Well, I don't see any May dive reports, so here goes (with photos)

[Roughwaterjohn]

Conditions:
Marine Room / canyon
Dropped down at 7:08AM
4’ high tide, washing up close to, but not touching the restaurant
Steady swells cresting at 2’-3’, but in relatively shallow water
Bright sunny morning with 65-degree surface water temp, 56 degrees in the canyon
15’-20’ visibility in shallows and at depth
Maximum depth, 87 fsw, average depth 75 fsw
Total bottom time, 45 minutes

Photos:
Here’s a couple of links to photos I took during the dive.

http://dive.scubadiving.com/members/photogalleries.php?s=5468

http://dive.scubadiving.com/members/photogalleries.php?s=5469

The report:

With a beautiful day forecast, Terry and I were up early to enjoy it, and see if it was just as beautiful underwater (hint: it was). This could easily be called a diverse dive, as we had divers from the Bottom Bunch Dive Club, Divebums, DiveBuddyList and San Diego Dive Club, about 12 divers in all. We split up the dive buddy squadrons into dive buddy teams. Uwe, Pikake and Tom went with Terry and I to the south wall. Wayne took the remainder with him. I didn’t recognize everybody, but I did spot Mickey and David A. heading out with Wayne towards the north wall.

The entry looked more menacing than it was, with 2’-3’ breakers curling over in perfect form, with rolling swells pushing them towards shore. We were in slightly more than waist high water (my waist, your actual depth may vary) when we encountered the biggest waves, but the surf line didn’t extend very far and we were soon in calmer waters. We kicked out about 300-400 yards, before dropping down into greenish water with pretty decent visibility. We pointed our collective compasses at 300 degrees, and headed towards the canyon.

We hit the first slope, and started down into the darkness, leveling off every 10’ or so to explore and look for photo ops. The Diaulula Sandiegensis were immediately apparent, and ended up being quite prolific. We saw one lone Spanish Shawl, several Navanax, including some with their mantles flared out, a first sighting for me, and an occasional white flower of Nudibranch eggs. We saw a writer’s colony of Sea Pens, and the occasional Goby and Anemone, including a couple of beautiful dark purple Anemones.

As we continued south along the wall, initially at approximately 85 fsw, then working our way up to 75-80 fsw, we saw a couple of smaller California Sea Hares and a 10” Turbot hiding in the detritus. The Navanax and Diaulula were still scattered along the bottom, but sightings were now interspersed with California Lizardfish and a couple of disguised Yellow Crabs. We saw one small patch of what I think is Orange Gorgonian, but I’m not sure on the I.D. The air in our tanks was decreasing at about the same rate as our depth, so we eventually found ourselves at the top of the canyon and heading back towards the shallows. Going slow, we saw Moon Snails, California Armina and California Cone Snails.

We surfaced on the backside of the surf, wanting to check conditions before heading in, as the tide had continued to increase while we were submerged. Conditions looked no worse than before, so we headed in without incident. A quick stop for one more photo op, and we were back at our vehicles, preparing to head for breakfast.

John A.

 

[Diver_Jan]

Hey John! Let me be the first to welcome you to Scuba Board and the SoCal Section. As always, your reports blow me away. Thanks for all the cool pics too!

 

[Roughwaterjohn]

Thanks Jan, glad you enjoy them. I'm pretty happy that I finally found the S.B. My knida people!

John A.

 

[Robert Phillips]

Surf: 3-4' about 5 per set with a lull of 20-30 seconds between sets.
Surge: moderate to heavy.
Vis: 8-12' , less on the outside of the reef.
Time in: 7:35
High tide: 8:29
Dive time: 36 min.
Max depth:35'
Rating: Fair to good
Buddies: Glenn S. and Jan H.

I had planned on going to Moss with my buddy Glenn and I plum forgot about meeting Jan at Treasure Island at 7:00. I got a call from one of my other buddies as I was passing T.I. and he told me that there was a diver waiting for me there. I had him steer Jan up to Moss and met up with him there.
When we got there and checked out conditions, it looked a little big. But after watching and timing the sets, and knowing that the tide was on the way to a high of 3.0 we knew we would be okay.
After setting up gear and going over the dive plan we headed for the steps.
The last wave of the set was breaking on the beach as we stepped onto the sand, so it was an easy walk to the water. Fins on and several kicks saw us out at the far reef. A quick gear check and down we went to the bottom at 17'. A compass check guided us on our way to the south end of the reef, a quick right and our journey began.
With the visibility being what it was, I grew bored after about 25 minutes.
Not much to see out there today. Some lobster out of their holes taunting us, the usual high number of garibaldi, senioritas, etc...
Even though it was on the boring side it was still bottom time and that makes it fun! A dive with two exceptional divers made it all the more enjoyable.
Dive safe, dive often.
Robert