Last night (Tuesday) Chica and I went to dive Vet Spark. After having our boat cancel last weekend, and showing up and blowing off one shore dive last week, I was aching to get back into the water.
We had a few objectives last night (in addition to get in the water....)
* Sea Trials for some new Diving Concepts TPS Extreme Stretch Thinsulate undies. I bought a set off of eBay... immaculate condition, but a little tight on my legs. Gave them to Chica for a trial. The fit her well on land, we'll see how they work underwater
* Sea Trials for my new CF200 suit. Another eBay find. I had it in last week, but only for a bit - and it was great. I can't believe this suit is dry and fits and is working... so I want to put it through a more thorough test tonight.
* Squid hunting - this is the last few days of "the season" and we want to get deeper and look around
Claudette sends me a text, saying 1 to 2 foot at 6:30 AM, with the occasional 3... diveable, but not great looking.
OK.
11 hours later I get another text from her. It says something like "seven-inch surf. Flat. Wanna dive?" She wasn't kidding. I get there at 7:45, and its ankle slappers, flat seas, and lake Pacific.
I couldn't be more thrilled. We suit up, I in my CF200 (eBay buy of the century #27) and she in her DS Undies (eBay buy of the century #28) and we splash. We stop and put out fins on in the "surf" zone, only because we could for the first time in a month or two. It was glorious.
Of course, the water wasn't real clear. And because of the post storm flatness there was an unusually large amount of sea grass, broken off kelp and general trash in the water just sitting there. It made scootering out a little obstacle course.
Claudette is just getting over a head cold so we drop inshore and scoot out... as its a slower descent that way than scooting on the surface and dropping into 40 feet. Every 10 feet or so I look over and she tells me she's OK - so we power down.
We start seeing new squid egg baskets at about 50 feet. At 70 feet we see some more. At 80 feet we see almost nothing, as the baskets are larger and the eggs more numerous - but batrays and sea lions are stirring things up so much that its hard to see.
We get to 90 feet and it clears up again - but its just sand.
Back up to 85 feet - clouds of range dust.
Weird. There is this cloudy band between 80 and 90 feet - where the largest percentage of the eggs are residing (and all of the zombe squid that just laid them, and the squid running around carrying the candle.) And there are batrays and sealions scooping up the dying squid - so its a mess. One sealion went by us as we were kicking along the 85' line... OMG. I never thought this thing was gonna end. It was like a locomotive. This is the single largest sealion I've ever seen.... he just kept going and going as he zoomed by. He was easily longer than I was - I look over at Claudette and here eyes were saucers. It was probably the largest thing I've ever seen this close in the water that wasn't a giant black seabass - surely the fastest large thing. He was about 2 feet from us and we both shuttered.
We move up out of the cloud band at 90 up to about 70 - much clearer but pretty dull. We move up to 60 feet and we began to encounter the sheepcrab biomass.
This is so creepy - but even more creepy when there is only 5 - 8 feet of viz and ALL YOU CAN SEE are dozens and dozens of sheepcrab. We're on the trigger, in 5th gear and we get 30 seconds of wall to wall crab - a little break, then wall to wall crab again.
Creepy.
Something caught my eye - I thought my light was reflecting off of something... then I realized my light wasn't shining that far ahead. I scoot over to it and just laugh.
I've found lots of things underwater - fins, weights, masks, snorkels, lobster bags, toys, cell phones, fishing gear, furniture, clothing, towels, appliances, weapons, boats, bikes, skateboards... you name it I've found it. This is the first time I've ever found a dive light underwater THAT WAS ON!!!!!!!!!!
We didn't see any other divers. But there it was, on the sand - a dive light. ON.
So funny.
If you know anybody that lost a dive light, and kinda left it on at the time they fumbled it - send them my way.
We turn the dive and head back - once again over the creepy sheepcrab biomass. My suit is still dry, so I'm loving life. Its some special world when you can pick up a CF200 that's only a few years old, fits like a glove, doesn't leak, has usable seals, is fully outfitted (PV, Pockets, zip wrists) for the stupid price I paid. So I'm smiling all the way back.
I ask chica if she's warm, and she signs back that she's toasty.
So I'm not dreaming - my "back up" suit does work this well.
Chica's not dreaming - the undies fit that well and are that warm
We're not dreaming - the squid, although not the run of 2007, did come up this weekend and are still there in respectable numbers.
A very good dive.
Thanks for the texts and the not-so-subtle urge to come dive last night, Claudette. Totally worth it!
---
Ken
We had a few objectives last night (in addition to get in the water....)
* Sea Trials for some new Diving Concepts TPS Extreme Stretch Thinsulate undies. I bought a set off of eBay... immaculate condition, but a little tight on my legs. Gave them to Chica for a trial. The fit her well on land, we'll see how they work underwater
* Sea Trials for my new CF200 suit. Another eBay find. I had it in last week, but only for a bit - and it was great. I can't believe this suit is dry and fits and is working... so I want to put it through a more thorough test tonight.
* Squid hunting - this is the last few days of "the season" and we want to get deeper and look around
Claudette sends me a text, saying 1 to 2 foot at 6:30 AM, with the occasional 3... diveable, but not great looking.
OK.
11 hours later I get another text from her. It says something like "seven-inch surf. Flat. Wanna dive?" She wasn't kidding. I get there at 7:45, and its ankle slappers, flat seas, and lake Pacific.
I couldn't be more thrilled. We suit up, I in my CF200 (eBay buy of the century #27) and she in her DS Undies (eBay buy of the century #28) and we splash. We stop and put out fins on in the "surf" zone, only because we could for the first time in a month or two. It was glorious.
Of course, the water wasn't real clear. And because of the post storm flatness there was an unusually large amount of sea grass, broken off kelp and general trash in the water just sitting there. It made scootering out a little obstacle course.
Claudette is just getting over a head cold so we drop inshore and scoot out... as its a slower descent that way than scooting on the surface and dropping into 40 feet. Every 10 feet or so I look over and she tells me she's OK - so we power down.
We start seeing new squid egg baskets at about 50 feet. At 70 feet we see some more. At 80 feet we see almost nothing, as the baskets are larger and the eggs more numerous - but batrays and sea lions are stirring things up so much that its hard to see.
We get to 90 feet and it clears up again - but its just sand.
Back up to 85 feet - clouds of range dust.
Weird. There is this cloudy band between 80 and 90 feet - where the largest percentage of the eggs are residing (and all of the zombe squid that just laid them, and the squid running around carrying the candle.) And there are batrays and sealions scooping up the dying squid - so its a mess. One sealion went by us as we were kicking along the 85' line... OMG. I never thought this thing was gonna end. It was like a locomotive. This is the single largest sealion I've ever seen.... he just kept going and going as he zoomed by. He was easily longer than I was - I look over at Claudette and here eyes were saucers. It was probably the largest thing I've ever seen this close in the water that wasn't a giant black seabass - surely the fastest large thing. He was about 2 feet from us and we both shuttered.
We move up out of the cloud band at 90 up to about 70 - much clearer but pretty dull. We move up to 60 feet and we began to encounter the sheepcrab biomass.
This is so creepy - but even more creepy when there is only 5 - 8 feet of viz and ALL YOU CAN SEE are dozens and dozens of sheepcrab. We're on the trigger, in 5th gear and we get 30 seconds of wall to wall crab - a little break, then wall to wall crab again.
Creepy.
Something caught my eye - I thought my light was reflecting off of something... then I realized my light wasn't shining that far ahead. I scoot over to it and just laugh.
I've found lots of things underwater - fins, weights, masks, snorkels, lobster bags, toys, cell phones, fishing gear, furniture, clothing, towels, appliances, weapons, boats, bikes, skateboards... you name it I've found it. This is the first time I've ever found a dive light underwater THAT WAS ON!!!!!!!!!!
We didn't see any other divers. But there it was, on the sand - a dive light. ON.
So funny.
If you know anybody that lost a dive light, and kinda left it on at the time they fumbled it - send them my way.
We turn the dive and head back - once again over the creepy sheepcrab biomass. My suit is still dry, so I'm loving life. Its some special world when you can pick up a CF200 that's only a few years old, fits like a glove, doesn't leak, has usable seals, is fully outfitted (PV, Pockets, zip wrists) for the stupid price I paid. So I'm smiling all the way back.
I ask chica if she's warm, and she signs back that she's toasty.
So I'm not dreaming - my "back up" suit does work this well.
Chica's not dreaming - the undies fit that well and are that warm
We're not dreaming - the squid, although not the run of 2007, did come up this weekend and are still there in respectable numbers.
A very good dive.
Thanks for the texts and the not-so-subtle urge to come dive last night, Claudette. Totally worth it!
---
Ken
