The Pasley "HURRY HOME" February '07 Dive Reports

[OCdiving Deb]

Date:
Dive Location:
Buddy(ies):
Time:
Bottom Time:
Max Depth:
Vis:
Wave height:
Temp at depth:
Surface Temp:
Tide information:
Gas mix:
Top reason Pasley should hurry home:
Comments:

 

[OCdiving Deb]

Thursday night conditions at Vet's Park were considerably better than Wednesday's but still not as good as a few nights ago.

2/1/07
Surf: 2-3'
Viz: 5-10' at 80 feet
Surge: very light
Temp: 57 degrees?
Top reason for Pasley to hurry home: Looking up from 35 fsw and seeing the almost-full moon shining above us.

After getting a verbal report from Claudette who had just been down for a topside visual, the dive was ON! She and Ken were already planning to meet at 7 but I wanted to wait for Mike B. and Kevin L. who were still battling the rush hour traffic from OC. The crowd at Vet's was light tonight, possibly due to all the good TH night TV that I hopefully have on TiVo or to last night's less than stellar conditions...or both! The only others we saw were OC divers Milo and Mike.

This was my very first LA County beach dive in 5 years of SoCal diving. Geez! What took me so long?? The surface swim at Vet's is soooo much shorter than La Jolla's and the drive from South OC is just about equal. All things considered, I think I will do it again!

Although surf conditions were decent, I still lost my balance and fell in the surf zone...not easy (for me) to recover from that in a drysuit! I dropped both fins when I rolled the 2nd or 3rd or 4th time but I wasn't worried about finding them. I was more concerned about getting vertical again! Once the guys lifted me up Mike handed me his monster-sized camera rig and they both went after my fins. It wasn't easy to spot them being solid black and all, but eventually I was back in business thanks to Mike and Kevin.

The swim out was easy but we had more issues before descending. Mike's tank was out of his strap. We got that fixed (what a hassle in the dark!) and dropped into 35 feet of murky water. I was pretty proud that I could see the bottom approaching and didn't slam into it. (How many of us have done that?? Drop, drop, drop, BAMM!)

I soon realized that my inflator hose had disengaged, probably when I rolled. I knew this because I felt a surge of cool water enter my valve when I should have felt warm air surrounding my formerly shrink-wrapped body. Easy fix!!

The crabs were all over the place tonight! I also saw one Spanish shawl, lots of Kellett's whelks, wavy turban snails, my first sarcastic fringehead, and other misc critters on our way down to the main attraction, the vast carpets of squid egg casings! I think we started seeing scattered egg casings around 60 feet but they were more dense at 75-80. I didn't go any deeper than 80ish but the guys went a little deeper for a few minutes and saw all the bat rays that are munching on the egg casings.

While they were down a bit I saw a pretty large lobster! I let it go by but it got me thinking about them... My camera had already shown it was NOT going to cooperate so why not play with bugs?? I went after the next one that showed himself and I pinned it! I struggled with the whole darned light and gauge thing, mostly because I had the bug in the wrong hand. Hmmm. I set the bug down, switched the light to the other hand and pinned it (or another one) again. It was easily legal... Wow! This is fun! Luckily there were no egg casings in the immediate vicinity so I didn't hurt any squid progeny.

Kevin was soon right next to me, showing me a bug on his arm! I was trying to signal to him that I was going up soon so I didn't stick around to see that the lobster on his arm NEVER LET GO! He actually exited the water with it still stuck to his arm! We measured it and it was barely legal so I had a midnight snack tonight. Thanks Kev!!

Oh yeah... the squid! I was mesmerized by the gorgeous egg casings that were gently swaying in the light surge. They are so pretty with their pearly white opalescence and the pattern of the eggs that show through the translucent covering. I only saw 3 or 4 squid but they were very pretty as well. I saw many tiny little fish hovering just above the egg casings. Anyone know what they are? They were almost translucent and probably juvie something...

I want to go back in again, maybe without the camera and definitely without the pain-in-the-arse dive light lanyard I used this week and last. I am back to the tried-and-true retractors for my dive lights...when I have my camera with me, anyway.

The camera... ARGH! It didn't work AGAIN! That is a story for another time. At least I will have Kevin's, Mike's, and Ken's pix to savor the memories! Thanks so much, Mike and Kevin... and thanks to Scott and Claudette for giving us the conditions green light!

 

[Jake]

Date: 2007-02-03

Dive 1/2: Little Corona (Poppy Street), East and then West
Time in: 0915 and 1141
Bottom time: 67 and 53 minutes
Max depth: 24fsw and 18fsw
Viz: 15-20, but pretty messy
Wave height: 1 ft

These dives were pretty uneventful. The highlight for me was seeing a 3 foot leopard shark cruise by, followed almost immediately by a sizeable swell shark jammed into a small cave.

For those of you who haven't been to Little Corona (off Poppy street), you're missing out. The hike is a bit of a pain, but the seascape is breathtaking. Do it at high tide though, lest you find yourself hacking through condensed kelp forests. That's fun too, but you'll spend most of your time pulling stuff off of you.

The east reef (left, if you're facing the ocean) is rocky but generally flatish with large rises and outcroppings and a good amount of life. The west reef, however, is full of large boulders and gashes, with a different type of life altogether. On the east side you'll find baldis and wrasses, on the west large schools of surf perches and other good sized fish. Both are excellent dive sites with extremely easy navigation and simple beach entries.

Dive 3: Redondo/Vet's Park
Time in: 20:14
Bottom time: 29 minutes
Max depth: 87fsw
Viz: 15-20
Wave height: 1-3

Made it out for a squid dive. Annoying surface chop, but really no waves to speak of until the set hits.

Conditions on the bottom were nice. Little surge once you started down the canyon. Viz was terrific!

Eggs everywhere, lots of bat rays, crabs, and shrimp. 3 beautiful (!!!!) straggling squid.

I think a small crab pinched me while we were doing a brief deep stop. Jerk!

Easy and amazing dive. Go do it if you haven't yet. See Claudette's thread on making the most of this opportunity.

 

[OCdiving Deb]

Date: 3 Feb 07 (one day before DA BEARS play in the Superbowl!)
Dive Location: Diver's Cove, Laguna Beach
Buddy(ies): My sister Donna (DJ)
Time: 1:07 PM
Bottom Time: 62 minutes
Max Depth: 27 feet
Vis: 2-15 but mostly 10ish, Lots of stuff in the water, light greenish cast to the water
Wave height: None!
Temp at depth: 57 degrees?
Surface Temp: not sure!
Tide information: 2 feet and dropping
Gas mix: 21%
Top reason Pasley should hurry home: diving an OK site makes us appreciate our other favorite beach dive sites...

Comments:

Donna and I intended to take the Island Time to Catalina for a 2-tanker, getting back in time for a family function in the early evening. Only 4 had signed up for the trip so Captain Rich cancelled on Friday night. Sooo, we went to plan B.

Donna had never been to Diver's Cove and it had been awhile for me so we decided to check there first. The Gallo's and their friend Russ were just out of the water and gave a favorable report AND the perfect parking place was open right at the stairs. Good start!

We yakked for awhile and gerryrigged an o-ring for DJ before entering the cold water at 1 PMish. NO SURF!! Wahoo!

We checked to see that her o-ring was stable and she was on her way!

The dive site was fairly dull with few interesting features. Our most exciting finds were a Spanish shawl, DJ's first Tylodina fungina opisthobranch, some baby garibaldis who posed for photos, and either one large bat ray that we found on 4 separate occasions or 4 large bat rays! It seemed we were playing cat and mouse with it. At one point on our return to Diver's (we had been carried by a strong longshore current toward Heisler Park) we decided to dive sand looking for the bat ray again....of course when you're looking for it, it doesn't show! We should have avoided it and then we would have seen it again!

Camera saga continues so only a few came out. They are at my OCdiving gallery album

Go BEARS!!! I am rooting for my hometown team! I have a jersey to go buy so I can make a proper fool of myself today.... anyone have orange face paint?? ;-)

 

[Jake]

The dive site was fairly dull with few interesting features. Our most exciting finds were a Spanish shawl, DJ's first Tylodina fungina opisthobranch, some baby garibaldis who posed for photos, and either one large bat ray that we found on 4 separate occasions or 4 large bat rays! It seemed we were playing cat and mouse with it. At one point on our return to Diver's (we had been carried by a strong longshore current toward Heisler Park) we decided to dive sand looking for the bat ray again....of course when you're looking for it, it doesn't show! We should have avoided it and then we would have seen it again!

I've seen more large bat rays at Diver's cove than at every other site I've been to before (probably combined). They seem to like the small standalone reef areas or low lying kelp and sea grass spots.

 

[JMdiver]

Date: 2-3-07
Dive Location:OML
Buddy(ies):Joe & Al
Time: 9:15 AM
Bottom Time: 30 min.
Max Depth: 50
Vis: 3-5 fsw
Wave height:too big for cobble beach
Temp at depth: 57 deg
Gas mix:air
Comments: As we were entering we almost called the dive & we should have. Although we got in OK the vis was very bad & when we exited Joe & Al made it out OK but I wasn't as fortunate as them & pulled a muscle in my right thigh with a couple of other bruises. One of the worse beach dives I've had so far.

John

 

[Mo2vation]

Date: 2-3-07
Dive Location:OML
Buddy(ies):Joe & Al
Time: 9:15 AM
Bottom Time: 30 min.
Max Depth: 50
Vis: 3-5 fsw
Wave height:too big for cobble beach
Temp at depth: 57 deg
Gas mix:air
Comments: As we were entering we almost called the dive & we should have. Although we got in OK the vis was very bad & when we exited Joe & Al made it out OK but I wasn't as fortunate as them & pulled a muscle in my right thigh with a couple of other bruises. One of the worse beach dives I've had so far.

John

OUCH.

This is why 'dette and I bailed on OML that AM and went to Vets. It looked a little nasty for our taste. Hope you're OK.

---
Ken

 

[OCdiving Deb]

I've seen more large bat rays at Diver's cove than at every other site I've been to before (probably combined). They seem to like the small standalone reef areas or low lying kelp and sea grass spots.

That seems to fit exactly with our experience on Saturday. They were sitting right off the edges of the little reefs.

OMGosh! You didn't call it eelgrass! (because it isn't but many still call it so)

Cool sighting you had on your leopard shark.

 

[alaity47]

Date: 2-4-07
Dive Location: Santa Barbara Island, at/near Three Sisters
Buddy(ies): Jeff, Bonnie Z
Time: 7am (rrngh), 8:30am, 10:30am
Bottom Time: 30-40 min each.
Max Depth: 35-50
Vis: 50 foot plus!
Temp at depth: 55 deg

We were on a Sport Chalet charter to Santa Barbara Island, which I fully expected to wind up at Catalina as so often happens. Instead, we were rousted from our stateroom at 6:30am with an announcement that we were at the island, and the gates were open immediately for 30 minutes. Aghk. Not the most pleasant way to kick off the morning, but luckily, we had a lot of fun once we were in the water. The boat was only half-full, the weather was gorgeous, and the swell and visibility were cooperating - what a great day to be diving!

The first two dives were at the kelp beds near Three Sisters, where we basically plopped ourselves down in the sand at the edge of the kelp and waited to be surrounded by sea lions. And surrounded we were!

For the third dive we moved over to the actual Three Sisters (big rocks), and were still surrounded. There were also a ton of comb jellies in the water there, especially in the top 15 feet or so.

Half the fun was the swims back to the boat. On dives 2 and 3, we wound up drifting a bit with the current and surfaced about 100 yards from the boat. What would have been a boring swim turned into playtime, as we were escorted by huge packs of sea lions the whole way back to the boat.

Of course, if you don't like sea lions, the day would have been pretty boring - not much else to see where we were. (Except for lobster: everyone who was hunting nabbed their limit). Luckily, I wasn't sick of sea lions yet, though I may be now. I took 70 minutes of sea lion footage yesterday, some of it actually watchable, and all of it in hi def (thanks to my new best friend Lars, who is loaning me his hi-def rig to take to Australia in a couple of weeks).

Some pics from the 300 or so that Jeff snapped on this trip:

You think I'm cute, huh? I will EAT YOUR BRAINS, human!

Dogpile at the surface:

Did I mention this was my 300th dive?

More pics here:
http://gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-20070204_santabarbara

(Note - don't go poking around too much yet at laityphoto.com; it's not fully functional yet, but some of our albums have begun the migration).

 

[JMdiver]

Great shots Jeff. I looked at your gallery & one of those guys looked pretty angry.

John
P.S. Congrats on the 300th.