scottfiji
Contributor
excellent photos Robert! glad you got out there finally. lots of particles in the water made photo-taking difficult this week at vets.
scott
scott
The Pasley "Hurry Home" January '07 Dive Report Thread
- Thread starter headhunter
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
undrwater
Contributor
That was you guys there at the stairs! We passed you by on the way to Kilkenny's. Glad you had a good dive. Mine was about the same as yours...my camera ran out of batteries as I was trying to shoot my buddy (LAJim) on the surface.
And dammit! I completely forgot and missed the 'Dette-a-thon!
Happy Bday again 'Dette!
And dammit! I completely forgot and missed the 'Dette-a-thon!
Happy Bday again 'Dette!
Date: Jan 31, 2007
Time: 4:25-ish
Tide: Rising
Location: Vets Park
Max Depth: 115 FSW
Bottom Time: 59 Minutes
Buddy: Birfday Chica
Waves: 3+ POUNDING... pretty weak, but tight set. Tough entry
Vis: 10 - 25... very sad
Temp: 55
Top Reason Pasley needs to get his weary butt home: Squiddery
I planned on diving early today so I can get some WA shots of the miles of eggs in better lighting. The viz has been excellent the last week and conditions great - so if I come in the daytime the pics should rock.
Uh, that was not the case.
Very windy. Big surf (big for me with the cam rig and doubles) and as you would expect, the sand was pretty churned up making shooting not the clear affair I was hoping for.
So we blasted through the surf zone. We were in doubles, and even in the 95s, I got completely hammered and thrown back about 10 feet back to the entry point.
$&%^^%(%
So I power through again, get through and we kick to the drop. We drop and almost immediately I find this BB Rifle. Too funny. So I get some pics of NRA Girl, defending Squids Rights. We kick to 65 where the eggs begin. Its just a carpet from eggs from about 75 on.
We dived to 115, and there was no end in sight. I was here on Sunday, and there are a LOT more eggs now than there were then. I cannot recommend enough that you not find the time to get out here you need to MAKE the time to come see this. And you need to see it soon, as the new eggs wont be new for more than a couple of days, and after this weekend theyll all start turning brownish.
We had a good, slow dive. Here are some pics.
---
Ken
NRA Poster Chick
Some of the Old Eggs mixed with the New eggs. GET OUT TO SEE THIS!!
Some Squid are missing the idea of placing their eggs in a community pile. When 'dette and I reviewed this pic,
she referred to these rebel squid as the "rugged individualists"
Its just a lot to take in right now. Eggs for days. They'll often set them in neat rows or columns. I can't help but think,
with the sheer volumes of squid all coming up at once, its likely the quickest and most efficient way to get up the canyon
and get the eggs set before they get munched by a waiting Sea Lion or Scorpion Fish.
Dette Over Easy
Everybody is eating squid these days... Check the squid parts Crabby tossed aside. I mean, I guess eating 50 or 60
squid a night is about all any living thing can be expected to stand.
Acres of eggs. You can't miss this!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Time: 4:25-ish
Tide: Rising
Location: Vets Park
Max Depth: 115 FSW
Bottom Time: 59 Minutes
Buddy: Birfday Chica
Waves: 3+ POUNDING... pretty weak, but tight set. Tough entry
Vis: 10 - 25... very sad
Temp: 55
Top Reason Pasley needs to get his weary butt home: Squiddery
I planned on diving early today so I can get some WA shots of the miles of eggs in better lighting. The viz has been excellent the last week and conditions great - so if I come in the daytime the pics should rock.
Uh, that was not the case.
Very windy. Big surf (big for me with the cam rig and doubles) and as you would expect, the sand was pretty churned up making shooting not the clear affair I was hoping for.
So we blasted through the surf zone. We were in doubles, and even in the 95s, I got completely hammered and thrown back about 10 feet back to the entry point.
$&%^^%(%
So I power through again, get through and we kick to the drop. We drop and almost immediately I find this BB Rifle. Too funny. So I get some pics of NRA Girl, defending Squids Rights. We kick to 65 where the eggs begin. Its just a carpet from eggs from about 75 on.
We dived to 115, and there was no end in sight. I was here on Sunday, and there are a LOT more eggs now than there were then. I cannot recommend enough that you not find the time to get out here you need to MAKE the time to come see this. And you need to see it soon, as the new eggs wont be new for more than a couple of days, and after this weekend theyll all start turning brownish.
We had a good, slow dive. Here are some pics.
---
Ken
NRA Poster Chick
Some of the Old Eggs mixed with the New eggs. GET OUT TO SEE THIS!!
Some Squid are missing the idea of placing their eggs in a community pile. When 'dette and I reviewed this pic,
she referred to these rebel squid as the "rugged individualists"
Its just a lot to take in right now. Eggs for days. They'll often set them in neat rows or columns. I can't help but think,
with the sheer volumes of squid all coming up at once, its likely the quickest and most efficient way to get up the canyon
and get the eggs set before they get munched by a waiting Sea Lion or Scorpion Fish.
Dette Over Easy
Everybody is eating squid these days... Check the squid parts Crabby tossed aside. I mean, I guess eating 50 or 60
squid a night is about all any living thing can be expected to stand.
Acres of eggs. You can't miss this!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
OCdiving Deb
Contributor
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!
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!
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
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
OCdiving Deb
Contributor
Good point Jake! I just started a new February thread and posted my Feb 1 dive there.Jake:No February dive report thread yet? Who's sleeping? Huh? I demand answers!
Christian?? Can you delete this one since it shouldn't be here on the January thread??
Jake, how about if you move yours there, too? I just copy and pasted mine.
Thanks for paying attention!
OP
Done! Thanks for starting the new thread which has now been made sticky!OCdiving Deb:
I've officially been caught snoozin'! :11doh:
Christian
Similar threads
