The Pasley April 06 Dive Report Thread

[radinator]

[...deletia...]
After loaning my reg to a diver that left there's at home on Friday, I got to OML this afternoon, only to realize I left MY REG at home (never put it back in the gear box... me so lame...)
[...deletia...]

And thank you very much for the loaner, Ken.

Funny story, at 3:30 am the night before my dive I had a dream that I was setting up to dive and my drysuit hose wasn't attached to my first stage (I remove it when diving wet). So I woke up and saw that the hose was with my 'pile of hoses', and put it on my dive bag so I wouldn't forget to take it.

I should have dreamed that I forgot my reg set entirely. I show up to the dive site with a drysuit hose, but that was all.

HBSpot called Ken, and I suddenly had a loaner reg set. Above and beyond all around, that's why I like divers!

Sorry the good deed nipped you in the tushie.

 

[HBDiveGirl]

'Chica did a masterful job of having us avoid every possible pinnacle, and drove us right to the sand

so we took our time closely examining the small rocks we came across.

Back-seat diver! :14:

(No appreciation for how difficult it is to find pinwheel-worm sandy habitat in a location so filled with tall rocky pinnacles. Never would have found that critter on the pinnacles. harrumph!)

Claudette
(The one with a regulator :05: )

(....yes, yes... the same 'chica who has borrowed tanks, HIDs, BP/W's, etc. Sometimes it takes a village to outfit a diver )

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The cool part about diving in the sandy plains is.....it's a jungle out there! Sand Dollars, Mantis shrimp, Windmill worms, halibut, Dendronotus iris nudis and octopus hiding behind a small blade of kelp, ready to fight Claudette any moment. There may even be a platform out there somewhere.

 

[HBDiveGirl]

The cool part about diving in the sandy plains is.....it's a jungle out there! Sand Dollars, Mantis shrimp, Windmill worms, halibut, Dendronotus iris nudis and octopus hiding behind a small blade of kelp, ready to fight Claudette any moment. There may even be a platform out there somewhere.

I remember that little octo in the middle of acres of sand... which was where we were!! That was the forced march around the perimeter, I think, that ended with that slam-up gravel-wave exit at the sea cave... whoa!

That little octo was sooo cute, holding up his macrocystis kelp frond like a bath towel, as he tried to slink away unnoticed. He DID have a couple of arms balled up at the tips, like a tiny pugnacious boxer.

Great stuff out there, if you can just get away from all those obnoxious pinnacles!!

Memorable! If we could just remember where we left the platform....
~C~

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Date: April 8, 2006
Dive Location: Vet's Park, Redondo Beach
Buddy(ies): Merry
Time: 9:19
Bottom Time: 49 minutes
Max Depth: 86'
Vis: 2-15'
Wave height: 0-2'
Temp at depth: 51F
Comments: Nice, cold dive. We dropped into 86 feet and had to swim back up to the Monument. There were two lobsters in the blocks. I handed one to Merry so she could get the feel of the squirmy little buggers. We then headed toward the pier, where we found a small collection of Triopha maculata and Hermissenda nudibranchs, crabs, shrimp, squid eggs and anemones. My hands were getting pretty numb, so we headed back to the beach and the Scubaboard/DiveVets picnic.
For those who look for phallic symbols under water...

 

[Robert Phillips]

Date: 4/9
Dive Location: Crescent Bay/Deadmans
Buddy(ies): Flo E., Ray E.
Time: 7:50 a.m.
Bottom Time: 66
Max Depth: 67
Ave. Depth: 40
Vis: 15+
Wave height: 2-3'
Temp at depth: 52°
Surface Temp: 58°
Tide information: High
Gas mix: 30%
Comments: Dive with the Henge Builders! I even added a rock to it myself. If you have not seen this structure, you need to.
Lots of life out today. Saw big lobsters, a shy moray, a lone sea lion several sheep crab, baby halibut and more of the regular fare. Nice dive, but a little on the cold side. My Uwatec bottom timer was reading 54° through most of the dive which I now is wrong most of the time. So I knew it had to be colder. I did not know how much colder until I got home and downloaded the Sensus Pro.

See ya!
Robb

 

[scubanimal]

Date: April 9, 2006
Dive Location: Yukon, San Diego
Time: 7:am
Bottom Time: 59 minutes
Max Depth: 100'
Vis: 10-15 (surface=>45' ), 25'+ sixty feet - hundred
Wave height: 0-2'
Temp at depth: 50, 59 on surface (D9)


Drills, Drills & more Drills.

 

[divinman]

Date: 04/09/2006
Dive Location: Scripps Canyon
Buddy(ies): Simon, Sean, Jochen and Brad(mostly Sean)
Time: 13:57
Bottom Time: 46 minutes
Max Depth: 106ft
Vis: 5-15
Wave height: 3-5
Temp at depth: 49f
Surface Temp: 61f
Gas mix: Air

Met with the local dive legend and we went diving. Lots to see in the canyon as usual. Find of the day was a huge Dendronotus iris feeding on a tube anenome.


Pictures can be found here: http://www.scubapost.net/forums/Scorpionfish/040906/

Terry S.
www.scubapost.net
A Southern California Dive Community

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Saturday, April 8, 2006: Wrinkles dive, (sans Wrinkles... again...)
Redondo Canyon, Veteran's Park,
Buddies: Mo2vation, Neophyte
7 PM Splash-down
40 minutes of underwater fun.
70fsw for a few minutes, then angling up the contours slowly.
15-20 foot viz in the canyon, about 15 on the sandy shallows
2-3 foot waves on entrance and exit, but breaking pretty softly.
"52F-warm" below the 40 foot thermocline.
56 F on the surface.
Rising tide to High @ 8:40pm, which improved the viz.
Good ol' sea-level air in the tanks.

Night Diving RULES!
I like Redondo Canyon... at night.
Great micro-habitats, easily accessible, easily navigated.
Worth every second... at night.

During the day?? :11doh: Saints preserve me, and give me somewhere else to be and something else to dive. La Jolla Canyon is the diurnal canyon dive... always fun creatures, 'round the clock.

Redondo is a night dive.

So I dutifully attended the Los Angeles ReefCheck training class Saturday, 9-4, and then RUSHED to Veterans to meet up with friends and splash in... after dark .

(Beautiful sunset, BTW)

We had enough HID's to go around, so we must have blinded every ray in the surf zone as we head-butted our way into the frisky surf and out to our descent point. 21W + 18W + 10W = 49W of blaze rolling out in a three-man formation along the sandy flats and down into the canyon. We enjoyed all the colors of bay pipe fish, round rays, purple swimming crabs, yellow rock crabs, juvenile scorpion fish, poachers, lizard fish, a 4-cm box jelly, pink short spined seastars, Kellet's whelks, flatties (assorted variety pack) and a tiny spotted horn shark that just wanted to snuggle with Ken.

Now THIS is what I'm talking about!!! All this life was just on the sandy flats before we even got to the canyon edge.

The viz improved to nice black water as we slipped over the edge to see Hermissenda nudibranchs everywhere on the bits of kelp and debris. Nudibranch eggs decorated dozens of kelp fronds and eel grass strands. They are tiny here, just 3-cm midgets compared to the 10-cm Mighty Hulk-issendas thundering over Marineland right now. But very fun to find. Ken found the Tiniest gray Dendronotus nudi.. a new one for me. We missed the Triopha maculatas that MaxBT and Merry found during the day... so maybe day-diving here has its bright side..... Naw!!! (Just kidding! Nice pix, Phil )

BEST FIND OF THE DIVE:
A red octopus, out in the open, frozen statue-still, clutching a 4-inch yellow rock crab.
It looked like a freeze-frame from a movie!!!
I blinked twice, waiting for time to begin to flow again!! "Whazzup, Octavius??"
Then I noticed that only 7 arms were stretched tight around the crab, with the 8th lashing about looking for one more surface to grab. Mr. Crab was in a tight spot, and we must have just missed the ambush. I hovered in amazement as the octopus tightened relentlessly. This entree was going nowhere but down the hatch. Not wanting to disturb dinner, we headed up the slope looking for more great stuff.

We kept finding and sharing cool discoveries all around. There is NOTHING like HIDs and good teamwork to bring out the fun of a life-rich night dive. We surge-surfed our way past more rays, pipefish, occassional sand dollars, and crabs, finally surfacing from about 12 fsw, parachuting upwards in that magical levitation trick. THAT is soooo much fun!

Adam, you're glomming onto this stuff as fast as you can blink. HIDs are pretty cool, eh?? I can't believe this was only your 2nd night dive, man!! You did great, and the team worked.

Ken, Thank you for yet another superb team dive. I learn something everytime I dive with you, and it keeps getting better. You are so precise underwater it just blows my mind... wow.

The extended Post-dive briefing at El Torito included reports on the neck-and-neck extinction race of Assyrians and pandas... Nearly overshadowed by those Minnesotan Bengal tigers snack-attacking their Barnum-Bailey-wannabee, lumberjacking care-takers. I thought narcosis was supposed to resolve upon ascent :huh: .....
It was great to dine with so many fun people!!

You shoulda been there !!!

Miss a Wrinkles dive at your own risk! You've been warned :14: .

~~~~~~
Claudette

 

[Grey_Wulff]

Date: 04/08/06
Dive Location: Yukon
Time: 8:51am
Bottom Time: 40 minutes
Max Depth: 94ft
Vis: Probably 20 - 25ft
Swell height: 3ft
Temp at depth: 51F

First dive on the Yukon this year and we chose a pretty good day. Weather was great and the visibility was above average. That being said, it did take several attempts to find the wreck. Our GPS was struggling to lock onto satellites and two of the three mooring buoys have been ripped out by the winter storms. Thus, we motored past the one remaining buoy twice before asking one of the commercial charters and tying into the back of them.

Nothing out of the ordinary on the wreck although the cold was mind numbing after a while.

Date: 04/08/06
Dive Location: Ruby E
Time: 10:54am
Bottom Time: 38 minutes
Max Depth: 76ft
Vis: Probably 15 - 20ft
Swell height: 3ft
Temp at depth: 53F

With a slightly more cooperative GPS we found the Ruby E without problem. As soon as we dropped I felt the cold and that made it feel like a long dive. Again, nothing particularly out of the ordinary on the wreck but like others have been reporting their were nudibranchs everywhere. Plus, we did spot a very nice scorpion fish.

Two great dives but I'm so looking forward to my drysuit which should arrive in a week or so. The day cannot come fast enough!

Grey Wulff