and we saw lots 'o GSB. I think we saw 8, he thinks we saw 5 and three just followed us around (he's probably right...) Viz was very good on this dive. We were anchored in about 65' and could see the bottom! One of the GSB was not having a good day, chasing others away from his gal, etc. I've never seen them move that fast or that aggressively. I wrote a note to Christian in my wetnotes: "he's having a bad day... lets try not to hack him off!..."

Dive two was at Africa Point. Another good site with lots to see. That was the octopus dive. We saw three (we dropped on one!) Diminished viz, but still good.

Dive three was in that little cove at Eel reef. Very shallow, very long and mellow.

The temp was like 67 - 69 on most dives. The coldest it got was when we were at like 88FSW for the GSB on dive one, and it was about 65. I need to get a wetsuit. Diving dry in the high sixty's is just silly.

No Nudis! Not one. Three dives, zero Nudis. What was that about?

Others will add more. It was nice diving, great hang with the SoCal 'boarders, clear water (except for the rototillers Christian and I couldn’t seem to avoid...) and loads of jolly fun.

Some pics attached.

We gotta do this again!

---
Ken

 

[pasley]

The trip was fun and the dive sites good. Captain Ray is a good captain and has a well run boat. Typical open boat, some were experienced, some were getting certified. But fun was had by all.

 

[OCdiving Deb]

Hey, you all were a boatload of fun yesterday. It was a great trip! Let's do it again, OK?

Lexy, I meant to ask you about the rocks you were dropping on my head.... Had you needed a little extra weight during your dive?? It was weird and comical to see things dropping from the surface. Captain Ray warned us about the boat traffic but I didn't know I needed to worry about stuff when I was still down at 15 feet! :11: No worries, girlfriend! Nothing hit me. They just came close.

I have a question for all who were there: Did you happen to see a small school of fish on the second dive that was very unusual? This is how I described it to JLyle earlier today:

Visualize a disc-like sargo or rubber-lipped seaperch-shaped fish but with many jagged and irregularly shaped bars. They had the color of mature treefish (khaki greenish or maybe brighter olive and darker brown or black) but the bars were thinner and very jagged, sot of like lightening bolts!

They moved at the same pace or a little faster than a surfperch school might and they were in open water, just outside the kelp.

I shoulda been faster on the trigger! I was set up for super-macro at the time and the school was easily 20 feet away from me but the water was so clear I could see them well.​

I scanned my CA fish books and the one for Baja species but haven't found it yet. Did any of you see anything like it while we were out on Saturday? Oh, and btw, they were the size of large rubber-lipped seaperch or a little bigger.

Thanks all for a fun day!

Debbie

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Hey, you all were a boatload of fun yesterday. It was a great trip! Let's do it again, OK?

Lexy, I meant to ask you about the rocks you were dropping on my head.... Had you needed a little extra weight during your dive?? It was weird and comical to see things dropping from the surface. Captain Ray warned us about the boat traffic but I didn't know I needed to worry about stuff when I was still down at 15 feet! :11: No worries, girlfriend! Nothing hit me. They just came close.

I have a question for all who were there: Did you happen to see a small school of fish on the second dive that was very unusual? This is how I described it to JLyle earlier today:

Visualize a disc-like sargo or rubber-lipped seaperch-shaped fish but with many jagged and irregularly shaped bars. They had the color of mature treefish (khaki greenish or maybe brighter olive and darker brown or black) but the bars were thinner and very jagged, sot of like lightening bolts!

They moved at the same pace or a little faster than a surfperch school might and they were in open water, just outside the kelp.

I shoulda been faster on the trigger! I was set up for super-macro at the time and the school was easily 20 feet away from me but the water was so clear I could see them well.​

I scanned my CA fish books and the one for Baja species but haven't found it yet. Did any of you see anything like it while we were out on Saturday? Oh, and btw, they were the size of large rubber-lipped seaperch or a little bigger.

Thanks all for a fun day!

Debbie

Sounds a little like Black Croakers. Dr. Bill has some images on his website like this one.

 

[Lexy]

Deb - I'm sorry for the near miss with the rocks! I even looked down before dropping and didn't see ya right below. Sorry for the startle though. Yes, I realized that I had left my ankle weights on the boat, didn't want to abort the dive and thus stuffed a few rocks in my BCD. I wasn't terribly floaty but didn't want to chance being underweighted during the safety stop. My apologies. :-(

Yes, I saw the same school you are mentioning. At first the coloring looked somewhat close to a kelp perch but not exactly. I'm almost certain it's in the perch family due to the perfect forked tail. I remember the tail being very vivid yellow/golden. There were a few yellow stripes but not as many as a stripped surfperch.

 

[OCdiving Deb]

Deb - I'm sorry for the near miss with the rocks! I even looked down before dropping and didn't see ya right below.(

Like I said, no worries! And I can see how you didn't see me because they fell just in front of me and you were facing the other direction! It really was comical to see things falling in front of me.

Yes, I saw the same school you are mentioning. At first the coloring looked somewhat close to a kelp perch but not exactly. I'm almost certain it's in the perch family due to the perfect forked tail. I remember the tail being very vivid yellow/golden. There were a few yellow stripes but not as many as a stripped surfperch.

I wonder if they were the same! The lighting could have made the colors look different to us. I saw vivid green.

 

[OCdiving Deb]

Sounds a little like Black Croakers. Dr. Bill has some images on his website like this one.

You know... it's possible! If they can be green and have lots more jagged bars, then it's very possible. Thanks Phil!

Deb

 

[CaptainMarvel]

Had a great day on Saturday. It was nice seeing/meeting everyone. Enjoyed all three dives. Of course, seeing the GSB on the first dive was fantastic. Christian - thanks for setting up everything. Lexy - you were a great buddy as always. Look forward to diving with everyone again soon.

-Scott

 

[shark.byte.usa]

Great day, nice meeting the folks I hadn't and nice seeing the one's I knew. Good dives, good buddy (Mark, can't remember screen name), even though we got shutout of both the GSB and Eels, was worth the trip.

Love to make one of the next two Wrinkles or Mo2vation dives, but it's a busy time for me and I got a dive trip coming up soon (see count down timer ), this was probably my last hoorah in SoCal until Thanksgiving, see some of you then.

-Garrett

 

[headhunter]

Sorry it took so long to get back to this thread and tell you all what a great time I had. I've been playing construction guy on my house for the last couple of days in preparation for an inspection.

This trip to Catalina on the Sundiver was an absolute blast! It could not have been a nicer day. Even if the diving had not been so great, it would still have been worth it to just hang out with all of you on the open sea! Thank you all for being so cool!

As always I enjoyed being on the boat and listening to Ray talk about things in general. He has his opinions and it's always fun to listen to them.

I was really jazzed about hanging out with the Giant Sea Bass. It was my first sighting of the season. When I saw a silt out on one of our dives, I thought we were going to get a chance to see a bunch of bat rays. Unfortunately, is was just a little stroll along the bottom by someone with no buoyancy control. :11:

I really look forward to the next one. I really love beach diving, but I admit that there is something to be said about 65-foot vis!

Christian