Since Santa must like me we went out to the shores to take the housing down. Since this housing is untested (by us anyway) we took it down with a 2 lb weight wrapped in a towel. If the housing leaked, the camera would be OK.
So we got our stuff together and headed out to La Jolla around noon. There was parking, and it wasn’t very crowded. I love diving in December.
After gearing up we headed into some MONSTROUS 5 inch surf. On the long walk out we saw a leopard shark that was about four feet long swimming by. Awesome, good omen. I wish the camera was actually in the housing.
We swam out for a while with no current and no swell pushing us back. Dropped in to about 18′ of water and headed for the canyon. There’s been a lot of talk on the Divebums email list about an avalanche or other large disruptive event in the area. It’s awesome. There’s clay debris everywhere. The clay feels exactly like the stuff I used in my ceramics class at UCSD. It looks exactly like rock, too. That’s probably why some people thought there were 10 – 15′ rock walls. Still, after all that must have happened there was virtually no life out. We saw some very juvenile señoritas, some catalina gobies, and a few other miscellaneous fish. Exploring all the carnage is very fun.
In the wreckage I found a big snail shell (which we took) and a D cell battery (which we also took).
I managed to get down to 88 feet. I think the housing made it down around 90 with the hand-strap and such.
On the swim back in, around 8 – 10 ft of water we came across a decent amount of life. I got to see a baby bat ray with a wingspan of about 9 – 10 inches. I also poked a few shovel nose guitarfish that were hiding in the sand.
Then we came across it. An enormous school of sardines making their way south. There were hundreds. They were eating. It was amazing. I swam in a little bit more until my computer decided my dive was over when I was in about 4 feet of water.
So, our last dive of the year was a pretty good one. I’ll be taking the camera down from now on and will post any decent pictures we manage to take.
We finally made it back into the water! There were lots of surfers out north of the Life Guard station. Jess wanted to just go back home but I pushed her forward. On the way into the water we ran into Justin with a few students who were having a hard time getting their fins on in the surf zone. That’s probably why Jess and I wait until we’re past the surf zone to put our fins on.
We swam out a bit further to get a little water underneath us, and descended. Since it had been so long we did some drills. We each did a full mask drill a few times, complete with water up the nose. We also did a few out-of-air (OOA) drills for good measure. Once we were done with that we headed out for the canyon.
Nearly immediately we came across some very juvenile senioritas in some eel grass. Near the canyon rim we found a giant octopus and a giant school of juvenile damsels that were orange and pretty. There were of course the requisite catalina gobies as well.
Just as we’d made it into the canyon I started getting really cold and we came back up. Back at the car I was very careful when taking off my drysuit. My arms were fine. My torso was fine. But my waist was soaked! Damn leaks. I’m guessing one of the seals or part of the zipper was a little dirty and didn’t seal correctly.
We’re planning a night dive on Wednesday, it’ll go better!
We had a blast with the tropical-ish visibility! On the way out I swam a bit faster than Jess so I got to stop and check out the viz every so often — it stayed good all the way out.
We descended into about 18 ft. of water and were immediately hit with the viz. There was a layer of fish fry just a few feet thick right off the bottom. They made a very consistent layer that, once you were in, became quite obvious. It was awesome. We swam out a ways and right near the edge of the canyon found the patch of eel grass. Hunting around the top was one little transparent unknown fish and hunting around the bottom was a pipe fish! I pulled Jess around to see it but she couldn’t find it.
Heading into the canyon was awesome as you could see more than the next 5 feet. We started heading north west and had a blast. It was the day of ten million lil transparent fishies. We found a sarcastic fringehead — first. time. evar. There were of course some hermissendas and catalina gobies as well. On the way back in we came across two female sheephead with fat bellies.
After a nice surface interval and trip to the tower we headed down to the diver’s jungle gym.
On the descent we came across a school of blacksmith all milling around the top of the wreck. On the bottom we came across some baby senoritas and the other usual San Diego critters.
Diver Dan came by to hand a spiny lobster off to me. I think he was trying to confuse/bug me (hah!) but it didn’t work. I played with it for a minute, taking a good look at it before setting it down on the structure. As I set it down I saw an electric ray slightly buried in the sand! Not only was there an electric ray in the sand, it was four feet across!!1! I could tell because I compared it to the size of my fin — same size.
We puttered around for a little longer before we got cold and decided to head up. Tremendous dive!
Jake called us Saturday and told us that Danny @ Goby Diving had 2 spots on his boat that needed to be filled. The first dive would be on the P-38 off of Torrey Pines. Since it lies in ~ 130 ft. we knew a few things: we need lots of air, this will be a short trip. Jake set us up with some high pressure 100 ft3 steel tanks and we got out the dry suits. According to the VT Pro you only get 10 minutes @ 130 ft before you go into deco. To be safe I did the math to ensure we would have enough air for the stops if that were to happen.
Once we made it out to the site and dropped anchor we geared up and started our descent. There was a really ripping current (~ 1 knot) on the surface at least so we had to all link arms on the float and head down. On the way down I kept adding air to my suit and BC. Unfortunately I added too much air and started having buoyancy issues. I had a hard time getting the excess air out and had to cut out early. LUCKILY, I got to see the plane! Very, very briefly. But at least I got to see it! The rest of the dive was a slow ascent with Jess and John as we recovered.
Next time out we’ll get some doubles, nitrox, and O2 for deco and have a good ol’ time!
We met up with Julia bright and early this morning to initiate her into the wonders of San Diego marine life. Going on previous data, we expected the water to be warmish. Maybe in the low 70°F’s. Well, it was a little lower than we expected. The life guards were calling it 68.8°F but it felt a whole lot cooler for poor Julia.
Jessica and I had our 3mm wet suits on, natch. The visibility was great, ~ 20 ft. in some spots!
After some cursing and fighting of kelp grass stuff we were out. We quickly ran across some homo sapiens subaquatic which were Doing It Right and looked like they’d had a terrific dive. We also came across some devolving humans heading from land back to sea with a camera in giant housing — and the lens cap on. Hopefully they did that on purpose.
There were of course garibaldi out in force. There were some huuuge mackerel in the shallows. A few calico bass and few other bass besides. I even managed to find a spiny lobster hiding under a rock!
We came across a school of garibaldi. Given how territorial they are this struck us as a bad omen. They quickly disbanded when they saw us and headed for their respective territories.
I came across what appeared to be a senorita cleaning off a garibaldi. Fish are funny when they get cleaned, they just freeze mid-water and don’t move at all lest the cleaner leave.
We also came across a school of baitfish of some kind being cleaned off by little silver/black striped fish. It was awesome to watch it happen in the top inches of the water column since they were so well lit.
Over all it was a great trip. Next time out Julia will remember her camera & housing so I’ll have pictures which will be awesome. If I’m lucky the housing will be rated up to ~ 40 ft. and we can take it diving the next time we’re at the Cove.
Figuring we could sneak in a dive before the wedding Jess and I headed out to the shores to continue playing with our dry suits.
Since I’m a bit of a dumb ass I made multiple changes to my gear configuration at once and subsequently got very disoriented. First I put my computer on my right wrist (vs. left). Then I moved my light from my right side to my left (always opposite computer). That combined with new shoes and such got me totally confused.
Luckily, we had a good dive anyway! We found a cluster of spiny lobsters hiding in a rock and found two wander around the sand flats. I got to see a bat ray with a minimum 4 ft. wing span fly by. We also saw a very large halibut get up and swim away. Jess got to see a second bat ray but I was too far away by that point to get to see it.
We’re doing better with the buoyancy each dive and I think we’ll have it nailed pretty well in short order.
We met Jake at the Shores around 8:30pm with our shiny new dry suits in the car. After some fun with the gear we headed out into water. First impression: the squeeze feels “interesting”. Second impression: OMG the water is warm! No hoods & no gloves!
We swam out in to a whopping 8 feet of water to get our weighting adjusted. Since Jess’ fleece fit pretty well she got to drop 2 pounds. Since mine are a size too large (on purpose, but apparently not required) I got to add 3 (I’ll round up to 4). We played around for a while with empty BC’s and got used to the dry suits, a bit. I over-inflated my suit on purpose and then pointed head down forcing all the air into my feet — my fins almost popped off! Jess found some pipe fish and was suitably impressed. I found a rather large somekinda fish.
After ten minutes of playing around we headed out for the canyon for a “real dive”. The water was still calm and quite warm on the surface. On the way down we could see a thermocline coming as the water dropped about 10 degrees. 60° F is still at least 10° F warmer than we’re used to at these depths. Heck, Jake was wearing a 5mm!
Just under the thermocline was a large school of juvenile somekind of rockfish. The usual critters were out including two octopus and one really big bat ray. Naturally that’s when the vis shot down to 0 ft. — it was worth it.
With all the new stuff that was going on with our dry suits Jess and I both got very narced/disoriented. It wasn’t entirely pleasant, but nobody drowned. These suits are going to force us to learn to dive all over again — a worthy endeavor. I had some buoyancy problems and so did Jess. This is stuff that’ll get sorted out pretty shortly.
The best part, of course, was taking off the suit and being dry and in pajamas. omgponies it was AWESOME. I was a bit more impressed than Jess. She managed to do something to one of her wrist seals that made a whole hand go numb. Yikes. Maybe she’ll figure out how to do that with her neck seal next time
We rose early this morning, grabbed our three mil’s and headed out to the Cove. We found a whole school of swimmers about to take off for the shores and one very grumpy diver returning.
Entry was a little inspiring. I was quite inspired at the design that goes into diving wet suits that zip across the front, and how they don’t send chills down your back upon entry. I was inspired by the way that our current wet suits fit so much better. I was inspired by how much warmer more than twice as much neoprene will make you.
Then we started swimming, and there was more inspiration. Almost immediately I saw something flying through the water. On a strong gut feeling I sucked down a deep breath and started swimming after it. As I expected, there was a bat ray flying over the rocks and kelp. I got to follow it for about 30 ft as it flew and then I had to surface.
A little more floating and we ran into some kelp that was emerging from the depths. Near the canopy section where it’s warm and bright were several schools of baby señoritas! They were quite tiny, the largest being at most one inch long. Tré cute. I also saw a halibut swimming over the rocks at this point. That’s pretty unusual since they like to hang out in the sand where they are more camouflaged. Of course, being over algae covered rocks made it easy to see.
After some more floating, on a whim I dove down and came across a three to four foot long leopard shark that was as surprised by me as I was by it. We played chicken for a second until it flinched so I could follow it. Between the surprise and the effort to keep up with it I had to surface a few seconds later. Since the visibility wasn’t that good I couldn’t keep track of it and chase it down after taking another breath.
More drifting and I came across a small school of juvenile sardines heading westwards near the surface. They stayed together pretty well and were quite shiny. A minute or two later I ran across a few small california barracuda. They’re quite shiny, as you’d expect. They were thinking about hunting a school of baby unknown damsels. These damsels were pink and yellow and very small. They were shaped more-or-less like garibaldi, but clearly weren’t (no blue spots).
Which reminds me, we saw lots of garibaldi and various kelp bass as you’d expect. We didn’t manage to find the giant sea bass we saw on Thursday.
On the way back in we ran across the beefiest shovelnose guitarfish we’d ever seen. It happily swam underneath us on its way out to points unknown. Around this time I also came across another, larger leopard shark — this was the one Jessica saw on Thursday. It was easily 5 ft. long.
Of note: I didn’t come across a single lobster. I suppose they haven’t migrated back to San Diego just yet, or they’re still hatching in their rocky caves.
Over all, this was a great way to start the 4th of July weekend. w00t!
The plan: get up early before work and go diving.
The reason: vis is good at the shores, the cove shouldn’t suck.
The problem: we both forgot Jess’ dive computer at home.
The solution: a quick trip back home and showing up to work a little late.
The dive: FREAKING AWESOME.
After getting our gear squared away (Jess’ BC was leaking a little from the shoulder dump valve) we kicked out for 3 years, finally arriving at the orange buoy. On the way out a smallish pod of dolphins swam between us and the shore. There were two, maybe three. Once at the buoy we descended and immediately saw a bat ray swimming away. Damn.
We proceeded to greet our old friends: calico bass, garibaldi, blacksmith, sheephead, purple urchins and company. Everybody was out to say hello. I think they know to hide during the weekends, because everybody that we usually don’t see on Saturday morning dives was out.
Looking up for some random reason I saw a school of california barracuda swimming in circles above us. There must have been thirty, at least. They were happily swimming in a large circle around our air bubbles perhaps five feet above us.
After poking around for a while we came across a big sheep crab holding breakfast: fresh octopus! Since all the fish in the area know to follow divers for a treat, they all started taking swipes at crabbie’s breakfast. Since he had 4 legs to walk on and 2 to hold breakfast with that left him with 2 big claws to shoo the fish away with. It worked most of the time. A particularly rambunctious sheephead managed to snag a bite. I was so proud
Having thought we found the coolest thing we would for the dive we started heading back towards shore since we were behind schedule. Not 15 seconds later Jess grabbed my fin and I spun around to see TWO of the largest GIANT sea bass I’ve ever come across. 8-OThey were awe inspiring. One was obviously a smallish black GSB (they get gargantuan, he was merely huge) and the other looked to be a full sized white giant sea bass.
UPDATED: Here are two pics of the white one. The first photo was taken by Lisa Munger, the second by Dan Scanderbeg. Both were posted on the Divebums Photos of The Week. The third photo was found via Google Image Search and is of a black sea bass incredibly similar to the one we saw.
The black one was at least four feet long, two feet tall, and at least one foot wide. Its face was covered in copepods, as is common in beasts that large. I waved to it which it acknowledged. I then wiggled my fingers at it, which got much more attention than I had wanted. The four of us just hung out and watched each other for a while, none able to leave the others. Eventually they figured out that we had no plans of feeding them and slowly swam away.
Realizing that there was no possible way the dive could be topped we swam back to shore. Not even sea lions would have made the day any better. Besides, they weren’t out
On the way back in, Jessica snorkeled a bit and saw a HUGEleopard shark hanging out just under the surface. Since I wasn’t close enough, she didn’t get to show me. She also saw some baby fish of some sort that we haven’t seen before. She’ll do some research to find out what kind they are.
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