Peace Dive Trip 4/26/07
This was my first time diving at Anacapa! We went out on the 65’ boat Peace out of Ventura, which I’d been on once before – fabulous boat, great crew, wonderful captain, awesome food. Trish (their famous galley cook) is unfortunately leaving, but there was a new person there, Terry (I think…I might have her name wrong?) who did a fine job.
We got there by 6:00 am, with a departure time of 7:00, so after loading I headed down to the bunks to catch up on some zzzz’s. I drowsily heard the engines go on, and then slipped back into slumber. The next thing I knew, I felt myself being lifted up, then I was falling….falling….falling…for what seemed like forever, and then CRASH and I was being lifted up again…and then I was plummeting again… Apparently, the seas were a wee bit heavier than expected! In my dreaming state I thought I’d just entered the perfect storm, and our boat was being swamped by a rogue 250 ft wave! Unfortunately George Clooney was not with me, which would have been the only thing that could have made this incredible, stomach-lurching rocking and rolling tolerable. I was literally lifted off the bunk and hit the ceiling several times. Charlie, who was up above, later told me that Capt. Kevin was stunned by how big the swells were – much bigger than reported – and almost turned us around. But he decided to plow ahead. I managed to stay down below for about ten minutes before I had to make a mad dash for the deck to…well, I’ll save the gory details. Let’s just say that it was rough crossing, and there were quite a few pale faces hanging onto the rails on that boat.
Finally we passed into the lee of Santa Rosa Island, which blocked the worst of the swells, and we all did a collective sigh and began pulling ourselves together for the dive. Another 20 minutes and we were at Anacapa, enjoying the majestic sight of Arch Rock and the towering sea cliffs. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day.
Dive Location: Anacapa Island – Inside Coral Reef
Buddy: Charlie
Time: 10:00 am
Bottom Time: 35 min
Max Depth: 39fsw
Vis: 20-25
Wave height: mild swells (protected cove)
Temp at depth/surface: 75 air, 55 surface, 54 depth
There were a couple of OW classes onboard, so all our dives were pretty shallow and easy today. We dropped down at the stern anchor line to 30 fsw and just did an out and back along the coast. The vis wasn’t quite what I was expecting out in the Channel Islands, as I guess there was a nice plankton bloom going on, but after speaking to Capt. Kevin later, I guess that’s pretty common for April in the Channel Islands. The water was a chilly 54, but I never felt cold. There were some nice rock formations covered with the usual urchins, stars, sea cucumbers, sea hares, anemones, gorgonian fans, etc. We saw one big territorial Garibaldi, circling in his little rock home. After being out of the water for over a month, it may not have been the most exciting or critter-filled dive, but it felt GREAT to just get back in the water! Charlie and I are still trying to improve our navigation skills, so we did a little moving around, and managed to navigate ourselves right back to the anchor line.
Came out for a surface interval enhanced by some really fabulous clam chowder.
Dive Location: Anacapa Island – Underwater Arch
Buddy: Charlie
Time: 12:00 pm
Bottom Time: 45 min
Max Depth: 27fsw
Vis: 10-20
Wave height: mild swells (protected cove)
Temp at depth/surface: 78 air, 61 surface, 55 depth
Even though the plankton bloom was thicker and the vis was dropping, this was the best dive of the day. We saw many more fish – Garibaldi, opaleye, senorita, sculpin/scorpion fish, kelp bass, perch, and one curious sea lion. There were large rocks and reefs with the usual suspects. Lots of star fish and gorgonian fans, and a few undulating Spanish Shawls, which always stun me with their beauty. I saw the occasional scallop, so I borrowed Charlie’s knife and hacked a few out of the rocks. Didn’t have my game bag with me since it’s not lobster season, so I stuck them in my BCD pocket. One huge one refused to break free and I ended up pulling it apart, so I just cleaned it under water and ate it! Sushi doesn’t get much fresher than that. We never did see the underwater arch, but we did see some really lovely walls. Our underwater navigation wasn’t quite so spot-on this time – we came up a bit further away from the boat and had to drop down again to swim over to it.
Surface interval included a yummy lunch of chicken enchiladas, pinto beans, rice and salad.
Dive Location: Anacapa Island – Underwater Island
Buddy: Charlie
Time: 2:00 pm
Bottom Time: 39 min
Max Depth: 49fsw
Vis: 10-15
Wave height: mild swells (protected cove)
Temp at depth/surface: 75 air, 61 surface, 55 depth
This was the worst dive of the day. We dropped down onto sand, and started finning in the direction we thought the briefing had said we should go, but it took forever before we encountered anything other than sand and tons of brittle stars. Finally came across a few rock structures and some kelp beds, but not a whole lot of life. We played around there for a while, enjoying the lovely dappled sunlight gleaming and sluicing through the kelp canopy – that’s just a sight that not too many people on this planet get to enjoy, so whenever I see it I try to stop for a few moments and absorb it. We started heading back, but realized pretty quickly something was off – we should have been seeing sand, but we were seeing a rocky bottom and a few reef structures that we didn’t recognize. Turns out a current had kicked up, which we hadn’t felt, and when we didn’t come across the boat we just did a blue water ascent and safety stop, and surfaced to see that we were a good 400 ft west of the boat, downstream. No way could we surface swim back. Luckily, the crew was of course on top of things, and Steve came out in the dingy to haul our red-faced and embarrassed arses back to the boat. So it seems our navigation skills are getting progressively worse with each dive. If we’d done a fourth dive, I suspect we would have surfaced somewhere in Mexico.
The trip back was WAY smoother than the trip out, and the steaming hot spa felt fantastic. We were back at the dock by 5:15 pm.
