The Pasley June 06 Dive Report Thread

[Peter McGuinness]

Date: thursday
Dive Location: LJS
Buddy(ies):Jackie
Time: evening
Bottom Time: 67mins
Max Depth: 101
Vis: varied, not bad in the cayon, maybe 15ft
Wave height: 3ft but very easy
Temp at depth: 50
Surface Temp:67
Tide information: in

Comments: Had a very nice dive, with critters. Very cold at depth, and we only found a few scattered gorgonians, somehow couldn't quite find the garden.
Lots of octos and california sea slugs. One D. Iris, a fringehead out and about, and a gargantuan sheep crab in pea soup.
Lots of bat rays around silting up the vis.

here's the fringehead:

the rest of the photos are here:
http://www.mcguinness-family.net/albums/diving/SanDiego/latest/index.php

Peter

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Date: Saturday June 24, 2006
Dive Location: The Point at Old Marineland, Palos Verdes
Buddy: Glycerin
Time: 8:15 AM splash
Bottom Time: 1 hour, 9 minutes, 27 seconds
Max Depth: 61 Imperial Feet of Seawater
Vis: 20 feet
Wave height: About 1-2 in sets, nice lulls
Temp at depth: Fffffif-tee-tee ThThThree F (TEC diving: Too Eff'ing Cold.)
Surface Temp: 'bout 60, but we weren't there long enough for my gauge to equilibrate.

The Dive:
LAGUNA'S STILL CLOSED?!?!?
Buddy from OCal is willing to drive up to Marineland for dawn patrol??
Excellent...

Josh and I made a smooth entry at the Point, dolphins in the vicinity, glass on the foggy surface. We're both wetsuit-refugees due to wrist and neck seal failures, but figured "How bad can it be? It's June 24th, already!"
So we descended quickly.... and my entire head cramped as I...uhm, "acclimated" to 53F at the start of the dive in only 31fsw. Gotta LOVE Marineland.

The Nudibranchs sure do!!! Our mighty 10W HIDs blazed up the astounding colors of the invertebrates COVERING all the pinnacles at the point: It's like the BIG BOX of 72 Crayola Crayons down there. Everything but chartreuse, I think.

And there were nudibranchs on every rock: From big honkin' SeaLemons, to dainty Limbaugh's and Yellow-Edged Cadlinas, and hordes of happy White spotted Porostomes, the variety delights!! Cuthona divae, Monterey and San Diego dorids, FedEx's, Hermissendas, Sea Hares, and Clown nudibranchs completed our list.

Marineland is STILL... Stupid with Nudibranchs!
I can't really complain about conditions that nurture this amazing growth... Deep canyon water spilling up waves of 53F nutrient rich water is part of the Marineland magic.

But... Whaaaaaaah! I want my drysuit back!!!!! (OK, I'm done )
And, yes Robb and Ken, I know... "ZipSealsTM RULE" . Thank you for your kind indifference :14:

We motated happily around 5 BIG pinnacles at 60fsw, then dialed-in the path to Cobble Beach and zig-zagged between dozens of smaller pinnacles along the 45fsw contour. I thought it might be warmer... hahaha, blame it on the nitrogen.

The rocks ended and we navigated across the Sandy Acres, but found no signs of Maxbottomtime's Phantasmagorical Bestiary. Those snake eels and Mantis shrimps must have noticed the Mayor wasn't in our party.

Snubbed!

"Harrummph! See if I come back!!"
"Oh, uh... yeah... I'll be back tomorrow at 0700."
"PHIL!! Tell 'em it's OK to come out! Should I bring cod???"

We stumbled out onto Cobble Beach, peg-legging it on frozen stumps where our feet used to be. The hike back UP to the parking lot was the perfect time for a deep discussion of the many features of the Tank of Kings: The Mighty 130!

1. Love the mad gas.
2. Love the trim/balance U/W.
3. Love the bottom-time.
4. Love the bottom-time more in a dry suit.
5. These puppies are heavy. Very heavy.

Started the dive with clam glassy water. Ended with swirling trees and exiting wind.

Thanks, Josh, for the fun of exploring this AMAZING dive site. Excellent dive!!
I can't roast ya', man.... you're frozen!

Claudette

 

[Robert Phillips]

And it's ZipSeals™!

 

[HBDiveGirl]

And it's ZipSeals™!

Now that my fingers are fully thawed, corrections have been made :14: .

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Date: Thursday, June 22, 2006
Dive Location: Redondo Canyon, Veterans Park, Redondo Beach
Buddyies: Radinator and Mo2vation
Time: 8PM splash
Bottom Time: 1 hour and 7 minutes
Max Depth: 92 feet
Vis: 15 - 20 feet
Wave height: Waves?!?
Temp at depth: Don't wanna know. I was sportin' a wetsuit...
Surface Temp: Balmy, lovely, musta been 68F+

The Dive: The Ocean giveth... and sometimes the Ocean REALLY giveth. And when observant dive buddies findeth... Hold on to your mask 'cause the fun's about to pump up!

Ken, Ray and I walked 380 cubic feet of compressed air into a waveless sea as the sun rolled away under a misted horizon. The warm water actually felt kind of good as I began my first wetsuited dive since the end of lobster season back in March. (Failed wrist seals... dang!) I forgot how sleek and easy it is to fin around: WOW!! I was zooming across the sand flats toward the canyon until buddies pulled me out of my reverie with a "easy there" fin tug. Oops! They were burning up going that pace. We slipped under the first thermocline (36fsw) going a nice sane pace, to enjoy the sarcastic fringeheads, octopus, lizard fish, flatfish, and occassional squid. My love of my wetsuit was still running high until that shimmer at 63fsw got my attention - Hey! This water's cold! (Ray and Ken looked happy as clams. Warm clams.)

Then we all saw it: The Weirdest Looking 2.5-foot-long pre-historic fish-THING, coasting along in the cold black water, oblivious to our triple-HID blasts.

A Spotted Ratfish (http://www.elasmodiver.com/spotted_ratfish.htm)

Big eyes, smooth skin with iridescent gold traceries, pectoral fins that were small leathery flaps surrounded by large translucent-rayed fins, a long tail and downward-facing mouth like a ray, and a protruding ratlike snout. Not exactly what you want to bring home to Mom. Like a train-wreck, I couldn't take my eyes off it! It hovered with us for over 10 minutes, passing over and under us, even bumping slowly into my mask plate twice, and then into my hands. It settled on the bottom a few times, and then resumed hovering.

We were continuing down into the canyon, when Ken tapped me innocently on the arm. I turned, eager to see what he'd found, only to stare into the open-barreled business end of... A Bright Pink Squirt Gun! AAAAIIEEEE!! I jumped back trying to focus, as this masked man gestured wildly, in full-on 7-11 StopAndRob Video-performance mode:

WELL!?!?! COME ON!!!! STICK 'EM UP!!!

omg, now I'm laughing so hard as cold water fills my mask and I try to hold my best horizontal position, fins up, inches off the bottom, with both hands up over my head!!! Thank goodness Fundies prepared me for emergencies like this!!!:lol:

And then, the game was on.
A yellow rock crab looked up, realized this guy meant business, and Reached-For-The-Sky with both claws straight up! Then another and another. Not even the disabled were safe, as a one-armed war-veteran had to "Stick IT Up", too. Of course we found the densest patches of rock crabs that I have ever seen in 3 years of diving Redondo Canyon. It was a mass Heist, with snapping claws held aloft on all sides. As fast as I could clear my mask, I was flooding it again as this wonderful madman brought a little no-harm excitement to the crabby hordes. They were extremely successful at chasing us away, so we left a community of very confident crabs to continue about their business.

A Very calm Octopus stared steadily at the Pink Pistole, settled more deeply into its muddy divot, and made it quite clear: "I ain't stickin' up Eight for youse guys! Fuggeddaboudit!"

We finally ran out of bottom-time, rock crabs, and sustainable-cold-water-time-for-the-weeny-in-the-wetsuit, and began moving up through the double thermoclines. Ahhhhh.... warmth.

Calmness returned to our breathless-with-laughter team as we eased up to the sandy flats.

Ken suggested an OOA drill, which I gratefully began.. I need the practice. All serious and business-like, I deployed the long hose and my back-up, got "OK" from buddy, unclipped my SPG to check my psi, and then began to raise it to show Ken.... Only to have the Flaming Pink Pistol of Death fly back up in my grille... AIEEEEEKKK!!! Now my mask is flooded up to my dang eyebrows. Cripes! A Blind S-Drill! It's like fundies all over again! I was instantly waiting for Ray to either go unconscious or begin OxTox seizures (in perfect trim, of course ) But instead, Ken and I held trim and buoyancy for the several minutes it took to clear my mask... flood it again 'cause I was still laughing so hard... and finally reduce the laughter enough to get the water level at least below my eyes.

OMG, I have never laughed so hard underwater as I did on this dive.

The exit was ridiculously calm and easy, and we laughed our way to the cars and right through packing up the gear and calling it a night.

Ken and Ray: Thank you. Oy, what a team, what a night, what a dive!!! How did I get so lucky? Thank you!!

Claudette

 

[Frank O]

Date: Sunday, June 25
Dive Location: Buchanan's Reef, Palos Verdes
Buddy(ies): Jon D. (MaxB on surface support)
Time: 9:10 a.m.
Run time: 48 min
Max depth: 62 ft
Vis: 10-20 ft
Wave height: Variable
Temp at depth: 52 F
Surface temp: 54 F
Gas mix: 32%
Comments:

Jon D. and MaxBottomtime agreed to help me anoint a newly acquired divemobile, a 21' Boston Whaler, with a run to Palos Verdes. On Saturday Max discovered he'd come down with a cold that ruled out being able to clear, but he graciously agreed to leave the sick ward to lend us maritime oversight and surface support. We met at 7 a.m. at King Harbor in Redondo, where yesterday I took it as a good sign when I saw a formation of seven baby bat rays swimming past the slip. Out on the open ocean we found the swell 3 ft-ish, with a few occasional bigger rollers and a some flat spots where we could crank the speed up to 30 mph. We decided to head for Buchanan's Reef, not far from Old Marineland. I didn't have the numbers handy when we pulled into the area, but Max determined that the squiggles on the fishfinder looked right and we dropped anchor.

Jon and I geared up, dropped in about 40 and checked the anchor before heading down-reef. We quickly began to have second thoughts about having kept it simple by going with wetsuits when we hit the 52 F water. Vis was mostly 15-ish but milky, up to 20 in spots and down to 10 in others. I quickly learned that the theme for this dive was going to be the giant keyhole limpet convention -- they were just about on every clump of rock we swam past. Also lots of attractive corynactis. Early-on, I also ran across a sunflower star, followed by an encounter with a string of Praya sinophore. A few nudis along the way, but nothing too remarkable -- couple of shawls, sea lemons, some egg ribbons, etc. At one point Jon shined his HID into a crevice revealing the toothy mug of an enormous lingcod, followed by a more normal-sized free-swimming ling and a cabezon.

When our toes were about as chilled as we wanted them to get, we headed intho the shallows and did an open-water series of stops from 20 on up. After a quick hop we were again pulling into King Harbor. Thanks for a cool morning and a great start to a new diving adventure, guys!

 

[wetrat]

Date: 06/24/06
Dive Location: Eel Cove X2 and Lion’s Head
Buddy(ies): Mark99 and The Skull
Time: 10:35 am/12:55 pm/2:45 pm
Bottom Time: 1:06/50/51
Max Depth: 57/37/36
Vis: 30 to 40+
Temp at depth: 64/66/68F
Surface Temp: 69/71/71F
Gas mix: 21%

Headhunter, TeqP, The Skull, Mo2vation, BunnyJaye, Mark99 and I took the Sundiver out to Catalina for three fantastic dives yesterday. The crossing was a little rough with light swell but lots of wind chop so we weren’t sure how the diving was going to be. Dropped down on the first dive to at least 30 foot vis and nice toasty water – aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! Southern Cal diving at its best! The wind died down completely and all three dives were spectacular with fantastic vis, lots of ambient light, plenty of great structure and thick kelp. We really enjoyed weaving our way through the kelp forest, checking out the critters, helping each other get untangled here and there, and poking around in the rocks. The Skull was our guest from St. Louis, and although he was a very experienced diver with cave and mixed gas certs, he had never been diving in So Cal. He had a big honkin’ grin on his face all day, and seemed to really enjoy himself. I had picked him up at the Marriott in Dana Point on my way up to the Sundiver, and was relieved to find that in fact he did have eyeballs. Not sure I could have handled The Skull without any eyeballs.

The locals were out in force on Saturday including plenty of gregarious Garibaldi, Blacksmith, Kelp Fish, Senorita, Treefish and Rockfish of various shades. Not too many inverts but we did see a good sized Octopus, two big fat Morays, a baby Horn Shark and some mobster lobsters. On the last dive the crew was rushing us so they could get home sooner and we blew them off and did a 50 minute dive anyway. Turned out that was a big mistake because the wind picked up again, and the Sundiver, being the beast she is, dragged her hook. The crew had to do a live pickup of us and two other divers who surfaced after us, and Mistress Kaya spanked us all pretty hard when we came aboard. Sorry to all who were delayed getting home. Thanks so much everybody, for a really fun day, and especially to headhunter, who organized it! Honestly though, I didn’t mind getting spanked but that’s a different story for another forum. :mooner:

Here's a couple shots I took:

Baby Horn Shark

Rainbow Scorpionfish (Thanks Scottfiji for the ID!)

Calico Rockfish

 

[wetrat]

Then we all saw it: The Weirdest Looking 2.5-foot-long pre-historic fish-THING, coasting along in the cold black water, oblivious to our triple-HID blasts.

A Spotted Ratfish (http://www.elasmodiver.com/spotted_ratfish.htm)

Big eyes, smooth skin with iridescent gold traceries, pectoral fins that were small leathery flaps surrounded by large translucent-rayed fins, a long tail and downward-facing mouth like a ray, and a protruding ratlike snout. Not exactly what you want to bring home to Mom. Like a train-wreck, I couldn't take my eyes off it! It hovered with us for over 10 minutes, passing over and under us, even bumping slowly into my mask plate twice, and then into my hands. It settled on the bottom a few times, and then resumed hovering.

You mean you actually saw a Spotted Ratfish in all its glory splendor!!! Some of us *wink* might find the Spotted Ratfish attractive, DiveGirl!! :mouse04: Another really FUN dive report, BTW!!

 

[HBDiveGirl]

You mean you actually saw a Spotted Ratfish in all its glory splendor!!! Some of us *wink* might find the Spotted Ratfish attractive, DiveGirl!! :mouse04: Another really FUN dive report, BTW!!

As fascinating as this creature is, John, I must say it is only my second favorite aquatic rodent . You will always be the most splendid TopRat!

Rumor has it that I may have the good fortune of seeing BOTH of you in the Redondo Canyon this Thursday night..... How Cool would THAT be???!!!?

Thanks for the kind words
Claudette

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Date: Sunday June 25, 2006
Dive Location: The Point at Old Marineland, Palos Verdes
Buddies: Radinator, Archangel, Rob Phillips, Frederic, Neophyte
Time: 8:45 AM
Bottom Time: 1 hour, 12 minutes
Max Depth: 55fsw
Vis: 12 - 15 feet, sometimes a bit more
Wave height: 'tweren't the height.. 'twas the shove! Lotta water swirling forcefully around the rocks. But, hey, we made it in safely at the point. 'nuf said.
Temp at depth: 51F. I'm done whining. (See yesterday's post for RDA of whining.) Nudibranchs love it, and I'm just a visitor.
Surface Temp: 51F. No sun, plenty of wind.
Tide information: Rising.

The Dive:
Well, after a week of intense discussion, thoughts, and proposals for a local Underwater Explorer's group (UE)... we finally stopped jabbering and went diving.

(We did actually say a lot of other stuff, but most of that stays in the parking lot )

Thus began the Southern California Regional Underwater Explorers... of Underwater (SCRUE U) first Semi-UnOfficial Underwater Exploration Dive: Old Marineland.

It was a excellent dive, starting with each teammate displaying unique Off-The-Rocks entry styles. Gear issues allowed Neophyte to demonstrate gracefullness under duress as he waved the rest of us off to dive while he regrouped to the parking lot with two other divers and entered a bit later. It happens to everyone eventually, and Adam coped with style.. Bravo.

Vis wasn't the greatest, but Marineland is a perfect Macro-Dive and life on the pinnacles was in full glory. "Dizzy with Dorids"... "Hectic with Hermissendas"... "Frantic with FedEx's".... the Nudibranchs stole the show again. We had fun maneuvering around the pinnacles, communicating easily, tracking both teams, and enjoying the sites with no silt, good dive planning, and fun teamwork.

Strong diving skills can come from a variety of sources, but the GUE/DIR/F skill base is a beautiful common language. This is what many of us have been envisioning for the SoCalDIR forum and a regional UE group: Dives that are fun, safe and coordinated, blending a variety of divers using this unified skill set. Dancing is a special joy when your partners know the steps. I got hooked and thrilled by this as I've dived with other GUE-trained divers over the past year, and it's fun to see more people trying it and enjoying it. Fewer worries, less drama, more fun. Lots to learn. Dig it!

And before the dive and after the dive we laughed like complete mental patients. I keep trying to describe the whacked conversations that had me laughing 'til my ribs hurt, but like the exquisite bubbles in Champagne, you just had to be there to appreciate it. We had a great time and I can't wait for the next one.

Thank you Ray, Robb, Frederic, Tevis, and Adam, for the calamitously funny chaos in the parking lot before and after, and complete lack of chaos underwater. The best of both worlds :jump013: .


Claudette