OP
What a beautiful day on Puget Sound!!!
Air temp was only 54F but with the sun beating down getting into the drysuit wasn't something I wanted to prolong. Fortunately it really doesn't take us long to get going once we hit the parking lot... and the water is only steps away.
Todays dive was at the usual Tuesday site near the ferry landing... it is close easy access but next week we have decided to do something different.
The water is starting to warm up (El Nino) and was 54F at the surface and 50F at the deepest point of the dive. With the warmer water and the sun comes the plankton bloom and it was soup for the first 25' feet.
Knowing this we swam out a hundred feet or so and dropped where we could get below the soupy layer right away.
I was diving double steel 72s with 1500psi of EAN32 and Curt had his usual AL80 of tire filler.
We swam on down to 120'~130' and hung around for a while looking for octopus... found none but did see rockfish and ling cod. We then swam up a small rise to the Troll and followed the ridge NE.
Now on the surface the current was doing what it was supposed to... coming in from the SW... but from the minute we had descended we were fighting a current coming from the NE!
So essentially the whole dive (except for the last little bit) was against the current!!
We putzed around looking for bricks and octopus when I spotted a beautiful Cabezon... I had never seen one mottle itself in such a way. The Cabby didn't seem to pay any attention to me nor to the dungeness crabs that were fighting nearby... even when their tussle sent them racing over the Cabby's back.
I don't think I've ever seen such a mellow Cabezon. Looking closer I could see that a large red rock crab was hiding under a rock directly behind the Cabby... it actually looked trapped but I'm sure it wasn't.
As we turn the direction of the dive the current flow had slowed but was still enough to gently move us back without a lot of effort. We had to stay under 25' though as above that the plankton soup was thick.
At the exit point we finally moved on up to 15' were Curt did his safety stop and I did what I do
. Then I moved on up to 10' and finally 5' to assess my weighting.
This is the first chance I have had with these little tanks to see just how much weight I need... and now that I had them down to 450psi and in 5' of water I wanted to do it.
I had an 8# weight belt on so I took it off and laid it on the bottom. With all the air out of my suit and wing I was still negative! That means my 6# SS plate with 10#V weight between the doubles was plenty sufficient without using a weight belt.
OR that I could remove the V weight and use an 8#~10# belt.
This made me very happy.
As we got out of the water some other divers said that a Gray Whale had gone by and that while we were at the deep spot a seal had gone down (presumably) to check us out. We didn't see him but I'm sure he saw us.
The dive was 128' max 58 min. and my SAC .43 (as figured by the Stinger.)
I asked Curt what he thought the average depth was and he guessed 90' and then 80'. I figured 54'. The Stinger said 51'.
Curt's computer bumped to the red and spent most of the dive in the yellow but finally went two clicks into the green at the end.
My brain said that the profile looked like a check mark with a wide spot at the bottom.... when I downloaded the Stinger I saw that the graph agreed.
Can't wait until tomorrow!
Air temp was only 54F but with the sun beating down getting into the drysuit wasn't something I wanted to prolong. Fortunately it really doesn't take us long to get going once we hit the parking lot... and the water is only steps away.
Todays dive was at the usual Tuesday site near the ferry landing... it is close easy access but next week we have decided to do something different.
The water is starting to warm up (El Nino) and was 54F at the surface and 50F at the deepest point of the dive. With the warmer water and the sun comes the plankton bloom and it was soup for the first 25' feet.
Knowing this we swam out a hundred feet or so and dropped where we could get below the soupy layer right away.
I was diving double steel 72s with 1500psi of EAN32 and Curt had his usual AL80 of tire filler.
We swam on down to 120'~130' and hung around for a while looking for octopus... found none but did see rockfish and ling cod. We then swam up a small rise to the Troll and followed the ridge NE.
Now on the surface the current was doing what it was supposed to... coming in from the SW... but from the minute we had descended we were fighting a current coming from the NE!
So essentially the whole dive (except for the last little bit) was against the current!!
We putzed around looking for bricks and octopus when I spotted a beautiful Cabezon... I had never seen one mottle itself in such a way. The Cabby didn't seem to pay any attention to me nor to the dungeness crabs that were fighting nearby... even when their tussle sent them racing over the Cabby's back.
I don't think I've ever seen such a mellow Cabezon. Looking closer I could see that a large red rock crab was hiding under a rock directly behind the Cabby... it actually looked trapped but I'm sure it wasn't.
As we turn the direction of the dive the current flow had slowed but was still enough to gently move us back without a lot of effort. We had to stay under 25' though as above that the plankton soup was thick.
At the exit point we finally moved on up to 15' were Curt did his safety stop and I did what I do
. Then I moved on up to 10' and finally 5' to assess my weighting.This is the first chance I have had with these little tanks to see just how much weight I need... and now that I had them down to 450psi and in 5' of water I wanted to do it.
I had an 8# weight belt on so I took it off and laid it on the bottom. With all the air out of my suit and wing I was still negative! That means my 6# SS plate with 10#V weight between the doubles was plenty sufficient without using a weight belt.
OR that I could remove the V weight and use an 8#~10# belt.
This made me very happy.
As we got out of the water some other divers said that a Gray Whale had gone by and that while we were at the deep spot a seal had gone down (presumably) to check us out. We didn't see him but I'm sure he saw us.
The dive was 128' max 58 min. and my SAC .43 (as figured by the Stinger.)
I asked Curt what he thought the average depth was and he guessed 90' and then 80'. I figured 54'. The Stinger said 51'.
Curt's computer bumped to the red and spent most of the dive in the yellow but finally went two clicks into the green at the end.
My brain said that the profile looked like a check mark with a wide spot at the bottom.... when I downloaded the Stinger I saw that the graph agreed.
Can't wait until tomorrow!
