Sep 04 Dive Reports

[scottfiji]

Date: 07 Sep 2004
Dive Location: Leo Carrillo, Malibu
Time: 3:05PM
Bottom Time: 59:30
Max Depth: 32 feet
Vis: 4-12 feet
Wave height: 3 feet
Tide information: High tide 3:30PM

Comments:

Met up with CHUD (that's cannabilistic human underground dweller for you non sci-fi fans) for some relief from the heat. Chud, it was great diving with you - let's hit some of the other malibu sites soon.

Just as we reached the water, surf, surge, and waves picked up dramatically. Still had a nice dive, saw a guitarfish, cabezon, scorpionfish, lemon nudibranch, treefish, and all the other usual suspects. The topography in Leo Carrillo is amazing, you really feel like you are travelling through tall mountains and dark forests. Very different than the other sites in PV/Malibu I've been diving.

btw, we entered from the south beach, near lifeguard station 1. It was really a crappy spot for entry/exit, I don't recommend it, its all small rocks in shallow water going out quite a ways. The 2 small coves to the north might be better.

Scott

 

[CHUD]

Thanks for breaking me in on shore diving, Scott, I had a great day. And if today's exit and entry are as bad as it gets, then the rest of my beach diving career can only get better, right?

My favorite part of the dive was when we surfaced right next to the surfer. The look on his face was priceless.

 

[Robert Phillips]

Date:9/8/04
Dive Location:Crescent Bay/Deadmans
Time:9:30
Bottom Time:36 min
Max Depth:68'
Vis:15-20
Wave height:2-3
Temp at depth:57 degrees
Surface Temp:71 degrees
Tide information: 3.8 high @ 8:20 A.M.
Comments: Made the trip down to Laguna after surveying the conditions yesterday to see if it had calmed down from the weekend. Conditions were even better than 9/7 and the water was clear and warm. We swam out past the exposed reef and dropped into 23 FSW and made our way out to Deadmans. It's just as long of a swim underwater as it is on the surface, believe me! We made it to Deadmans and headed towards the Shrine. If you don't know about this place then you have not made it to Deadmans. This is where the hardcore locals stack abandoned lobster pots and boat anchors, tires, cinder blocks etc.. It has been neglected and battered for the last season and a half though. It needs some more stuff!
Conditions at Deadmans were good. 20' of visibility in most spots with most averaging at 15'. Thermocline was at 35fsw getting down to the high 50's but I was warm in the drysuit. Due to a short fill, I called the dive after 34 minutes, we made our 3 minute ascent and headed back to shore. The waves were even smaller than when we went in and the water around the shore was crystal clear. A beautiful day to dive!
Robert

 

[divinman]

Quick and dirty.

We met at the shores so that I could try out a BP and Harness to see if it was REALLY something I would want to do. MAN, I really want one now!!!

Date: 09/09/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores South Wall
Time: 19:16
Bottom Time: 65 minutes
Max Depth: 92
Vis: 15-20
Wave height: ankle slappers
Temp at depth: 55
Surface Temp: 69
Tide information: high tide
Comments: No pictures as this was a checkout dive for new gear.

The harness/plate were extremely stable and a pleasure to dive. I may not be ready to drink the DIR kool-ade but I am gettting thirsty.

Things we saw.

Halibut, Hudsons Dorids, Dendronitus Iris in a lovely burgandy shade, two of what I beleive are California Sea Slugs( not sea hares), a sarcastic fringehead, at least a dozen red octopus ranging from thimble size to grapefruit sized and 4 out swimming. The large female sheephead was in her hole as usual at this hour. LOTS of free range lobster out in the sandflats as well as sting rays, thornback rays, shovelnosed guitarfish. Also in abundance were box jellies. They are like little ghosts of the deep that appear like magic in the beam of the HID's, The cusk eels seem to be returning as we saw several and strangely one large one way up on the flats in about 10ft of water.

The highlight of the dive was the 3' batray that lifted off the bottom in 6ft of water right in front of me and then just lazely swam a slow circle within arms reach of use before drifting slowly away into the darkness.

Great night of diving.

Terry S.

 

[ryanarcher]

Date: 09/8/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Cove - Rock Pile
Time: 7:15pm
Bottom Time: 53 minutes
Max Depth: 46
Vis: 10-15
Wave height: 0-1 feet
Temp at depth: 66
Surface Temp: 71
Tide information: mid-high tide
Comments: Met Sean for an evening dive. After finding parking and gearing up Sean came down to the stairs and let me know he did not have his mask (it was in his boat diving bag). Some nice guys from the East Coast offered to let Sean borrow his mask (they were diving tomorrow) and Sean agreed. By the time we got in the water it was nearly dark. We kicked out the the rock pile and saw a large school of bait fish on our swim out - we hoped that "where there's bait, there must be preditors". We dropped down in about 35 feet of water and the first thing we found was a nice Guess watch that I am now wearing! We headed at a zero degree heading and found the rock pile quickly. We found all the usual suspects - but the good stuff we found was abundant! We saw a giant sea bass, baracuda, 2 octopi, scorpion fish, plenty of rock fish and a decent size horn shark. Sean was taking picutres, but with the borrowed mask his viz wasn't great and his shots aren't the best. Over all it was a great dive and a great way to end a work day!

Here is a link to Sean's pictures: http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/ljcove09082004

 

[ryanarcher]

Date: 09/11/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Cove - Rock Pile
Time: 7:45am
Bottom Time: 55 minutes
Max Depth: 50
Vis: 10-15
Wave height: 0-1 feet
Temp at depth: 64
Surface Temp: 72
Tide information: mid-high tide
Comments: Met Terry, Sean, Roy, Brian and the famous Wrinkles at the Cove with a plan to dive at South Casa. We took a look and Terry thought it wasn't a good idea with the surge and lack of viz - so we went back to the Cove, entered off Alligator Head and kicked out the the kelp. Roy and I lost the group soon after the decent and we swam out to the rock pile. Thre were a lot of fish! I was thinking on the way back in that I think I saw all the fish possible today on this dive. Scorpion fish, rock fish, possibly a giant sea bass, a huge sheephead and all the usual things also. The highlight of the dive I would say was 2 or 3 sharks that were just beyond a school of fish. They looked like blue sharks - but I am guessing they were soupfins. Roy navigated us back to the opening of the Cove and life was great! We met Sean and Terry who were out just before us - and Wrinkles and Brian showed up a little later (their navigation was off and they ended up over by Boomers and then came back around to the Cove).

 

[ryanarcher]

Date: 09/11/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Cove - Boomers
Time: 10:45am
Bottom Time: 50 minutes
Max Depth: 42
Vis: 15-20
Wave height: 1-2 feet
Temp at depth: 66
Surface Temp: 73
Tide information: mid-high tide
Comments: Sean went and got Ana's tank filled and Roy, Brian, Ana and I geared up to go again after a 2 hour surface interval. Sean didn't want to dive the Cove again - he dove twice yesterday and is diving twice tomorrow - so he went home. We decided to try Boomers and it was great. The viz was better, the surge was moderate and the sites were good. We saw a bunch of lobster, two octopi, three banded guitar fish, and intact dead lobster and a nice scenery change from the Cove. It is just amazing to me that so close to the Cove things can look so different. Overall it was a great dive and we were all glad we decided to dive there.

 

[ScubaSeanMaui]

Date: 09/10/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores, Vallecitos Point
Time: 6:29pm
Bottom Time: 27:20
Max Depth: 93 feet
Vis: 5-30
Wave height: 2 footers
Temp at depth: 55
Surface Temp: 70
Tide information: higher
Comments:
Ryan, John, John, and Gergory went to check out Vallecitos point at the shores.
We discussed the dive at length. John and Gregory were new to these conditions since they dive quarries and lakes back in the Eastern US. We had some waves coming in which slowed our kick out to the bouy. We got to the bouy and discussed the signs and procedures since we frequently loose divers at the shores. After dropping we observed the same octopus at the anchor chain. We kicked out but went south. Our buddies didn’t follow so we surfaced and met John A. We decended and went out properly 270 degrees to the edge of the canyon. We swam along the edge exploring the holes and creatures. Since the canyon edge is very silty, we moved through the canyon leaving plumes of muck reducing visibility to zero in spots. We escorted our guests along, inspecting their air and making sure everything was ok. Before we reached the point we hit our return pressure so we headed up into the beach. We observed several creatures with John and Gregory, making sure they cheked out the “sites” on the dive. We did our safety stop as we came up the beach to the shore, surfacing at 500 psi and kicking in to the beach. They enjoyed the dive and thanked us for showing them Vallecitos point.

Date: 09/10/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores, Vallecitos Point
Time: 8:06pm
Bottom Time: 42:20
Max Depth: 110 feet
Vis: 15-35
Wave height: 1.5 footers
Temp at depth: 55
Surface Temp: 72
Tide information: higher
Comments:
John and I elected to do a night dive, with Ryan and our guests taking off. John and I kicked out even with, but 30 yards north of the bouy. We dropped down in 25 feet of water reaching over 100 feet within 5 minutes. We made out way along the canyon, carefully watching our bottom time since it was reduced by our last dive. We saw many different creatures including a Yellow Dorid and California Armena nudibranchs, navanax, several cusk eels, several octopi, a wandering brittle star, possibly a brown shrimp, some halibut, dozens of sand dabs, several large sting rays, a few thornback rays, one a tiny baby thornback. We saw a few box jellies, a few scorpion fish, and more.

pics: http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/shores09102004

Sean

 

[mccabejc]

Date: 9/11/04
Dive Location: Malaga Cove, Palos Verdes
Time: 9:04 am
Bottom Time: 64:30
Max Depth: 30
Vis: 5-15
Wave height: 1-2
Temp at depth: 68 deg. F
Surface Temp: 75 deg. F
Tide information: High, going low

Had a wonderful dive at Malaga Cove with Pasley. Also met up with hermosadive and his buddies. Pasley and I buddied up, and decided on a beach entry. Surf was only 1-2 feet, but the surfers were squeezing out some rides. We kicked out in no-visibility water, all the way over to line up with the pool at the beach club. Dropped down into 12 feet of water, with viz around 5 feet. Under the expert guidance of Mr. Pasley, we headed towards Haggerty's (the point, as you look southwest from the beach). Wiggled our way through a very thick kelp forest, which suddenly opened up to reefs with a lot of fishes and stuff. Visibility improved to around 15 feet, maybe more. What did we see? (Help me out here Pasley if I'm off on any of these). A couple of horn sharks, about a half dozen lobsters, garibaldi, schools of senioritas, and a big old leopard shark that almost collided with me. Very cool. Maybe 4 or 5 feet long. On the way back, Pasley tugged on me and pointed to a big dark thing about 15-20 feet ahead, and I couldn't make it out. Moved in a bit closer, and was surprised to see huge (maybe 5 ft. wingspan) bat ray. Though the bat ray didn't seem to have a tail. Is it still a bat ray? There was a lot of surge, and now I know what it's like to do do drift diving. Kind of like scuba surfing. We passed over the remnants of the old pier, thru some eel grass, then surfaced in the shallows in front of the club. Decided to exit on the rocks at the club, which was very easy, and saved us another hour or two of kicking back to the beach. Anyway, it was an absolute blast. And of course Pasley is a world class dive buddy. And since most of our dive was a prolonged 10-20 ft. safety stop, I think we're pretty good in that department. We decided to hold it to one dive today, and I spent the rest of the day with the family at Malaga trying to find a wave to ride with the boogie board.

 

[alaity47]

Date: 9/12/04
Dive Location: Shaw's Cove, Laguna
Time: 9 am
Bottom Time: 45 min
Max Depth: 38
Vis: 15-25
Wave height: mostly non-existent; occasional 1/2 footers
Temp at depth: 66
Surface Temp: 68
Tide information: Right before high tide

Great dive! This was my first (successful) dive at Shaw's, and I can't wait to go back. (First attempt was during my open water class - I got completely knocked around by some unpleasant waves attempting to go in for a skin dive, and the instructor eventually called off the scuba portion of the day).

We tooled around in the crevice looking at lobsters, chestnut cowries and proliferating anemones, then kept going out along the reef. Saw an octopus, lots of the usual fish, and some kind of sole that I can't quite identify: had two clear bulls-eye markings, a thin dorsal fin, and bug-eyes like a CO sole (but not the usual CO markings...???)

When we descended, we discovered our reefmaster camera was in the wrong mode, so no pics. Guess we'll just have to go back after we get the housing for our D-rebel next week!