The Pasley "Hurry Home" January '07 Dive Report Thread

[divekim]

So our little SP gang put together a dive day bbq for our own Marianne who unfortunately leave for Iraq on the 15th. We've been trying to get her as wet as possible as often as possible before she leaves. We had a great turnout for this day including quite a few ScubaBoard members to help send her off in style.

Top Reason Pasley should hurry home: dive buddies are meant to be diving not playing in the sand

Dive #1
Location: La Jolla Shores - North Wall
Time: 8:55am descent
Temp: 57
Vis: 5-8 foot vis
Max Depth: 76 feet
Bottom Time: 62 mins
Buddies: Marianne, Wetrat, ChickoftheSea, Divinman

First group in the water this morning, plan is to head to the North Wall. The surf is still 2-3 feet, a little choppy surface, but an abosolutely beautiful morning.

We were to drop as a group and head west, but we didn't group at the bottom, Marianne and John headed west, I did not see Terry on the bottom, I had Jen in my sight and allowed Marianne and John to swim away. Jen started to follow so I kicked very slowly shining my light in the direction Terry should have been. I should have motioned to Jen to surface, my fault, will not happen again. Terry had surfaced and found our bubbles and shortly after we were a team again.

Made our way to the North Wall and began exploring, looking at it during the day it really had been beaten up. Brittle Stars, a couple of small Sculpins, Clown Dorid, Spanish Shawl, Octopus, Blue Banded Gobies, Ocean Whitefish, a baby Scorpionfish, Sea Stars, Blacksmith in all different sizes. We hit our turn around time and as we ascended up over the wall we ran into Scott and Penny. We made our way south and then east and then south again trying to ensure we didn't come out to far north, and Terry did a damn good job getting us in front of the lifeguard tower.

Dive#2
Location: La Jolla Shores - Vallecitos Point
Time: 12:07pm
Temp: 54 on my computer but others got 51 it was very cold on this dive
Vis: 10 feet, it opened up a little
Max Depth: 77 feet
Bottom Time: 72 mins
Buddies: Marianne, Divinman, ChickoftheSea, and right behind us were Coralline Dream, Norma, Jason, SCVDiver, Sean, Wetrat, Scottfiji

So after some talking, snacking, and generally goofing off, Marianne started cracking her whip to get us back in the water. We geared back up and headed in. This time we had a drill, meet on the bottom, give the okay, make sure we are all together before heading west. Mission accomplished, lets have fun.

We headed west looking for Vallecitos Point, at about 45-50 feet we found the beginning of the collapse and the clay ledge, Terry and Jen turned south while Marianne and I went a little deeper to check out the walls, cracks and crevices that are now below the point. We floated around checking all hiding places but no life has taken residence yet. Came upon the slope that goes up to the point and headed east to meet back up with Jen and Terry.

Began making our way along the wall, baby Sheephead, a school of baby Senoritas, several small female Sheephead, Barred Sand Bass, Sea Stars, a couple of Stearns, Porostomes, a Dorid (I can't remember if we figured out which one), several Blennies with their little heads sticking out of holes, more Octopus and Blue Banded Gobies, Black Eyed Gobies, and a couple of Rockfish way back in holes.

The point seems to be covered by sand in most places, the top has a layer of at least a couple inches and the bottom of the wall as well. The wall also has a lot of sand on it in places where it can accumulate. We lost sight of Terry and Jen about the time we hit the southeast turn of the point and shortly after began our swim back. It was a pretty leisurely swim, not much to see. The shallower we got the more sand was being kicked up. Stood up in about 5 feet of water and discovered we were the last to get out of the water.

Got all our gear put away and joined everyone on the grass, Steve-O the master griller was hard at work and of course surpassed himself once again. I had a great time playing with Erica as usual, I'm actually quite sore today from all the cartwheels. Had a great time hearing Sean's tale of the huge Halibut that scared him out of his wits.

I had a great time today, I will miss my Marianne very much while she is gone. I'm very glad we got to do this before you leave. We've got a few more days left in the week before you go.

Kim

 

[LLKZ16]

Date: 1/7/07
Dive Location: Vets
Buddy(ies): Angelique
Time: 9:22 pm.
Bottom Time: 56 min
Max Depth: 90 fsw
Vis: 10-15 feet
Wave height: 2-3 feet
Temp at depth: 56F
Surface Temp: 60F

Comments: I have finally found my personal Great White Whale (more about that later……)

What a difference a few days make. On Friday morning both Jimmy and I were staring out at the wind blasted sea contemplating going out………NOT!

So, with the Friday dive called off, my only other hope was Sunday night. The conditions looked like they would be a lot better and luckily; I was able to get Angelique to come along. The swell was looking good only 2-3 feet and the wind was almost dead calm.

We kicked out to the end of the pier and dropped down into decent visibility. The plan was to go to around 100 feet and then work our way back up the canyon taking our time to find Squid and other creatures.

As we went along we came across a few groupings of eggs both large and small. The squid were out but not as much as I thought there would be. It was great to interact with the squid. They almost have no fear and seem a bit territorial sometimes. Another thing that I thought was interesting was the HUGE number of Target Shrimp out tonight. I have never seen so many at one time. We also came across a few Octo’s too.

When we started to get into shallow water (20-25 feet) I noticed that we had more time so I told Angelique that we should head back down to 30-40 feet. This was one of the best suggestions I have ever had. For the last few months I have been on the hunt for the elusive Baby GSB’s in the area. My last photo attempt was shot to hell because my camera shutter button was sticking. As we turned back to the canyon and went about 20 yards all of a sudden I found my Great White Whale!!! There he was just sitting there waiting for me….lol. When you look at the pictures it’s interesting to see how transparent his tail fin is.

Below are some highlights from the dive:

 

[radinator]

...I realized that the perfect time to have had my prescription lenses added to my mask would have been last week. (Denial is over. Rx lenses this week.)

I'm not convinced. I had a dive with Claudette on Jan 3 where she was pointing out teeny-tiiny nudi eggs on a stalk of seaweed. At least I think it was a stalk of seaweed - it looked to me she was pointing to a splinter. I guess I was supposed see the nudi egg on the splinter.

Anyway I have this fantasy of my next dive with Claudette, where she points out some microscopic wiggly thing and I reach into my pocket to pull out some exaggerated Sherlock Holmes 12" diameter magnifying glass, give a look, and nod.

 

[divekim]

Not only my first dive at Scripps Canyon, but a night dive to boot.

Top Reason Pasley should hurry home: the excitement and adventure of diving somewhere new needs to be shared with friends

Location: Scripps Canyon - My First Time
Time: 6:56pm descent
Temp: 59 was the lowest my computer got
Vis: 5-8 foot vis
Max Depth: 112 feet
Bottom Time: 45 mins
Buddies: Sean

Here I am, my first time diving Scripps, and I'm lucky enough to have Dan sign me off to do the diving here and both Dan and Sean to hold my hand and show me around. The surf was maybe 2ft set waves, pretty calm surface, nice warm wind blowing on the beach, of course I'm sure the cliff blocking the offshore wind helps here. It is a nice hike down the hill and then south down the beach fully geared, but well worth it in my opinion.

The kick out seemed rather short to me and we descended into 80+ feet of water right next to the canyon wall. We were in 100+ feet of water within 4 minutes and spent the next 20 mins between 98 and 112 feet. The canyon walls is a series of ledges covered in Anenomes of all varieties, Sponges, Fans, and critters. When looking above you it seems as though the ledges actually jet out over you, it was very surreal at times. There are so many colors I found it hard sometimes to focus in one spot and I'm sure I missed a lot.

What did I see, oh my, the first find was Sean spotting a Tritonia Festiva on a Red Gorgonian, I haven't seen one in a long time, next a pair of mating Yellow Edged Cadlina's. Actually we saw a lot of these on this dive and some of them were huge. A very large San Diego Dorid under a ledge, the biggest Spanish Shawl I've yet encountered, a Noble Dorid, 2 McFarlands Chromodorid's, the one I thought might be Stearns but it was so big is also looks like Olive's Aeolid. It actually was booking over the surface, thru the structure and right into a hole as Sean was trying to take photos of it. If that wasn't enough, there were many Rockfish including my first Rosy Rockfish. Blacksmith, Lobster, an Octopus, and oh, did I mention all the colors.

I hit a turnaround point in air and had 4 mins deco blinking at me and told Sean sorry we need to turn around, I literally told him this, we actually talked during a lot of this dive, you know how Sean likes to talk while he's diving. So we worked our way up the canyon wall and across the sand, Sean found a buried Lobster pot with the float just sticking up from the sand with Squid Eggs all around it. It was a little weird working your way up to 45 feet then it slopes deeper then back up again, we hit 20 feet and stopped to burn off the last couple minutes of deco time, then continued north east to shore. We came out right about where we kicked out, which meant a little further walk but, again, well worth it.

This was awesome and I will do this again and again. Thanks to Sean and Dan for getting me access and watching out for me.

Kim

 

[divekim]

Location: LJS Vallecitos
Time: 06:10am descent
Temp: 58 on my computer but I think Divinman's is more accurate at 53-54
Vis: 10 foot vis
Max Depth: 65 feet
Bottom Time: 74 mins
Buddies: ChickoftheSea and Divinman

Top Reason Pasley should hurry home: watchine the sun rise from 60 feet below

What a beautiful dive this morning, I got my wish of ankle slappers, thank you Terry for arranging that for me. Surface was dead calm this morning when we descended, wind had picked up a bit leaving a little texture as we exited this morning. No currents on the swim out, though a little southerly at depth which sort of made for an easy peasy drift sort of dive.

We descended in about 30 feet if I recall, grouped on the bottom and gave the okay. I came across a Pipefish right as we started and paracticed my Pipefish wrangling which I just can't resist when I see them, he swam across my glove a few times for me. Headed west maybe a little N west til we hit 50 feet and turned south. This particular spot had a wall below us and also out in front of us, as I looked around I could see that it ran north then jutted out west then southwest and then wraps around to the north again like sort of a peninsula. I swam across to check it out then around the curve backtracking to end up behind my photog buddies as is our normal configuration.

Its nice to see more and more critters moving into the new structure, lots of Coonstripe Shrimp on this dive, as well as Ronquils, Black Eyed Goby's, Blue Banded Goby's, a couple of Blennies that quickly hid in the tiny holes that have appeared. Did anyone mention Scorpionfish, oh my gosh, they seemed to be everywhere, from 1 inch to 4 inches long and in every possible camoflage configuration you can imagine. I lost count, lets just say there were dozens of them, you would see one then another would appear, then another, and another.....We've concluded that due to the loss of habitat they are now condensed into a smaller area, therefore, seems like there are more of them. I did see a couple of large Octopus hiding in holes as well as several Rockfish and Lobster.

This was also a Stearn's Aeolid dive, we had found a very tiny Trilineata, and I was happy we had seen at least one nudi, then we got around the SE point of Vallecitos Point and there seemed to be Stearn's everywhere. Terry pointed out the first one and then we saw another, oh, Jen found one, oh did you see the one right below the one you pointed out? Also lots of baby Sheephead on the point again and a couple of very beautiful baby Giant Kelp Fish. I spotted one lone Squid egg hanging from a Kelp frond as well.

Finally hit a turnaround and started to make our way out, not much on my side of our configuration but apparently Jen and Terry found a very nice Diamond Ray. We exited in 5 feet of water just a little north of where we started.

This was a very nice way to start the day, thanks for coming out and diving this morning, I love dawn patrols.

Kim

 

[headhunter]

I've been terrible about writing dive reports throughout 2006. I should really make a concerted effort to be better about this in 2007. I only got in about 75 dives in 2006, so I'm a little light on dives for the year, but I've got to say that I had a bunch that were absolutely fantastic.

After reading Kim's latest dive reports, it got me thinking about all of the wonderful reports I've had the opportunity to read from so many of you. It helps that we have such a great group of writers in SoCal!

So, thank you all for sharing these special underwater moments with us. It's greatly appreciated and I just wanted to let you know that many of us thoroughly enjoy your posts.

Christian

P.S. - Top reason that Pasley should hurry home: Because your friends and family all really miss you and the warmth that you bring into all of our lives. Be safe!

 

[Mo2vation]

Date: January 6, 2007, Saturday morning
Dive Location: Veteran's Park, Redondo Submarine Canyon Braille dive
Buddy: KenShootInAsnowStorm-JustWatchMe Mo2vation. Tevis on shore.
Time: 10ish AM
Bottom Time: One hour
Max Depth: 114 fsw
Vis: 2-5 feet
Wave height: 2 to 4 feet, but no punch to them
Temp at depth: 53F. I was wearing my Carol Davis undergarment beneath the usual BARE T-100 layer, and was perfectly comfortable until our final stop. Ken had bravely left his Carols in the car, and just sucked-it-up to last an hour in water that was 6 degrees colder than two days ago. Hello, Winter! I love my Carols!
Surface Temp: Dunno, blew through it in a drysuit.
Tide information: High tide right after we entered
Top reason Pasley should hurry home: With all this sand in the water, you'll hardly miss the desert!

Thursday/Friday's Windstorm had subsided!
Swell was noticeable but not monsterous!
We just HAD to go diving!

Mo2vation, Archangel and I met at Old Marineland at 0830 to check conditions for a photo safari.
The Point was out of the question due to thumping swell.
Bowling Ball Beach looked reasonable, with some strong surge... until.... a rogue 4-foot wave curled dramatically into the cove, with a face I could have body-boarded across, and heaps of white foam crashing onto the rocks.

Uh... LemmieThinKAboutIt... No.
Too nice a day to get Oh-Em-Mauled for questionable post-storm visibility.

Time for Plan B: Vets.

Gear challenges sidelined Archangel into the most cheerful shore-support team in existence, as Ken and I motored out through 3-4 foot gentle waves. Noise but no power. We made final plans and eye-contact at the surface, then descended about 6-feet from each other, as usual.
Except this time... Ken disappeared. Ken and his 21W HID.... disappeared.
Oh yeah... sometimes the viz sucks at Vets.

We tightened up the team, sorted out camera and hoses, and headed for the canyon in an ocean filled with hard fog. Viz was 2 to 5 feet, but surely it would get better.

At 55fsw, Ken gave the universally recognized, "WhatThe'Eff?" hand-signal regarding the still horrid viz.
We could just make out the bottom, with many nudibranch egg masses (Hermissenda, FedEx, Polycera atra, Dendy frondosus)

We continued down to our planned depth.... because surely it would get better down deeper.

Uh... yeah.... at 80fsw we could see about 5 feet. That's as good as it got.

But we started to find not only Dendy egg masses, but also more D. frondosus nudibranchs. Ken began the infernal dance with the black-talcum mud in the deep canyon, angling to illuminate his subjects while stabilizing the camera. We rolled on downward, adjusting our dive plan as the bigger juicy Dendronotus nudibranchs and sarcastic fringeheads made it fun. One strand of eel grass had 2 nudibranchs, a Polycera atra and a baby Triopha maculata. The vis sucked. Compass headings at Vets? Today, it was mandatory!

As we turned and headed upward, we laughed to discover we each had exactly 1600 psi in the hpWaterHeaters. Nudibranch eggs came into view again as we kept our grilles to the mud. Some algae strands hosted three different species of eggs. Ken found many, many Dendy's, and I realized that the perfect time to have had my prescription lenses added to my mask would have been last week. (Denial is over. Rx lenses this week.)
I was thinking that at least presbyopia came with wisdom, too... but then I realized I was concluding a one hour dive in 2 - 5-foot viz and 53F water with surf.:shakehead

Ok... at least it came with continuing enthusiasm, and the wisdom to choose a strong, capable and fun buddy/photographer.

It was a lousy dive.

I had a great time and learned a lot about coordinating a team in bad vis, while practicing good dive planning and gas management. We saw cool nudibranchs.

We nearly lost sight of each other during a slow ascent from 17fsw, as the viz went to less than 1 foot. Holy crud.

We surfaced (both with 800psi in the cans) to sunshine and some significant surf, .
Tevis was The Man, smoothing our exit hauling the big camera rig.
Any surf exit I can walk (or crawl) away from is a good one!

Ken and Tevis: Thanks for all the enthusiasm!!! You two made it fun!

Claudette

I've been at CES all week (I'll be here thru Friday) so I've been late in getting some pix from the Braille dive. Pix not great, but here they are.

Ken


Juicy Dendy. Fuzzy full size here.

That mini Macc HBEagleEye spotted. So tough to shoot in the dark water that was loaded with particulate matter. Ugh. I'd never post this fuzzy pic under normal circumstances, but its the first baby Macc I've ever seen! (or, it could be BigFoot)

My first Dendy on eggs. Wish it was better, but I like the subject. Full Size Here.

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If you get the Red X of death, yatta yatta yatta... You know the drill by now.
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[divekim]

This is most likely my girls last dawn patrol before being deployed on Monday, I think the top Reason Pasley should come home is because I'm sending one friend over and I think Pasley should come home so I can make a new one.

Location: LJS Vallecitos
Time: 06:38am descent
Temp: 58 on my computer/ 54 on my face
Vis: 10 ft in shallows 20ft below 30ft depth
Max Depth: 69 feet
Bottom Time: 76 mins
Buddies: Marianne

Met with my girl Marianne this morning for what may be her last Dawn Patrol until she gets back from Iraq. We met on Vallecitos and couldn't have asked for nicer conditions. Ankle slapper waves, very light breeze, calm surface, and well just overall very inviting ocean this morning.

We kicked out and dropped in about 25ft, headed west and had planned to try and hit Vallecitos point, but at about 35-40 feet deep we could see the south walls to our south and headed in that direction. We followed along going east and then south following what was left of the tube worm structure and lots of new sand and clay walls. With all this new landscape to look at it really is difficult to just stay at one depth. We both were up and down and back and forth, whats up here, whats down there.

Critters are moving back in, lots of baby Scorpionfish again, baby Sheephead, Lobsters, a couple of small Sea Hares which I was so happy to see, several schools of baby to juvenile sized Senoritas, baby Giant Kelp Fish, a lot of small and baby Kelp Bass, Blue Banded Goby's, a Sheep Crab sitting at the bottom of one of the sand walls in a heap of organic matter that was about 3 feet thick. After about 55 minutes and with tons of air we both looked at each other and gave the universal sign of damn it's cold so I signaled to turn around. As we were heading up to the top of the ledge we saw this very cute crab, sort of a reddish orange but fuzzy, kind of like a globe crab but a little flatter. Marianne took a couple pictures but not sure if they will turn out.

We headed north east since we had swum so far south, not much in the sand in this area but we did come across a Moon Snail that was bigger than a softball but not quite a bowling ball. A couple of Rays as well, lots of Olive Snails making trails in the sand today.

Our exit was just as easy as our entry, stood up in 4 feet of water after a very long dive with awesome vis, so good I think we should try again tonight.

Thanks Marianne for joining me, I'm gonna miss these dives while you are gone, but I'm gonna be ready when you get home.

Pasley, I hope you will be here as well so we can all enjoy the adventure together.

Kim

 

[divekim]

Location: La Jolla Shores
Time: 5:34pm descent
Temp: I don't know haven't looked but about 58
Vis: 5ft no matter where you were
Max Depth: 59 feet
Bottom Time: 46 mins
Buddies: Divmstr223

So the SB Wrinkles event is this weekend, Steve had gotten ahold of me last week wanting to get a dive in Friday night, sure, you know me, let's dive. Knowing the conditions weren't going to be stellar we met at 4:30pm in the main lot. Surf was 3-4 feet and choppy, not much power, and it didn't look that bad. Looking at it and kicking out thru it are completely different. This reminded me of the kickout with Sean on New Years day, it went forever, there were waves breaking way, way, outside.

We decided to descend early and we scraped going to the North Wall deciding instead to hit Vallecitos Point. Had told Steve before descending we will head straight west and when we hit 50 ft turn south, well just like Thursday, we hit 35-40 feet and there are the walls of destruction to our south, very alluring and so we followed, Steve actually in the lead. I quickly noticed we had a nice little southerly current running down here.

Not too much life out tonight though we did manage to find a nice 2 1/2 foot Horn Shark, some Lobster, a couple Octopus, Baitfish, Perch, Scorpionfish in varying sizes again, some Kelp Crabs, and the usual Gobies of both varieties. I was keeping a keen eye on my computer and 20 mins had gone by, knowing we had been doing a southerly drift dive I got Steve's attn and motioned we need to head north. WOW, we actually had to kick a couple minutes to get over the wall and onto the sand, okay this is gonna be a non sight seeing swim back.

I took us literally 30 degrees the entire swim back, we did see some Brown Shrimp and Steve found a very nice Purple Globe Crab about the size of a softball, a Giant Kelp Fish in some kelp on the bottom as well. No Sand Dollar Beds but there were quite a few scattered around out there, guess they dug themselves out of the sand. This was definitely a workout and it took 25 minutes for us to swim back to shore, we came up in 5 feet of water right between V Street and the Boat Launch. Whew, still much further south than I wanted but not as bad as if we had swum in east....hey, we get to hit the showers.

After the dive we met Christian, Ted, and Tyler at the The Spot in La Jolla, I had a great time, of course I always do when I have all the men to myself. Look forward to seeing everyone out this morning at the shores.

Kim

 

[Roughwaterjohn]

Well it's late and I don't have a fabulous report to share like Kim did, but I do have some photos from my dives. Here's a link to the 2 page album;

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v116/krowsea/Wrinkles LJS 01-13-07/


....and here are some of the photos I liked.