Sep 04 Dive Reports

[pasley]

Date: 9/18/2004
Dive Location: Malaga Cove Palo Verde
Time: 10:18 AM
Bottom Time: 44:10
Max Depth: 25
Vis: 15
Wave height: 1 foot
Temp at depth: 72 Suunto Degrees
Surface Temp: 72 Suunto Degrees
Tide information:
Comments: Swam out to Haggerty’s with my dive partner Andy, only to discover he was having an issue with his first stage, and bubbles coming out of it. So we cancelled the dive. On exiting the water, I was greeted by a Mel whom I had met before at a Sandeaters dive (http://www.sandeaters.org) and joined his group which was just getting ready to go out for a dive. Swam back out to the area of the pool and dropped down over the sand, came back into the reef and spent a mellow time diving around there. Lots of small juvenile fish and some octopi too. Had a good time. Small waves and small surge.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

9/18/04
Went to my favorite dive site this morning. The Caissons are large concrete structures sitting upright 3 1/4 miles off Pt. Fermin. It's amazing to see so much varied life, from Yellowtail and Lingcod to lush invertebrate life that close to shore. My avatar is a shot from the top of the structure. Pics from today's dive can be found in my gallery here.
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/748/page/1
Visibility from the surface to about 80 feet was at least 80 feet of nice blue water, with 30 feet vis on the bottom. Temps were 54F on the structure with a warm high 60s above 40 feet.

 

[hermosadive]

Date: 9/19/2004
Dive Location: Longpoint, Palos Verdes
Time: 8:30 AM
Bottom Time: 44:30
Max Depth: 34
Vis: 15-20
Wave height: 1-2 foot shorebreak
Temp at depth: 65 Degrees
Surface Temp: unknown Degrees
Tide information:
Comments: Orignal plan was to dive Malaga Cove. Woke up to drastic change in conditions from previous day. Large waves & chop made Malaga a no-dive. Took the short trip over to Longpoint and found conditions dive favorable.

Entered at cove and dove the outer reef with approx 20' vis. Visability decrease in shallows due to increase shore break. Swam back towards inner reef shallows making our way to the original entry point. Lots of bat stars & spiny sand stars, greenling & blackeye goby. Fun dive considering conditions elsewhere.

Roland

 

[ScubaSeanMaui]

Date: 9/18/2004
Dive Location: Casino Point, Catalina
Time: Dive 1: 10:44am Dive 2: 1:46pm Dive 3: 4:18pm
Bottom Time: Dive 1: 60 mins Dive 2: 46 mins Dive 3: 53 mins
Max Depth: Dive 1: 81 Dive 2: 89 Dive 3: 70 feet
Vis: 15-40 feet
Wave height: 0 - 1
Temp at depth: 68:64:70 Degrees
Surface Temp: unknown
Tide information: unknown
Comments: Wrinkles dive in Casino Point. Saw many scubaboard.com members included: Jennifer, Jim, Christian, Roy, Jonathan, Arnaud, David, Ann Marie and her friend Jackie; some others were there but I never saw them. We really just saw one another during the SI at our "spot," our lunch, and at the Catalina Cantina at the end. The dives were nice and the vis was pretty good. CP is a very pretty spot but really busy with diver traffic. The blue-banded gobies are all over the place. We saw some baby sheephead, scorpionfish, sculpin, blacksmith, tons of baitfish swimming all over the park, a few barracuda, a pretty giant kelpfish, and more. I had fun and look forward to the next Wrinkles Dive!

pictures:
http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/cp09182004

 

[headhunter]

Date: 9/18/04
Dive Location: Casino Point for 2 dives. I purposely took it really easy the first day back in the ocean after a long time off. I took the 6:15am Catalina Express and let sapphire, AndrewJD, and mccabejc show me the ropes using Catalina Baggage. Aside from a long wait for the truck on the way "back", it was really cool that they babysat our gear while we gathered at the cantina for a little dinner.

Dive 1
Time: Morning (I took off my watch and was only wearing my bottom timer.)
Bottom Time: 41 min.
Max Depth: 44 ft.
Vis: 35 - 40 ft.
Wave height: Can you say swimming pool!
Temp at depth: 73 degrees (too warm!)
Surface Temp: ?
Tide information: ?
Comments: This first dive couldn't have gone better. Jim (sportin' the weights he remembered ) was the brave soul who went out for a spin on my first dive to test me out. We dropped off the stairs, swam out to the little orange buoy and took a leisurely dive out to the end of the breakwater. When the sound of the boats got louder we turned around and passed over the Jaques Cousteau plaque. Upon our return to the little orange bouy we surfaced for an 3 min. safety stop at 15 ft. and then came up with 500 psi left. Thanks to Jim for a great dive.

Dive 2
Time: Afternoon (watch was still in the locker, but I know I took a nice long 3 hour and 45 min SI that included a nice lunch!)
Bottom Time: 30 min.
Max Depth: 74 ft.
Vis: 30 ft
Wave height: still nothing to speak of
Temp at depth: 74 degrees (even warmer)
Surface Temp: ?
Tide information: ?
Comments: This time I went out with David (dazedone) as a buddy. We swam straight out from the stairs and a bit to the left to the white bouy at the edge of the dive park to join a couple of other dive teams. We dropped down to a little wreck (I'm not sure what it was called). After about 5 min. David and I broke off from the rest of the group and spent the rest of the time between about 15' and 30' ft. I tried taking 2 lbs off of my belt and was unable to hold a 10 foot safety stop without drifting up. I came up with 1100 psi which was great for my somewhat square profile calculation figuring 70 feet for 30 min. (I rounded down to 70 feet on my tables since, so much time was spent at a shallower depth) and David made it to his afternoon boat back to Dana Point. Another great dive and my thanks go out to David.

It was a wonderful day and I look forward to my next dive adventure with all my ScubaBoard buddies!

I'm sure we'll hear from others about their dives on the "Wrinkles in Absentia" dive. Maybe we'll get some pictures from them too!

Christian

 

[headhunter]

Date: 9/18/2004
Dive Location: Casino Point, Catalina
Time: Dive 1: 10:44am Dive 2: 1:46pm Dive 3: 4:18pm
Bottom Time: Dive 1: 60 mins Dive 2: 46 mins Dive 3: 53 mins
Max Depth: Dive 1: 81 Dive 2: 89 Dive 3: 70 feet
Vis: 15-40 feet
Wave height: 0 - 1
Temp at depth: 68:64:70 Degrees
Surface Temp: unknown
Tide information: unknown
Comments: Wrinkles dive in Casino Point. Saw many scubaboard.com members included: Jennifer, Jim, Christian, Roy, Jonathan, Arnaud, David, Ann Marie and her friend Jackie; some others were there but I never saw them. We really just saw one another during the SI at our "spot," our lunch, and at the Catalina Cantina at the end. The dives were nice and the vis was pretty good. CP is a very pretty spot but really busy with diver traffic. The blue-banded gobies are all over the place. We saw some baby sheephead, scorpionfish, sculpin, blacksmith, tons of baitfish swimming all over the park, a few barracuda, a pretty giant kelpfish, and more. I had fun and look forward to the next Wrinkles Dive!

pictures:
http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/cp09182004

Nice pics sean!

Christian

 

[dazedone]

Date: 9/18/04
Dive Location: Casino Point for 2 dives. I purposely took it really easy the first day back in the ocean after a long time off. I took the 6:15am Catalina Express and let sapphire, AndrewJD, and mccabejc show me the ropes using Catalina Baggage. Aside from a long wait for the truck on the way "back", it was really cool that they babysat our gear while we gathered at the cantina for a little dinner.

Dive 1
Time: Morning (I took off my watch and was only wearing my bottom timer.)
Bottom Time: 41 min.
Max Depth: 44 ft.
Vis: 35 - 40 ft.
Wave height: Can you say swimming pool!
Temp at depth: 73 degrees (too warm!)
Surface Temp: ?
Tide information: ?
Comments: This first dive couldn't have gone better. Jim (sportin' the weights he remembered ) was the brave soul who went out for a spin on my first dive to test me out. We dropped off the stairs, swam out to the little orange buoy and took a leisurely dive out to the end of the breakwater. When the sound of the boats got louder we turned around and passed over the Jaques Cousteau plaque. Upon our return to the little orange bouy we surfaced for an 3 min. safety stop at 15 ft. and then came up with 500 psi left. Thanks to Jim for a great dive.

Dive 2
Time: Afternoon (watch was still in the locker, but I know I took a nice long 3 hour and 45 min SI that included a nice lunch!)
Bottom Time: 30 min.
Max Depth: 74 ft.
Vis: 30 ft
Wave height: still nothing to speak of
Temp at depth: 74 degrees (even warmer)
Surface Temp: ?
Tide information: ?
Comments: This time I went out with David (dazedone) as a buddy. We swam straight out from the stairs and a bit to the left to the white bouy at the edge of the dive park to join a couple of other dive teams. We dropped down to a little wreck (I'm not sure what it was called). After about 5 min. David and I broke off from the rest of the group and spent the rest of the time between about 15' and 30' ft. I tried taking 2 lbs off of my belt and was unable to hold a 10 foot safety stop without drifting up. I came up with 1100 psi which was great for my somewhat square profile calculation figuring 70 feet for 30 min. (I rounded down to 70 feet on my tables since, so much time was spent at a shallower depth) and David made it to his afternoon boat back to Dana Point. Another great dive and my thanks go out to David.

It was a wonderful day and I look forward to my next dive adventure with all my ScubaBoard buddies!

I'm sure we'll hear from others about their dives on the "Wrinkles in Absentia" dive. Maybe we'll get some pictures from them too!

Christian

I enjoyed divng with you, Christian, even though you were above me the whole time. At least you now know exactly how much weight you need now . Sorry I had to cut that last dive short. I should have booked a later boat coming back, oh well. I will dive with you again any time.

-David

 

[headhunter]

I enjoyed divng with you, Christian, even though you were above me the whole time. At least you now know exactly how much weight you need now . Sorry I had to cut that last dive short. I should have booked a later boat coming back, oh well. I will dive with you again any time.

-David

Actually, I would have called the dive anyway. Since I was calculating square profiles (with a minor adjustment down to a max depth of 70' instead of 74' rounded up to 80'), I was at the end of my NDL for a 70' dive.

I've got to learn to easily calculate multi-level dives using my tables. At least, this way, I know I've got a huge safety margin built in even though I'm basically using the Navy tables.

We'll dive again soon.

Christian

 

[ScubaSeanMaui]

Date: 9/23/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores – Way North Wall
Time: 4:36 PM
Bottom Time: 50:20
Max Depth: 93 feet
Vis: 20-30
Wave height: 1-2 foot
Temp at depth: 57 Suunto Degrees
Surface Temp: 68 Suunto Degrees
Tide information: Lower Tide
Comments: Had a great dive with Terry aka Divinman and Roy aka Shaka Zulu! We rented some scooters from a local dive shop and headed out to the Way North Wall at La Jolla Shores. We dropped down and proceeded down the peninsula heading northwest. After 10 minutes or so we encountered the edge of the canyon running east-west. We headed east exploring the wall with our lights as we scooted by. We saw a few octopus, a fringehead, a huge sheephead (3 feet long or so), some rockfish, shrimp, and Terry saw a Wolf Eel. We turned back when our air was running low. We passed over a very impressive ledge on the southern edge of the north wall that dropped from 50 – 100 feet. We ascended up to our safety stop depth from 50 feet and headed into the beach. We plan to head back to that ledge on another dive!

Date: 9/23/2004
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores – East Wall
Time: 7:31 PM
Bottom Time: 48:40
Max Depth: 104 feet
Vis: 15-25
Wave height: 1-2 foot
Temp at depth: 57 Suunto Degrees
Surface Temp: 64 Suunto Degrees
Tide information: Medium Tide
Comments: Terry and I did a 2nd dive after our SI. We headed straight out and dropped down 65 feet of water using the borrowed depth finder from John A (thanks). We headed south and saw your usual suspects. Several octopi, several large Barred Sand Bass among the rocks, a sheepcrab, some rockfish, turbot, shovelnose guitarfish, round rays, a box jelly, and more. We headed back, surfacing due to my low air, and swam to shore. I found a watch and Terry and I picked up a few items of trash!

Pics: http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/shores09222004

A few video files: DivX required (http://www.divx.com/divx/download/)
Sarcastic Fringehead - http://www.scubapost.net/videos/P1010019.avi 2 megs
Huge Sheephead - http://www.scubapost.net/videos/P1010027.avi 3 megs
An octopus at night - http://www.scubapost.net/videos/P1010048.avi 7 megs

Just playing around, sharing the dive. Don't expect much!

Enjoy!

 

[divinman]

Nice report and picturs Sean. As always, a pleasure diving with you. Oh. You too Roy.

See you Saturday and we will do it again.

Terry