Date: July 16, 2006
Dive Location: Moody (2 dives) Olympic II (1 dive)
Buddy(ies): Gina, Delia
Bottom Time: 25 mins, 25 mins and 20 mins
Max Depth: 145, 145, 95 (ish)
Vis: 20, 10-20, 5
Wave height: N/A but it was windy
Temp at depth: 54, 66 above thermocline (at 50 feet)
Gas mix: 21/35 and 50% for all 3 dives
Comments:
Always liked a nice bit of wreck diving.
Delia was visiting from the Bay area, and Gina had kindly planned us a nice day of wreck diving.
The plan was to do two dives on the
Moody and then if time and gas allowed, a final dive on the
Olympic II
Dive 1 "The Moody"
Dive 1 "The Moody"
The Moody is sitting in two pieces on the bottom, the bow and the stern, both in about 140 feet of water.
We planned our first dive to the bow section with a bottom time of 25-30 mins (depending on vis, current and what we saw).
The Moody lies pretty close in to the harbor, so it was a nice short ride out (on which I still managed to get seasick as I'd neglected to take my pills the night before). The ship was sunk for the movie "Hell Below" by MGM studios.
We dropped in, did our gear checks and made our descent against a decent-ish current. Luckily the current slackened off below about 20-30 feet, making the descent pretty easy below those depths.
I was a bit surprised by how dark it was on the wreck, but visibility was a decent 20-ish feet, there were just a lot of particles in the water.
Delia took the lead, and since I was videoing, I was in the middle with Gina right behind.
There was almost no current in the protected areas, but we did get a free drift dive when we rounded the corner.
Delia did an awesome job finding swimthroughs which I think make the dive more interesting.
There were plenty of big fish on this dive.
Some kind of red one:
A decent-sized ling (or Bass?)
And then, reacting to the side-sweep of Gina's light behind me, a huge ling cod and Sea Bass sitting on the wreck.
We watched for a while hoping to get some video of them swimming around the wreck, but they seemed quite happy where they were.
The wreck was also surrounded by schools of smaller fish (senoritas and Blacksmiths?) which gave it a very eerie look with these fish swarming all over the place.
Even though it was quite dark, there was quite a bit of ambient light if you shot up toward the surface.
After a couple of circuits, Delia asked if we wanted to end the dive. Since we'd seen quite a bit of the wreck, and we wanted to save some gas for the Olympic, we decided to call it at 25 mins, and since Delia had expertly returned us to the line, the deco was pretty straightforward.
Dive 2: The Moody Stern.
The surface current seemed to have picked up a little bit for this dive, but Ray did a good job of dropping us upcurrent of the line. We quickly did our checks and descended to avoid having to spend too much time kicking on the surface.
Even though the stern part of the wreck is not far from the bow end, it is definitely a little different. The water was a bit darker (maybe 10-15 feet of vis) and this section of the wreck seems to be covered in more life.
I got some good shots of Metridium
Which seemed to be everywhere we looked. This section of the wreck didn't seem quite as big as it had looked on the boats sounder.
Once again, Delia did a great job leading us back to the line, and we ascended smoothly. I wasn't cold, but I was definitely glad for the thermocline that came at 50 feet (when the temperature rose from 54 to 66F but I think Delia was sweating in her thinsulate
Dive 3: The Olympic II
This was something of an Oopsie on my part. I had been extolling the virtues of almost guaranteed 50 feet vis on this wreck the whole day. Well, the last two times we did it anyway
By now we were down to a single team, which made the logistics easier (especially since team1 transformed themselves into some excellent deck hands
We dropped down, and down and ... oh crap, where's the line going? The last two times here, the vis has sucked at 20 feet or so, but opened up way below. This time, it just got worse and worse.
Thankfully Ray had done his ever excellent job of dropping the shot right on the wreck.
We convended on the bottom and set out in probably 5 foot vis. We soldiered on for a while, but it soon became obvious the vis was just getting worse.
We called the dive and headed back to the line. Or at least where it ought to be. We looked and looked, but couldn't find it (the guys on the boat told us later that they watched us swim right by it)
We decided to bail on the line and do a free ascent. We shot a bag at 70 feet (something i definitely need some more practice at) and then had to wrestle the line down as it was being taken by the surface current/wind.
Apart from that, the ascent was painless. We surfaced into a brigh sunny day with 2 awesome dives and one "experience building" dive behind us.
Great thanks to Delia for diving with us and doing such a good job leading the dives.
Also to Gina for organizing the trip.
And especially to Ray for his flawless captainin-ing and his amazing ability to put the upline in exactly the right place time after time after time.
And finally to "DIR" diving -- I'd never dived with Delia before, but thanks to DIR, a 5 min chat on the boat was all it took to get everyone on the same page. Wonderful.
All in all, a great day out.
However, it was still a very fun and nice long dive. Looks like it's back to surfing next week.
. omg, who knew there was so much to learn?!? 
... for training dives only... not for Game Day 
