SoCal Dive Reports - Let us know about your dive!

[shucksun]

Last night we took a small group of divers to Catalina Island to harvest lobsters. Although Small Craft Advisories were in effect, conditions still looked quite reasonable. Leaving at 4:30 PM we motored to CI through 4-6' swells and were on the dive site by 7ish, three divers made one dive, two limited out and one diver took only one. The third diver is locally famous on the boat for during a previous outing he harvested a limit of lobsters in nine minutes in 13' of water. But last night the bugs saw him coming and kept their heads down. Divers reported the conditions underwater as "beautiful" with viz to 50'. We motored back through even bigger swells, some as high as the wheel house windows, but with less wind. By the time we picked up the wind shadow from PV the ocean's surface was glassing off. At the dock just after 10 PM, our divers were on the road home by 10:30pm.

Jeff "J" Reeb
darkthirtydivers@gmail.com
The Giant Stride

 

[shucksun]

Pretty dang nice out there today! Viz on the main reef was a disappointing 10+' on the outside, but a very pleasant hazy 20'-25+' on the inside of the West Pinnacle. Walk in/Walk out with a lazy 1' soft swell. More sargassum than I needed to see. The kelp around the East pinnacle is bouncing back though; we're going to dive there our next time out.

Divemetrics: 58 mins to 51', 61F, no current or surge, morning high tide occurred during the dive.

Jeff "J" Reeb
Dark-Thirty Divers
The Giant Stride

 

[shucksun]

We dove Deadman's Reef today with decent conditions. viz was 25'-25+', an improvement over Shaws on Wednesday when we only had 10'-15'. Lots of fish schools out; Sargos, Calico Bass and Blacksmiths. Numerous lobster too. Some 1' sets in the surfline, with lulls. Divemetrics: 60min, 56', 60F.

Jeff "J" Reeb
Dark-Thirty Divers
The Giant Stride

 

[drbill]

I've been topside lately but heard reports from a very reliable local dive instructor (Mark Guccione) that visibility in the Casino Point Dive Park has been as great as 100 ft!

 

[shucksun]

I've been topside lately but heard reports from a very reliable local dive instructor (Mark Guccione) that visibility in the Casino Point Dive Park has been as great as 100 ft!

Dang! I need to beat feet to the park for some of that Viz!

 

[wnissen]

Took a group trip from Dive N' Trips out of Pleasanton, Calif. to Catalina. Conditions were incredibly calm. When the wind died down, it truly looked like a lake. Dove the Casino Point Dive Park on Saturday, 16F/62C air and water, with 15m/50ft of visibility. The Scuba Cat took us to Ship Rock, West Quarry, and Hen rock, and conditions remained the same. Crew was super, they saved my dive when my computer went low battery all of a sudden, and they were extremely helpful with gear for a great price given the overall quality. Saw my first kelpfish near the "Trump" at Hen Rock.

 

[JXT71]

Coming off a nice case of sinus barotrauma followed by 6 weeks of one illness after another, I finally got back in the water. Even so, it was a comedy of errors leading up to it - waking up with a stuffy nose, an SPG spool giving out as I'm setting up gear, a (freshly serviced) regulator wanting to free flow the moment it goes underwater - if one more thing went wrong I was going to just call the dive.

Glad I didn't, though. As it so happens, when I got hit with the baro last dive I was just about to rediscover the Shore's North Wall that I had been meaning to get to. I stumbled across it last year while investigating a sandy area past the Main Wall. After finding a little rocky shelf I swam back south towards the Main Wall, but fell into a dimensional rift or something because I wound up like a hundred yards north of where I had any right to be.

Last time I was there I found the flat purple thing @MaxBottomtime ID'd for me. This time I was greeted by this guy. I've seen a sea bass in the kelp beds at Point Loma, and heard of them nearby at the Cove, but never heard of them around the walls. I like how the Shores throws the occasional curveball.

 

[shucksun]

We were off PV Saturday putting our clients on Hawthorne, Bio-Dome and The Garden Spot reefs. Viz was 25' (58F), 20' (58F) and 10' (61F) respectively.

Capt. Jim and the Crew on Instagram: “Happy divers after three dives on the local reefs off Palos Verdes. (Photo by Jeff Laity)”

A pair of simnia doing the wild thing, and spotting an unidentified Nudibranch were the dive highlights.

Jeff "J" Reeb
Dark-Thirty Divers
The Giant Stride

 

[drbill]

Wreckfish (aka giant sea bass) are now being seen in the dive park with some regularity. I had my first sighting of the year yesterday on dive #2

 

[Esprise Me]

Wreckfish (aka giant sea bass) are now being seen in the dive park with some regularity. I had my first sighting of the year yesterday on dive #2

I was there yesterday too! I either saw 2 of them, or the same one on 2 different dives; the second one looked a bit smaller but I couldn't be certain. I heard someone else saw 3 all together.