You gotta want it. 
Chica and I have done two dives this week.
TWO.
Carefully monitoring local conditions, racing to the dive sites, entering quickly with skill and speed, having a nice dive and then exiting with the same skill and speed - only to have it rain on us in the parking lot as we see the sea get nasty shortly after we get out.
Its how we roll. We dive until the storm chases us out of the water.
Disparately Seeking Squiddy
SoCal squid run in Vets canyon like no place else I've seen - carpets of Millions of eggs in hundreds of thousands of egg cases that blanket the sand from about 65 feet to well beyond 130 feet.
The squid usually run on the full moon in either November, December, January or Feb.
Chica and I have been checking Vet Spark one days book-ending the full moon every month since November. With the Full moon on Monday, we knew we had one more shot to go see the squid eggs in their newnessness.
Vets has been ugly these last several days. People surfing our dive site. Just yesterday (Thursday) afternoon (4:00 PM) 'dette rolled over to Vets and called me, laughing. High winds, terrible shoulder high surf, rapid machine gun sets one after the other. No way we were diving last night.
I had a meeting in Torrance, so I drove by Vets a couple of hours later (6:30 PM). Ugly - HUGE wind. White caps to the horizon, spray, foam, yuck.
I go by Vets on my way home from the meeting last night - at about 9:30 PM - the wind was mostly gone, the sets had spread out a bit - but the surface was ugly - so we didn't dive late last night.
This morning there was no wind - the sun was breaking through the clouds, and with rain in the forecast for the afternoon we knew if we were going to go squid hunting it'd have to be in the morning.
Claudette drove all the way from her house to MarineLand for some recon work at about 8:00 AM. Its a 45 minute round trip for her. She would call me from there and let me know if ML was diveable.
It wasn't. Water was thick. We could have gotten in, but we wouldn't see much - and with the great 14 species day on Wednesday this week, she made the call to try Vets.
So a squidding we shall go!
I load up and meet her there. The wind is almost non-existent. The surf is a manageable waist-high, with sets far enough apart that we won't get beat up too badly. The water looks OK - but its dry (she was getting wind and rain at the perilously exposed MarineLand site 30 minutes earlier.)
I grabbed my leanest mix - the objective is to get in, go to 120 to 130 and look for squid eggs and stuff. Its going to be a short dive if there aren't any squiddy.
We time the set, crash the lull and get in completely without incident. We drop almost immediately as the surface is no place for a civilized diver, and we mash the triggers and dive to about 120.
* On the way past 60, there are no eggs.
* On the way past 70, there are no eggs.
* On the way past 80, there are no eggs.
* On the way past.... well - you get the idea.
No Squid? Lots to see!
Miles of sand. With lots of salad - all manner of broken-off Kelp. Weird. Vets has no kelp, so this is all detritus from PV that has blown in and sank to the sand.
At 122 we see a Baby Giant Black Sea Bass. SO CUTE!!!!
We see a 'tata Nudi (very rare at Vets - they eat sponge... this guy must be really hungry), we see a displaced, fallen kelp plant (from the last storm) that had become home to a small kelpfish and a juvi lobster!
There is a cone buried at about 125 - of course there is an octo in it.
On the sand by the baby GSB there is an Octo wrestling with (and soon to be eating) a moon snail.
We see more kelp that has blown in from these recent storms - some more fish hanging out, a Navanax and most of the usual suspects.
Kenny the Cork :doh2:
I'm wearing my 400GR thinsulate, as I've been cold lately. I'm toasty, but I'm way, WAY floaty. I forgot that I need to add about 4# when I wear this. I'm getting concerned. We're pretty deep, and I'm not going to get any less floaty as we go deeper into the dive.
I signal to her that I'm way floaty - I also do the gun-to-the-temple sign (universal for "duh...") and make the I'm so warm" sign - she, of course instantly gets it (550+ dives in 3+ years will do that for a team) so I start to move us shallower - so if I cork I don't cork from 125 feet.
We move to 70 and we play a bit. I've squeezed every molecule of gas out of my suit and wing and I'm still a bit floaty. We see some more cool stuff but we came here for squid, there are none, so we're outtie.
We thumb it, and we start up the slope. I'm keeping the trigger going so I can stay down comfortably - occasionally pausing to hug myself and squeeze out any expanding gas.
I want to get out as soon as possible while I still have gas weight in the can - the emptier this cylinder gets the more floaty I'm gonna get.
We finally get to 25 feet. I signal to her - when we get to 18 feet, I wanna pop and look about - outside of the surf zone. She's cool. We reach about 20 feet and I'm starting to really cork - so we decide to ascent. I splay like a skydiver, scooter in my right hand - making as large a profile as I can to try to slow down. I get it pretty slow, and I rise at an acceptable, semi-controlled ascent.
What'd they do with all the real sand?
We look and we're a bit further from the exit than we wanted to be - especially as the storm surge is moving in fast.
Wr drop back to about 10 feet and scoot South to the exit. We doff the fins, clip them off and scoot in. We let some biggies roll over us, we look back and we're in the trough and in the lull - so we punch it.
We both walk up the beach - but the sand it weird. Its like gravel - all of the fine sand got washed out at the last storm earlier in the week. What is left is more gravel than sand - really large course kernels.
I can't get a grip. I'm walking up the slope, but I'm gaining no traction. An ankle-high draw pulls me down. I'm laughing. I was all prepared to walk out and here I am unable to get past the boot-top draw.
I stand up, take some more steps, go no place and once again I'm pulled down by the soles of my own shoes. This gravel sand is wacky as it just crumbles. I use my scooter to help me up and use it as a cane of sorts for the next 4 steps up the slope and then I'm fine.
Chica would tell me in the parking lot that its like the sand at Monastery - its coarser and offers no purchase to someone walking up slope.
Quick In, Quick Out - then its Winter again... :depressed:
As we're gearing down in the parking lot, it starts to rain. As I'm writing this I can't see out the window its raining so hard.
So once again - for the second time in a week, and probably the 4th or 5th time this year, Dette and I get in and out between storms.
No squid. Sadness. Maybe next week when things settle down.
Thank you, Claudette. You are the Apex buddy. I wouldn't do this stuff without you. Thanks for making the time to dive. You gotta want it, and to get off the sidelines and get in two dives this week - well that's just the best.
---
Ken
Chica and I have done two dives this week.
TWO.
Carefully monitoring local conditions, racing to the dive sites, entering quickly with skill and speed, having a nice dive and then exiting with the same skill and speed - only to have it rain on us in the parking lot as we see the sea get nasty shortly after we get out.
Its how we roll. We dive until the storm chases us out of the water.
Disparately Seeking Squiddy
SoCal squid run in Vets canyon like no place else I've seen - carpets of Millions of eggs in hundreds of thousands of egg cases that blanket the sand from about 65 feet to well beyond 130 feet.
The squid usually run on the full moon in either November, December, January or Feb.
Chica and I have been checking Vet Spark one days book-ending the full moon every month since November. With the Full moon on Monday, we knew we had one more shot to go see the squid eggs in their newnessness.
Vets has been ugly these last several days. People surfing our dive site. Just yesterday (Thursday) afternoon (4:00 PM) 'dette rolled over to Vets and called me, laughing. High winds, terrible shoulder high surf, rapid machine gun sets one after the other. No way we were diving last night.
I had a meeting in Torrance, so I drove by Vets a couple of hours later (6:30 PM). Ugly - HUGE wind. White caps to the horizon, spray, foam, yuck.
I go by Vets on my way home from the meeting last night - at about 9:30 PM - the wind was mostly gone, the sets had spread out a bit - but the surface was ugly - so we didn't dive late last night.
This morning there was no wind - the sun was breaking through the clouds, and with rain in the forecast for the afternoon we knew if we were going to go squid hunting it'd have to be in the morning.
Claudette drove all the way from her house to MarineLand for some recon work at about 8:00 AM. Its a 45 minute round trip for her. She would call me from there and let me know if ML was diveable.
It wasn't. Water was thick. We could have gotten in, but we wouldn't see much - and with the great 14 species day on Wednesday this week, she made the call to try Vets.
So a squidding we shall go!
I load up and meet her there. The wind is almost non-existent. The surf is a manageable waist-high, with sets far enough apart that we won't get beat up too badly. The water looks OK - but its dry (she was getting wind and rain at the perilously exposed MarineLand site 30 minutes earlier.)
I grabbed my leanest mix - the objective is to get in, go to 120 to 130 and look for squid eggs and stuff. Its going to be a short dive if there aren't any squiddy.
We time the set, crash the lull and get in completely without incident. We drop almost immediately as the surface is no place for a civilized diver, and we mash the triggers and dive to about 120.
* On the way past 60, there are no eggs.
* On the way past 70, there are no eggs.
* On the way past 80, there are no eggs.
* On the way past.... well - you get the idea.
No Squid? Lots to see!
Miles of sand. With lots of salad - all manner of broken-off Kelp. Weird. Vets has no kelp, so this is all detritus from PV that has blown in and sank to the sand.
At 122 we see a Baby Giant Black Sea Bass. SO CUTE!!!!
We see a 'tata Nudi (very rare at Vets - they eat sponge... this guy must be really hungry), we see a displaced, fallen kelp plant (from the last storm) that had become home to a small kelpfish and a juvi lobster!
There is a cone buried at about 125 - of course there is an octo in it.
On the sand by the baby GSB there is an Octo wrestling with (and soon to be eating) a moon snail.
We see more kelp that has blown in from these recent storms - some more fish hanging out, a Navanax and most of the usual suspects.
Kenny the Cork :doh2:
I'm wearing my 400GR thinsulate, as I've been cold lately. I'm toasty, but I'm way, WAY floaty. I forgot that I need to add about 4# when I wear this. I'm getting concerned. We're pretty deep, and I'm not going to get any less floaty as we go deeper into the dive.
I signal to her that I'm way floaty - I also do the gun-to-the-temple sign (universal for "duh...") and make the I'm so warm" sign - she, of course instantly gets it (550+ dives in 3+ years will do that for a team) so I start to move us shallower - so if I cork I don't cork from 125 feet.
We move to 70 and we play a bit. I've squeezed every molecule of gas out of my suit and wing and I'm still a bit floaty. We see some more cool stuff but we came here for squid, there are none, so we're outtie.
We thumb it, and we start up the slope. I'm keeping the trigger going so I can stay down comfortably - occasionally pausing to hug myself and squeeze out any expanding gas.
I want to get out as soon as possible while I still have gas weight in the can - the emptier this cylinder gets the more floaty I'm gonna get.
We finally get to 25 feet. I signal to her - when we get to 18 feet, I wanna pop and look about - outside of the surf zone. She's cool. We reach about 20 feet and I'm starting to really cork - so we decide to ascent. I splay like a skydiver, scooter in my right hand - making as large a profile as I can to try to slow down. I get it pretty slow, and I rise at an acceptable, semi-controlled ascent.
What'd they do with all the real sand?
We look and we're a bit further from the exit than we wanted to be - especially as the storm surge is moving in fast.
Wr drop back to about 10 feet and scoot South to the exit. We doff the fins, clip them off and scoot in. We let some biggies roll over us, we look back and we're in the trough and in the lull - so we punch it.
We both walk up the beach - but the sand it weird. Its like gravel - all of the fine sand got washed out at the last storm earlier in the week. What is left is more gravel than sand - really large course kernels.
I can't get a grip. I'm walking up the slope, but I'm gaining no traction. An ankle-high draw pulls me down. I'm laughing. I was all prepared to walk out and here I am unable to get past the boot-top draw.
I stand up, take some more steps, go no place and once again I'm pulled down by the soles of my own shoes. This gravel sand is wacky as it just crumbles. I use my scooter to help me up and use it as a cane of sorts for the next 4 steps up the slope and then I'm fine.
Chica would tell me in the parking lot that its like the sand at Monastery - its coarser and offers no purchase to someone walking up slope.
Quick In, Quick Out - then its Winter again... :depressed:
As we're gearing down in the parking lot, it starts to rain. As I'm writing this I can't see out the window its raining so hard.
So once again - for the second time in a week, and probably the 4th or 5th time this year, Dette and I get in and out between storms.
No squid. Sadness. Maybe next week when things settle down.
Thank you, Claudette. You are the Apex buddy. I wouldn't do this stuff without you. Thanks for making the time to dive. You gotta want it, and to get off the sidelines and get in two dives this week - well that's just the best.
---
Ken
.
