The Pasley June 06 Dive Report Thread

[MaxBottomtime]

Date: June 10, 2006
Dive Location: Marineland
Buddy(ies): Merry, among others
Time: 10:35
Bottom Time: 1:17
Max Depth: 54'
Vis: 15'
Wave height: 1'
Temp at depth: 60F
Surface Temp: 61F
Comments: We tried unsuccessfully to find the Snake Eel, but did find other things to make for a great dive. After giving up the search for the snake eel we found a large Mantis shrimp nearby. I stuffed a cod fillet about six inches in front of its burrow, but he wouldn't come out. I moved it closer and before I could get in position for a photo op, he grabbed the dinner and rushed into his hole.
We swam toward the Point where Merry spotted a school of Jack Mackeral, Barracuda and later, a five foot Batray. I found a sponge.
The vis was good, especially considering how bad it's been for the past two weeks. We'll try again tomorrow to find the Snake eel, but if we have another dive like today's, I'll be thrilled. Because it was Saturday, Rabbi Al was in charge of the congregation. The Rev will be back tomorrow.

 

[Rickster]

Date: June 10, 2006
Dive Location: Tajiguas (The Beach), Santa Barbara County
Buddy: Jacek (and Teresa as shore support)
Time: 8:45am
Bottom Time: 1:08
Max Depth: 30'
Vis: 12-15'
Wave height: 1'
Temp at depth: 60F
Surface Temp: nice
Comments: Both Jacek and I have not did any dives at this site, so, we decided to give it a try. We will definatly be back. This is one of the best sites, along this part of the coast. There is Thick kelp, rock structures, sand, layered ledges, and did I say Thick kelp? We desended alittle to the east of the kelp, kicked out SW toward the kelp. On the way there are spots of rock outcroppings, and growth. The main area is not far off of shore(maybe 100' ?), so it is an easy swin there. We approched the kelp. It was awesome, some of the thickist I have been in. This dive is for intermeadiate to advanced divers only, due to tangle hazards. Some spots we had to turn around and find a different path thru.

We seen a little swell shark, a shovelnosed guitarfish, rock wrasses, senoiritas, sheepcrab, and numerous nudi's, including spanish shawls, hemisindas, sea lemons, and a few species I have to identify. There were hairy worms, white and orange, and a patch of clear milky white short tenticals(about 3/16th of an inch tall) around 3" in diameter, on in the sand. This was a first sighting for both of us.

This dive was what diving is all about. We will de diving here on a regular basis.

The trail down is to be used with caution. There is a couple places that there is slate rock covered with sand, that can be pretty slippery. Be careful! The entry was real easy, but, be aware of slippery rocks and boulders in the surf zone, and along the beach at low tide. The majority of the beach is sand.

Here is a link to Jacek's description and some cool pictures of the site:

http://www.sbdiving.com/wiki/index.php?title=Tajiguas

Rick

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Date: June 10, 2006
Dive Location: Marineland

We swam toward the Point where Merry spotted a school of Jack Mackeral, Barracuda and later, a five foot Batray. I found a sponge.

Oh, Phil...This is exquisite!! Just priceless! Like Charlie Brown trick-or-treating, hearing the goodies that everyone else got, and saying with a sigh, "I got a rock."

The vis was good, especially considering how bad it's been for the past two weeks. We'll try again tomorrow to find the Snake eel, but if we have another dive like today's, I'll be thrilled.

Also beautiful... Truly, nothing says "I love diving" like your appreciation. Thanks.

And, I loved all your pictures, but stopped at this one. YOU saw a ctenophore (combjelly) at OML! OMG! THAT is double cool. Carlos and I hovered with hundreds of them, between 50fsw and the surface above Farnsworth on Memorial Day Monday, but I've never seen them in PV. Fun find. Thank you for posting the photos and sharing the fun.
Claudette

 

[Robert Phillips]

Date: 6/11/06
Dive Location: Crescent Bay/Deadmans
Buddy(ies): Frank O
Time: 7:45 AM
Bottom Time: 68 minutes
Max Depth: 63'
Vis: 5-15' most in the 8-10' range
Wave height: occasional 2' but mostly flat and calm on entry. Smaller sets on exit but lots of chop
Temp at depth: 57°
Surface Temp: 67°
Tide information: coming up from a -1.3
Gas mix: 32%
Comments: Met Frank O at Crescent at 6:45 and checked out conditions. Water was fairly calm with a small 2' wave crashing every two or three minutes. We geared up and went over the dive plan: Drop down on the 'Henge buoy and follow to the reef and make the left towards Deadmans. Turn pressure was set and we made an easy entry and swim out to the buoy. We dropped down to some decent visibility 10-15' at Deadhenge. As we were following the rocks we came across a large sheepcrab who was very pissed that we were on his reef, so we decided to let him be. I 'relocated' a few urchins and we made the turn to Deadmans. Visibility decreased and the surge increased as we got to the larger rock structure. There was a lot of large fish about but not much small life. I did not see any San Diego dorids and the only nudi I found was a large Spanish shawl. There was a slight current to the southwest and it was kind of cool to pull back from the reef and ride along with it while checking out the rock structure. As we neared the shrine Frank called turn and we made our way back to shore riding the surge and the thermocline at 45'. As we got shallower the vis' was varying between 5' and 15' but when we hit 30fsw the sand was getting stirred up and our depth varied while we were stationary by 4 feet with the surge. We did open water stops from 30-20-10 and a slow ascent to the choppy surface. There was a lot of water movement south of the wash rocks but minimal surf at the beach. After an easy exit we made our way back to the cars and called it a day.

All in all it was a great dive with an excellent buddy. And my light is fixed!!!

Robb

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Oh, Phil...This is exquisite!! Just priceless! Like Charlie Brown trick-or-treating, hearing the goodies that everyone else got, and saying with a sigh, "I got a rock."
And, I loved all your pictures, but stopped at this one. YOU saw a ctenophore (combjelly) at OML! OMG! THAT is double cool. Carlos and I hovered with hundreds of them, between 50fsw and the surface above Farnsworth on Memorial Day Monday, but I've never seen them in PV. Fun find. Thank you for posting the photos and sharing the fun.
Claudette

Lol!!! I told Merry the "I got a rock" thing too.
We saw two comb jellies today. I've only seen them offshore while making deco stops until this weekend.

 

[scottfiji]

Nice find M&M!

Looks like maybe a dead Leucotheo pulchra? the photo in my jelly book has more detail, and matches the details of the M&M photo fairly well...

http://jellieszone.com/leucothea.htm

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Date: June 11, 2006
Dive Location: Marineland
Buddy(ies): Merry, Shanon and Evil Jeff
Time: 8:19
Bottom Time: 42 minutes
Max Depth: 35'
Vis: 5'
Wave height: 1-3'
Temp at depth: 55F
Comments: I opened the gate at 6:30 for the guys from Scubaboard who had to be in the water by 7:15. Naturally, they didn't show up. That's alright. I figured I could get in two early dives. After waiting for everyone else we finally headed down to the cove around 8:00. The conditions were worse than yesterday with five feet vis and 55F water, down from 61F yesterday. We spoted two comb jellies swimming by before descending. Jeff towed Shanon out to our drop off spot and we all went in search of the Mantis shrimp. Jeff spotted it and Shanon and I took pictures for a long time. I managed to get a couple that I saved. I forgot to bring the cod fillets, so he only came out of his burrow a few inches.

After getting enough shots we decided to head into the reef and look around. I stopped to check on my buddies and when I turned back I saw the Snake Eel right in front of me. He was about 100 feet away from where his burrow was before. We got lucky. While taking pictures of it, a sand star crawled across his face and wouldn't leave.

With the cold water and poor vis, Merry and I headed back in while Jeff and Shanon headed for the 120 Reef. We timed our exit badly and I tore a hole in my drysuit. Time to break out the repair tape again. I have one more week of vacation left. I hope to get in a few more dives like yesterday, but despite the conditions and bad exit, I really enjoyed the dive today.

 

[riguerin]

Dive #0

Date: 6/10/2006
Dive Location: N. Crescent, Laguna Beach
Buddy(ies): glycerin
Time: 7:30 AM
Bottom Time: 0 min
Max Depth: 0 fsw
Vis: ?
Wave height: 1-2+ ft
Temp at depth: ? F
Surface Temp: 67 F
Tide information: Pushing - High Tide @ 9:52 AM, +3.41 feet
Gas mix: 21%

Comments : Met Josh at N. Crescent for an early dive at N. Crescent prior to joining up with the ScubaBoard group at Heisler Park. The place was already pretty crowded when we arrived. We nabbed some of the last remaining parking spots toward the back of Circle drive. The weak offshore eddy circulation persisted again this morning, yielding light S/SW winds, surface bump, and overcast skies. Last week's S swell looked like it continued to fade, while some inconsistent forerunners of the new S/SW swell energy were starting to show. There was some 1-2 ft surf breaking in the bay, with an occasionally larger set. In summary, the topside conditions looked better compared to Friday morning.

We suited up and made our way down to the water. I was diving wet today after sustaining a small leak around my pee-valve (no jokes please) ... looks like the old AquaSeal had separated from the valve body and was allowing water to trickle in. No biggie, surface temps were in the toasty high 60's. We entered the water and made our way past the surf line to don our fins. All of a sudden Josh's eyes opened up wide as he stated that he was taking on water around the neck. He peeled up his hood, as I checked and adjusted the seal slightly .... no improvement. I could see and hear some bubbles gurgling whenever he submerged below his shoulders. Then we found the source ... a nice finger sized tear in the seal. Dive aborted ... bummer, bro ! We grabbed some coffee than made our way to the Wrinkles Dive event.

Dive #1

Date: 6/10/2006
Dive Location: Fisherman's Cove, Laguna Beach
Buddy(ies): Wrinkles
Time: 9:19 AM
Bottom Time: 73 min
Max Depth: 36 fsw
Vis: 1-12+ ft
Wave height: 1+ ft
Temp at depth: 66 F
Surface Temp: 67 F
Tide information: High Tide @ 9:52 AM, +3.41 feet
Gas mix: 21%

Comments : We made our way to Heisler Park and found the SB group at the usual spot. The new swell energy appeared to be filling in better here. There were some 2+ ft waves breaking straight out from the picnic tables. Some larger set waves, occasional 3-4+ ft, were breaking at Diver's Cove. A large group of students offered some good entertainment value as they got mowed down like bowling pins. There were even a couple of folks who were trying to body surf the waves. They were getting rag dolled as they air dropped out of these sandy death pits ... lucky no one got hurt. A small group of us decided to check the conditions at Fisherman's Cove. The entry looked much easier here, albeit you could see that quite a bit of water was moving around near the exposed rocks. We decided to give it a try.

I joined Ana, Jennifer & boyfriend. The plan was to enter and exit at Fisherman's Cove and head toward Diver's cove, we'd make the turn when someone signaled turn pressure. We finned out to the drop site near the big rocks, being careful not to get too close due to some larger sets that were sweeping over the reef. We dropped in approx 21 fsw into what I can only describe as some of the worst UW conditions that I have experienced locally. There was around 3-5 ft of surge and the bottom was very silted up, with near zero vis at times. The vis was slightly better (around 5-8 ft) a few feet off the bottom. Once we established visual contact with the ledge we turned toward the S and deeper water, hoping to find better conditions on the backside of the reef.

Ana and I stuck close together but lost visual contact of the other two within the first couple minutes of the dive. We reastablished visual contact with them breifly, only to loose them again nearly as fast. Ana and I did the rest of the dive on our own. We continued working the W facing ledge at a nice slow pace.Once we reached the end of the reef in approx 36 fsw, we made the turn toward the E. The conditions were much better on the back. Vis was around 10-12+ ft, with around 2-3ft of surge. We moved at a very slow and relaxed pace, and actually made it well into the E facing side of reef, at Diver's Cove, before finally turning and reversing our tracks.

Throughout the dive, we were treated by numerous encounters with the usual cast of local marine creatures. We saw lots of sand bass, a few flat fish, and lots of nesting garibaldi. In fact, many of the nests appeared to have fresh eggs, including one nest were a couple appeared to be busy laying down some of the freshies. We came across a couple sheep crab and some bugs, including one hole that Ana found that was packed with several of the tasty crustaceans. We found a few octopi hiding in little holes and cracks. At one point Ana and I were both peering into one hole checking out a reclusive cephalopod, when the surge from a bigger set wave slammed our heads together ... three stooges style. We laughed. We also saw plenty of gastropods ... several large aggregations of snails (looked like snail orgies) as well as numerous sea hares ... no nudibranchs, however. We also saw some mutant sized scallops as well as some weird looking brittle star colony.

Although I was nearly ready to thumb the dive after the first few minutes, I'm glad we didn't. It turned out to be a nice long and very fun dive. We actually surfaced a few minutes prematurely. In an attempt to avoid the surgey rock area, we navigated a more W track on the way in ... I got disoriented after we ran into the east facing reef on the opposite side of the cove, adjacent to Shaw's. I ended the dive. We ran into some nice buggy reef that's probably not dove often .... worthy of future exploration. This is the first time that I've dove alone with Ana. She's an awesome dive buddy with mad skills ... and quite the comedian, too. Girlfriend can definitely hang ! Thanks for a great dive.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Date: June 13, 2006
Dive Location: Marineland
Buddy(ies): Solo
Time: 9:33
Bottom Time: 55 minutes
Max Depth: 37'
Vis: 6'
Wave height: 0-1'
Temp at depth: 54F
Comments: I finished off the tank I used on our short dive Sunday after patching the right boot of my drysuit. I stayed completely dry. I love Aquaseal! I headed out with a cod fillet in search of the large Mantis shrimp and Pacific Snake Eel, Ophicthus triserialis. The Mantis shrimp was asleep or on vacation(like me) because he wouldn't come up from his burrow for a treat. I moved over to the Pacific Snake Eel's new condo and found him in his normal position. Only his head was peeking out. Much to my great pleasure, he decided that cod fillets were on his menu today. He came out cautiously about a foot, allowing me to snap a couple dozen pictures. He seemed afraid of the brittle stars and sand bass who also heard someone ring the dinner bell, but he managed to get a belly full.
I made my way back to the beach where I found Drysuit Greg's pipe. I recognized it right away. I had seen it many times before, but I thought he was referring to a smaller pipe on the outer edge of the cove.
The ocean cooperated today, at least at the surface. There were a few whitecaps but my entry and exit were very easy. Now if only the water would clear up. Still, it's a great way for me to spend my time away from work.

Positive Identification from http://pick5.pick.uga.edu/mp/20q?search=Ophichthus+triserialis&flags=col2:&res=640

 

[Frank O]

Awesome capture, Phil!