The Pasley October '06 Dive Report Thread

[HBDiveGirl]

What happened did everybody stop diving this week ?

Happy Diving
John

Heck NO!!! It just takes a little time to get to a keyboard

Tuesday night, 10/17/06
Veteran's Park, Redondo canyon edge
Buddy: David Watson
Splash: Gorgeous Sunset!
Max Depth: 49fsw, but 45 minutes was all about the practice @ 35fsw.
Run time: 62 minutes
Temp: 59F
Visibility: 10-15 feet
Surf: 3 feet. Yikes!!! The lull looked calm, but we got pummeled on entrance.
Gas: David > 'Chica (Doubles trump a single hpHunnerd, every time)

So... what happened...
It was a beautiful night for a dive! We planned a bunch of skills to practice and drills to run. So Much To Learn! But there's always time for fun.

A little windy as the sun set, yes. But the world glowed in the rosy colors.

A little feistiness in the surf, yes. But David and the doubles rolled right through 10 MussYo'Hair waves

.... and then we were out past the surf. (I was diving the petite and single hpHunnerd, so this 'Chica had nothing to complain about.... and I didn't.

)

Surge was frisky, but all the drills went well as long as we oriented 90 degrees to it. We ran the basic5, did some OOA drills, deployed SMBs from 35fsw (and retrieved them), practiced our lessThanPerfect versions of back-kicks (but we did each move backwards, so it could suck worse.) Then we toured the edge of the canyon, returned across the surge-clouded shallows, and rose from 20 fsw to do a 10 foot stop in the dark and surgey water. I felt like I was spinning on a microwave carousel! I know...If it were easy, any farm animal could do it. I need a LOT more practice.

Best sights:

• A pale green pipe fish coiled at the top end of a Giant Kelp frond. It looked exactly like a sea horse, with its tiny tail corkscrewed around the main stipe, its head laying against the end of the frond, and its cute little pectoral fins fluttering in the current.
• The short spined sea star we used as our base marker. Nice to still see it at the end of a drill.... most of the time :14: .
• An 8-inch horn shark, dozens of barred sand bass, and a scattering of scorpion fish.
• Several thornback rays in the shallows.
• Crazy crowds of swimming crabs galloping down the sides of the canyon at 45fsw.
• A very horizontal buddy working hard at drills and hanging solid with those doubles. Nice work!

The exit was framed with some 4 foot waves!! What the.....?????!?!!
It was about to get ugly, as I couldn't touch bottom until I was squarely in the crush zone.
I ran out of my usual tricks to get through the surf, and had finally gotten to the ZCP, (Zone of Casual Profanity,) when the ocean nudged us both firmly toward shore.... and we walked out. All that fuss and no muss. Nice!

It was so warm in the parking lot afterwards that I had flashbacks to summer.
Water temperatures? I never checked the thermometer during our one hour dive, so it must not have been too cold. 59F was just a tickle on the other side of the drysuit.

Thanks for the practice call, David. It was perfect.

Claudette

(Normal suckage minus .027, and counting....

)

 

[LLKZ16]

Date: 10/20/06
Dive Location: OML Long Point
Buddy(ies): Jimmy and Morgan
Time: 9:46 am
Bottom Time: 58 min
Max Depth: 64 feet
Vis: 10-20
Wave height: 1-2 ft
Temp at depth: 58F
Surface Temp: 68F
Tide information: High
Comments:

Well, it looks like Friday morning is starting to turn out a lot of people. Today we had 6 in total (Angelique, Jimmy, David, Morgan, another guy I forgot his name and I). It was a beautiful sunny SoCal morning and the ocean surface looked calm and glassy. At the point, the waves coming in were not too bad. If you time it right, the entry was easy. If not, you know the rest….lol

We created 2 groups that were balanced well with experienced divers and newbies. I led one team and Angelique the other. I entered first, Jimmy next and then Morgan. After another technical strap debacle, David had to run up to the car to get his second set leaving Angelique with the 2 newbies thus changing the team layout. With an OK from Angelique, the three of us took off to Ted’s Pinnacle.

We dropped down and started to make our way out heading at 180. The visibility was good today and there were tons of fish out around the reef. Once we made it out to Ted’s we hung out for a bit and then started to make our way back to Cobble Beach heading at 30. There was almost no surge at all out at the point but when we were making our way back to Cobble Beach the surge got pretty bad at 20 or so feet.

 

[Archangel]

Date:21 October 06
Dive Location: Redondo Beach
Buddy(ies): HbDiveGirl Chica Claudette Dorsey
Time: 0926 hrs
Bottom Time: 1 hour, 14 minutes
Max Depth:55
Vis:15-20
Wave height/tide info: a lake
Temp at depth/surface: at 55 fsw, 61 freeze grees. Thermocline at 35 fsw

It was a beautiful overcast morning when Claudette and I donned our DRYSUITS for training as my DIR/F check out dive is this coming Saturday the 28th. Claudette trained me into the ground. We did, SMB deployment, NGE (not good enough) do it again, valve drills (dropped knees NGE) do it again, basic 5 again, and again, and again, OOA drills with silt out (mask off) and then deco stopped ascents.

It was wonderful and so educational, and so much fun. I tend to drift forward when I do drills, so my beloved Claudette got in front of me, and as I drifted forward, we would bump heads

She is such a patient and fun friend and mentor.

We then took time to stop and smell the fishies, we saw a ton of octopi in many different kinds of beer bottles, 'dette pissed off a Sarcastic Fringehead who came out of his shell and chased us away

And counted some 27 moss crabs all huddled up and the males took defensive postions as we drifted/finned over.

Finally, as we were heading up the canyon, my SPG hit less than 500 psi so we did a OOA drill for real, and then on the way up, stopped and held a 10 fsw deco stop (remember two people breathing off of one tank) for one minute.

that actually means we rule.

Oh the sharing of air was real, and my pony bottle had a brain, that is the team concept, and what DIR is all about.

Thank you so much Claudette,

Tevis

 

[divinman]

Location: Ruby E
Time: 8:12am descent
Temp: 56 degrees
Vis: 20ish feet
Max Depth: 83 feet
Bottom Time: 48 mins

Location: 7 Fathoms Pinnacles
Time: 10.09am descent
Temp: 58 degrees. Really!
Vis: 15 feet
Max Depth: 65 feet
Bottom Time: 56 mins

Location: NOSC Tower
Time: 12:12pm descent
Temp: 58 degrees
Vis: 10-15 feet
Max Depth: 59 feet
Bottom Time: 58 mins

Image Gallery: http://www.scubapost.net/forums/Scorpionfish/102106/

I met up with the LA crowd for three dives off the Lois Ann today. The sea was calm at all three sights with minimal surface swell but moderate surge at depth. Visibility on the Ruby was a good 20ft horizontal and over 30ft vertical. The horizontal vis a guess but I KNOW the vertical is spot on because I could clearly see my light cannon lying in the sand at 80ft from 50ft as I was speeding down to recover it after it tried to dive without me.

The second sight was neither pinnacles nor 7 fathoms deep but was a pretty typical kelp dive with an assortment of boulders covered with life to photograph. Had the surge been less dramatic I might have faired better but I still managed a few keepers here.

Dive three......hmmmmm. Where to start?????

We motored over to where the Tower SHOULD be located. Alas...no mooring ball was present. Not a big deal usually but there were divers from a nearby inflatable already in the water so "mowing the lawn" looking for it on the sounder was less than a good idea. After scooting this way and that and checking the gps frequently the captain finally asked if anyone wanted to go see if we were on it or not. He was pretty confident it was off the port side about 30ft and on a 210 bearing from the anchor. Always willing to be the first off the boat I was geared up and in the water in no time, finger-spool and plastic bottle in hand....errr pocket. I told the captain I would pop the bottle once I found the structure and had run a line from the anchor to it.

Slipped below the surface and at about 20ft I looked left and TAAADAAAA there it was, clear as day 10ft from the anchor. I ascended back to the surface and told the crew to "splash the diver, we are sitting right on it." At which time I went back down to start my dive.....again.

Cruising over/under/around and through this site is always fun for me. It's like a big pink and white jungle gym covered with anemones, scallops, muscles and more. I stopped by to see if my favorite big two-spot octopus was home. I have been on this wreck every year for the past 4 years and he/she is always in the same place....not today though. I was hoping he had just moved on and had not become calamari. I looked down to check my gauge and that’s when it started to go wonky.

Those of you that dive dry will either know this feeling now, or sometime you will have the "joy" of experiencing it. Tilting my head down I felt not a 'trickle' of water but a GUSH of water run down my bag. BRRRRRRRR. Wiggled my head, tugged at my hood, twitched and twisted trying everything I could to stop the incoming tide. In the end I managed to slow it to a dribble...wasn’t FREEZING.....YET so I kept diving. At about 45 minutes I was shivering but could still stop myself so no stage two hypo so far but the dive was becoming less fun so I headed back up to the surface for some dry clothes and much ribbing from the wetsuit peanut gallery on the joys of "diving dry". After changing out of my dripping jammies I was again toasty warm and able to laugh about it along with everyone else.

Local boat trips rock in that you can do three nice dives and still be back before 3pm. Once I had the car packed I bid farewell to my LA brethren and head home for some dinner, a beer and a nap.

Terry

 

[scottfiji]

very nice photos Terry

scott

 

[Leejnd]

This time I tried to to a "proper" dive report! :blinking:

http://www.valleyscuba.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84

LeeAnne

 

[JMdiver]

I'll give you an A for effort but you still posted the report on the other web site. Now just copy it & paste it on here.

Happy Diving
John

 

[cruisegirl]

LeeAnne,
You sure are becoming an experienced diver..... Doing all the beach diving... I'm still not good at that.....lol....Let me know if you ever want to go over to Casino Point and dive.... I need a dive in before my Caribbean cruise....lol........ Good job....

 

[JMdiver]

Well cruisegirl if you would come to our SC dive club beach dives you'd get some more experience.

Happy Diving
John

 

[Leejnd]

Debbie when do you go on your cruise? My cruise to the South Pacific is in a month, so I'm diving like a fiend so I can log a lot of dives before I go.

I'm going diving tomorrow night at Veterans Park in Redondo...conditions permitting, of course. Come on out!