The Pasley May 06 Dive Report Thread

[Peter McGuinness]

The Best... absolute BEST! dive report in the Category of "Most Fun to Read While Not Mentioning a Single Marine Organism, Plant, or Topographical Feature."

You mean babes in bikinis aren't marine organisms? - Wait, maybe I'm a syllable out, there.

In any case, I can't recall ever having seen one actually in the water, so you could be right. If I ever do see one, I will be sure to refer to a 'benthic bimbo' in order to distinguish the correct sub-species!

Peter
(obviously not diving or I would have better things to post)

 

[riguerin]

Date: 5/27/06
Dive Location: DeadHenge
Buddy(ies): glycerin
Time: 8:35 AM
Bottom Time: 62 Min
Max Depth: 63 FSW
Vis: 15 Ft
Wave height: 3-4 Ft
Temp at depth: 62 F
Surface Temp: 63 F
Tide information: Pushing. High tide @ 10:47 AM PDT; 3.62 Feet
Gas mix: 21%

Comments:

Hooked up with homie, Josh, for a couple holiday weekend dives. Rolled past Shaw's and toward North Crescent at 7:30AM only to be greeted by a total mob scene. "Who the heck are all these people ... and where did they come from ?", I thought. Had to park pretty far back but managed to nab couple of the last spots. We had classic offshore eddy conditions this morning (more commonly known as June gloom); overcast skies, SE winds, surface chop. It also looked like the recent W swell energy was slipping through the crease; there was some waist+ sets pounding the bay. We decided to head deeper, toward DeadHenge, on the first dive. We dropped on the buoy then picked up the reef line out on a SE bearing toward deeper water. The surge was not too bad (1-2ft) and the vis was decent (10-15+ft). The structure become more pronounced as we continued out. We poked around the cracks and holes an found some cools stuff. At one pint I peered under a ledge and almost spit my reg out when I saw a mutant sized cabazon ... sucker looked over 3ft long. We made the turn in approx 63fsw and headed back on reciprocal bearing, but a little higher in the reef. As we approached the DeadHenge buoy, we were welcomed by approx a dozen or more divers dropping on the site. That God we got out of there before the vis went to hell. We followed the stone line in, but never made it to the N Crescent reef. We surfaced from 35fsw, and finished the dive with a 3min safety stop in the water column. Back on land we filled up at LSS and chatted with Tobin (DSS) briefly after remarking on the sweet little pink wing that one of his dive buddies had. Of course, you can't have a conversation about a pink DSS wing without eventually bringing up Kimber's name

Date: 5/27/06
Dive Location: N.Crescent/Seal Rock
Buddy(ies): glycerin
Time: 11:07 AM
Bottom Time: 73 Min
Max Depth: 44 FSW
Vis: 15 Ft
Wave height: 3-4 Ft
Temp at depth: 64 F
Surface Temp: 63 F
Tide information: High tide @ 10:47 AM PDT; 3.62 Feet
Gas mix: 21%


Comments:

Dropped at the usual location. The tide was high and the swell energy had picked up slightly with the tide push. As we approached the drop site, we noticed lots of bubble breaking surface. There was a heard of underwater buffalo directly beneath us. We let them clear out before descending. Upon reaching the bottom we were welcomed by silted water and near zero vis ... thanks guys. I went to flip on my light and nothing; totally dead ... bummer ! We headed out on a SW heading toward deeper water to escape the surge. Since I didn't have a light to peek into holes, we really didn't stop much on the outbound leg. We ended up overshooting the desired path and ended up in unchartered territory on the other side of Seal Rock. On the return leg, we encountered a little current, from the draining tide, and come up short of the desired target. In fact, we weren't even close. We surfaced just along an approx equidistant line between Seal Rock and DeadHenge buoy ... way out in the boonies. Overall, two nice dives, despite the navigation shortcomings. Un the plus side, we each got two more successful dives in our dry suits.

 

[wetrat]

Took the Sea Bass out to the rigs today with Mark99....

Date: 05/27/2006
Dive Locations: Eureka/Ellen
Buddy(ies): Mark99 on both dives
Time: 7:45/9:55 am
Bottom Time: 36/36 min.
Max Depth: 128/44 fsw
Vis: 20-30
Temp at depth: Aeris 53/58F
Surface Temp: Aeris 64F
Gas mix: EAN 30.1/EAN 31.6

Drove to San Pedro at way too early o'clock to dive the rigs. Only five divers showed, including Kevrumbo. Sweet! It was a rough trip out with five to sevens and wind-driven chop. We geared up, skipper backed up to the rig and we jumped in one after another like paratroopers and started surface swimming into Eureka's structure. The current was screaming so it took a lot of effort. Mark and I descended per our dive plan to 125 fsw to explore an underwater platform of crisscrossing steel support beams. Conditions below 50 feet were significantly better with vis nearing 30 feet. The pilings were completely encrusted with life - strawberry anemones, aggregating anemones, metridiums, scallops, chestnut cowries, worms of various types, starfish, etc. Fish species included sheephead, garibaldi, blacksmith, sargo and pile perch, among others. As we worked our way up the pilings, we ran into Kevrumbo's scooter tethered at about 50 feet where he and his buddy had left it before descending deeper with doubles and stage bottles. At 40 feet the upwelling started, and with surge and current we started to feel like we were in a washing machine. We ascended as gradually as possible, but as we neared the surface, holding a safety stop at a specified depth was impossible. We managed to stay between about 15 and 25 feet for three minutes or so and popped up inside the structure. We were both feeling kind of exhausted and pukey but we started kicking toward the boat which was disappearing intermittently between swells. Outside the structure we made very little headway against the current so the crew finally tossed us a tagline. Kevrumbo surfaced about 20 minutes later.

After a bumpy surface interval we motored toward Ellen. Skipper suggested we might call it a day, but Mark wanted to dive, and I decided to give it a shot too. Everyone else declined. As I prepared to do my giant stride, I took my reg out, puked, felt better, and made sure my stride cleared the chum.:yuck: Surface conditions were slightly better at Ellen and soon we were poking around under water. It was beautiful, and we were visited by a frolicking pinniped. As we slowly finned around at about 40 feet she went back up to get more friends. Awesome! We also noticed a broad stream of bubbles rising from below and we figured the rig must be venting some kind of gas. It was interesting too, hearing the drilling as we were swimming around. This time, we held a safety stop between 15 and 20 feet and surfaced inside the rig. We had an easier swim back to the boat, although swells still washed over us. Skipper said he saw two dive boats returning from Catalina early and that we were like friggen' Navy Seals for doin' a second dive. People say that to us all the time actually. He also said he hadn't seen a day that bad in a long time. I took my camera on the dive, but given conditions, decided not to dive with it. Still, I snapped a few surface shots to share... Oil Rig Diving Surface Shots

John

 

[Jake]

Date: 5/27/06
Dive Location: Shaw's x2
Time: 14:54/16:08
Bottom Time: 31m/34m
Max Depth: 37f/36f
Vis: 10-20
Wave height: 1-2 Ft
Temp at depth: 59 F

Comments:
Went with a friend for his first post-cert dives.I hadn't dove with a newly minted diver in a while, so I had forgotten how bad they are (I was) on air. Oh well. I hadn't had a nice day of diving in over a month, so it was a treat to hit Shaw's on a pretty decent day. Not the best I've ever had there, but quite nice nonetheless.

Everyone's done Shaw's like a billion times, so there's not a whole lot to report. I saw the largest school of fish I've ever seen, which was quite surprising, and saw two sheep crab just kinda hanging out together. Over the course of both dives, they didn't move from their spot. One appeared to be snacking on a sea hare (?), and the other one standing guard. It's so nice to see those guys during the day and not at night when I end up 12 inches away from them by accident. I swear to Bob those things look like the devil himself when you accidentally run into them at night. You know...if the devil were a white, barnacle encrusted crab.

Visibility was better near shore and was nice and bright. There was a tremendous amount of life out today. Probably more than I've seen anywhere in SoCal in my short time diving. The entrance to the crevice (just before the arch) was practically teaming. Could have hung out there all day.

 

[sonyacol]

I learned a lot from this post;

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=81341

I can't get the link to work. What forum is this under? Maybe I can find it another way.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The underwater photography Tips & techniques section. It's the first sticky thread

 

[JMdiver]

Date: 5/27/06
Dive Location:Cresent Bay (So. end) 2x
Buddy(ies):Robert
Time: 8:40 am 11:20 am
Bottom Time:42m & 52m
Max Depth: 27fsw & 35fsw
Vis: 10-15ft & 8- 12ft
Wave height: 1-2ft w/ 0cc. 4ft'r
Temp at depth: 62deg
Surface Temp:66deg
Tide information: coming in
Gas mix:air
Comments:It was very overcast & I was thinking about not going in but was glad I did. There was alot of marine life out yesterday. We saw some small white seabass a bunch of lobsters, they must know it's not lobster season, & we saw a school of fish that's not on my fish ID cards. They were about 6-8 inches long mostly silver w/ yellow stripes mostly at the top. There was a little bit of a surge. The reef system on that side is great alot of nucks & crannys.

Happy Diving
John

 

[Frank O]

we saw a school of fish that's not on my fish ID cards. They were about 6-8 inches long mostly silver w/ yellow stripes mostly at the top.

Salema?

http://www.cabrilloaq.org/images/salema.jpg

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Date: May 28, 2006
Dive Location: Marineland
Buddy(ies): Merry and Lars
Time: 9:26
Bottom Time: 1:34
Max Depth: 42'
Vis: 10'
Wave height: 0-1.5'
Temp at depth: 54F
Comments: The waves were crashing at the point, so we dived the 120 Reef today. We found a large school of fish (unknown), big Cabezon, octopus, Garibaldi nests and the usual assortment on that reef. Merry and I then swam over toward the point so I could show her some Zoanthid anemones. We meandered back to the cove and exited after 94 minutes, Merry's longest dive to date. She loves her new steel 100.
I found an unknown fish a couple weeks ago that was still in the same hole today. He has barbels and yellow eyes. All I've seen is his head pop out of his hole.

 

[divinman]

I found an unknown fish a couple weeks ago that was still in the same hole today. He has barbels and yellow eyes. All I've seen is his head pop out of his hole.

Yellow Snake Eel Phil. Been seeing them occasionally down here at LJ too. Nice find.

Terry