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La Jolla Shores/Laguna Trip Report (May 13-14)
Friday: I dropped the dog off at the kennel and stopped at Scuba Sciences (7th St.) to fill up one of my tanks, finally got on the road to San Diego about 4pm.
It was a pleasant drive, my first time direct to San Diego, I'm so used to driving I-10 to Orange County, (I've made that drive over 100 x's in the 9 yrs I've lived in the valley) the change of scenery on I-8 was nice, except for the immigration checkpoints, I have a funny story about 1 of them, but for a later time.
Arrived in SD about 9:30pm, found my hotel (Doubletree Club, $52+tax from Priceline, regularly $140, thanks booth22). Got checked in just in time to catch the last 10 minutes or so of the Suns/Clippers game.
Saturday: Had the alarm set for 6, but wanted a bit more sleep and snoozed 1 too many times and disabled the alarm. Overslept and finally woke at 9am, grabbed some breakfast at the hotel buffett and headed to La Jolla Shores to meet up with the Scubaboard SoCal kelp divers at their [thread=137378]monthly Wrinkles Dive[/thread].
Arrived at the shores about 10:30am, saw some old friends and met some new, wetrat was trying to pawn off his 247lbs. of potato salad on whoever walked up, hungry or not
, most folks we're still out on their 1st dive.
I started setting up my gear, and although I had checked it all before packing for the trip, I popped an O ring on my HP spg hose when charging the line and got a low battery when I turned on my computer, lucky I came with the full arsenal of spare batteries and O rings, not that I would have had a problem finding one with all the friendly divers around.
When I finally got geared up, headhunter and Taniwha were heading out on their second dive and I joined up with them. As we were walking to the beach I asked where we were diving? They said the "Way North Wall", it was at that point that I knew I was screwed, any dive site with "Way" in the name has to mean a long surface swim and I wasn't wrong, it took well over 30 minutes to kick out to it, headhunter has a depth finder, which is a lifesaver here, saves on burning air over the sand or missing a plateau and dropping down into the canyon.
Dive #1 (Log# 43)
Dive Location: Way North Wall, La Jolla
Buddies: Christian (headhunter) & Doug (Taniwha)
Time: I don't know when I changed the battery in my computer the time/date reset but about 12:30
Bottom Time: 32 minutes
Max Depth: 94 fsw
Viz: 40' under the thermocline
Wave height: Flat
Temp at depth: 53F
Dropped down when headhunter's depth finder read 60', but drifted a bit and ended up at our max depth, at about 45' we hit the thermocline and the viz opened up to 40' and clear, it was fantastic. The highlight of the dive was the Wolf Eel we saw and a huge sheepshead. There were also tons of blackeye gobies, baby halibut, several crab species and nudibranchs.It was an excellent dive, great buddies, surf was non-existant, seas were calm, viz was great, what more could you ask for.
Made it back to the group just in time for luch; burgers, dogs, tater salad, tiramasu (I_AM's wife made it, it was delicious) and other assorted goodies. Made a trip to the dive shop for fills and socialized for a good while while offgassing.
Dive #2 (Log# 44)
Dive Location: Vallecitos
Buddy: Christian (headhunter)
Time: I don't know, but after 3 1/2 hr. Surface Interval
Bottom Time: 38 minutes
Max Depth: 100 fsw (my first time hitting the century mark)
Viz: 30' under the thermocline
Wave height: still flat
Temp at depth: 53F, but felt colder than Dive #1
Once again the viz opened up wonderfully under the thermocline, wasn't bad above it either. Went and checked out a sheep crab, that is when we hit max depth, he was good size. We followed the wall around the point from the main wall to the south wall, tons of nudis, I've never seen so many on 1 dive, actually saw one swimming/hovering about 2 feet of the sand which was really cool to watch, tons of crabs, gobies, anemones, a large sea hare and others; I'm terrible at identification, don't shoot photos (yet) and have a terrible memory, but there was alot of different species on this dive. Made our way over the wall and into the sand dollar bed which was neat, never seen a sand dollar in the wild let alone hundreds of them. This dive was probably in my top 2 or 3 SoCal (mainland) beach dives.
By the time we got back to base camp, most everyone had gone, but there were probably 50 people there at somepoint throughout the day, a great turnout; never did see booth22, he and his wife were supposed to be there, hope everything is OK. Everyone was done diving, I would have loved to do a night dive, but didn't have any takers; so packed up the gear, and joined the dinner crowd at "The Spot" in La Jolla Village. Good food, good company, great day! 1 more dive would have made it perfect, but I slept in, so my bad.
I'd decided to drive up to Orange county that night and stay at my parents house and go diving at Laguna on Sunday, so I said my farwell's (until next time) and got on the road, arrived in Anaheim Hills at midnight, woke up the house sitter and gave her a bit of a fright, my parents were in Florida visiting relatives, they apparently forgot to tell her I may be coming, but she's known me for 20+ years so after the initial shock, she went back to sleep and so did I.
Sunday: Got up @ 7am and made the trek to Laguna Beach, where two groups were supposed to be diving, one at Diver's Cove and another was going out to Deadman's Reef, I decided to go to Diver's, I've only dove there once in bad viz and after the surface swims at La Jolla I wasn't looking forward to another out to Deadman's. Arrived at Diver's at 8am, but no group, swell had picked up overnight and there was foam all in the cove, Oh well Deadman's it is, so I drove the couple blocks to Deadman's, just in time to see the group surface swimming out, guess it was 8am in the water not to meet; Oh well. Drove around Laguna dive spots for a few minutes looking for someone gearing up that I could tag along with, but they were all already in the water or not there because of the swell. I was still tired from Saturday so I headed back to my parents.
After a nice hot shower and cat nap, I headed out to enjoy some sunshine (without the heat of AZ). Picked up some flowers for my mom and stopped to get something to eat. headhunter called my cell and said he was about ready to leave La Jolla and asked if I wanted to meet him in Laguna for a dive or two. So I ran back to my parents and picked up my tanks and headed back to Laguna, we were meeting at Laguna Sea Sports to get fills and figure out where to dive. I arrived before him and they told me the beaches were closed because of the surf, this has just been my luck at Laguna for my last 3 or 4 trips. headhunter arrived and I informed him of the bad news, but we went to check it out for ourselves, surf wasn't unmanageable steady 3's with the occassional 4-5', not a real problem if timed right, but we decided the viz probably wasn't worth the hassle unless we went out to Deadman's to possibly get under the muck; I wasn't really up for it, as the day went on I got sorer and sorer from the previous day, not in diving shape and still have my winter fat (OK, OK it's year round fat, but sshhh don't tell anyone my secret)
So we thumbed the dive and went searching for someplace to have a late lunch. We ended up at Laguna Beach Brewing Co.; good food, looks like a fun place to go to at night.
Christian (headhunter) is great company, and does a hell of a job running and organizing the SoCal scubaboard get togethers along with TechAdmin (Ted). He wanted me to make it a point of letting all the AZ divers know they are more than welcome to any of the gatherings, the more the merrier (Beach (Wrinkles) every 2nd Saturday of the month, Boat (Mo2vation) every 4th Saturday, I think, and locations change every month so check the Socal trips and marketplace forum for details). Next month's beach dive is Heisler Park, Laguna, July is at Avalon Dive Park, Catalina. There is a [thread=123344]boat dive[/thread] Memorial Day weekend (May 27th) on the Sundiver out of Long Beach 5-6 spots still open as of this posting (I'm going on this). If Santa Barbara and camping is more your style, you may want to check out the [thread=141121]Tri-Counties Dive/Picnic/Campout[/thread]
After lunch I headed back to my parents, who had gotten back from Florida, so I was able to give my mom some love on mother's day in person for a change.
Laguna has become my personal nemesis, I can't seem to get a good dive in there ever since last Thanksgiving. Maybe memorial day weekend my luck will change. In retrospect I should have just stayed in La Jolla and dove there Sunday, but what's the saying; "Even the best laid plans can be laid to waste".
Monday: I tried to find someone for an early morning dive, but people got to work, so I understood when I couldn't find anyone. It was my birthday, so I needed to head home early & quickly so I could spend it with my kids, got on the road at 10:50am and arrived at I-10 and Loop 101 at 3:15; that's a new record for me. Picked up the dog at the kennel, dropped off the gear at home and picked up the kids at their mom's. They took me out to eat at Red Lobster for my birthday; when I got home, I promptly got sick and spent the evening praying to the porcelain god, Thank you for that Red Lobster and Happy freakin' Birthday to me
All-in-All it was a good trip, would've been better with more diving, but you play the hand your dealt.
Garrett
Friday: I dropped the dog off at the kennel and stopped at Scuba Sciences (7th St.) to fill up one of my tanks, finally got on the road to San Diego about 4pm.
It was a pleasant drive, my first time direct to San Diego, I'm so used to driving I-10 to Orange County, (I've made that drive over 100 x's in the 9 yrs I've lived in the valley) the change of scenery on I-8 was nice, except for the immigration checkpoints, I have a funny story about 1 of them, but for a later time.
Arrived in SD about 9:30pm, found my hotel (Doubletree Club, $52+tax from Priceline, regularly $140, thanks booth22). Got checked in just in time to catch the last 10 minutes or so of the Suns/Clippers game.
Saturday: Had the alarm set for 6, but wanted a bit more sleep and snoozed 1 too many times and disabled the alarm. Overslept and finally woke at 9am, grabbed some breakfast at the hotel buffett and headed to La Jolla Shores to meet up with the Scubaboard SoCal kelp divers at their [thread=137378]monthly Wrinkles Dive[/thread].
Arrived at the shores about 10:30am, saw some old friends and met some new, wetrat was trying to pawn off his 247lbs. of potato salad on whoever walked up, hungry or not
, most folks we're still out on their 1st dive.I started setting up my gear, and although I had checked it all before packing for the trip, I popped an O ring on my HP spg hose when charging the line and got a low battery when I turned on my computer, lucky I came with the full arsenal of spare batteries and O rings, not that I would have had a problem finding one with all the friendly divers around.
When I finally got geared up, headhunter and Taniwha were heading out on their second dive and I joined up with them. As we were walking to the beach I asked where we were diving? They said the "Way North Wall", it was at that point that I knew I was screwed, any dive site with "Way" in the name has to mean a long surface swim and I wasn't wrong, it took well over 30 minutes to kick out to it, headhunter has a depth finder, which is a lifesaver here, saves on burning air over the sand or missing a plateau and dropping down into the canyon.
Dive #1 (Log# 43)
Dive Location: Way North Wall, La Jolla
Buddies: Christian (headhunter) & Doug (Taniwha)
Time: I don't know when I changed the battery in my computer the time/date reset but about 12:30
Bottom Time: 32 minutes
Max Depth: 94 fsw
Viz: 40' under the thermocline
Wave height: Flat
Temp at depth: 53F
Dropped down when headhunter's depth finder read 60', but drifted a bit and ended up at our max depth, at about 45' we hit the thermocline and the viz opened up to 40' and clear, it was fantastic. The highlight of the dive was the Wolf Eel we saw and a huge sheepshead. There were also tons of blackeye gobies, baby halibut, several crab species and nudibranchs.It was an excellent dive, great buddies, surf was non-existant, seas were calm, viz was great, what more could you ask for.
Made it back to the group just in time for luch; burgers, dogs, tater salad, tiramasu (I_AM's wife made it, it was delicious) and other assorted goodies. Made a trip to the dive shop for fills and socialized for a good while while offgassing.
Dive #2 (Log# 44)
Dive Location: Vallecitos
Buddy: Christian (headhunter)
Time: I don't know, but after 3 1/2 hr. Surface Interval
Bottom Time: 38 minutes
Max Depth: 100 fsw (my first time hitting the century mark)
Viz: 30' under the thermocline
Wave height: still flat
Temp at depth: 53F, but felt colder than Dive #1
Once again the viz opened up wonderfully under the thermocline, wasn't bad above it either. Went and checked out a sheep crab, that is when we hit max depth, he was good size. We followed the wall around the point from the main wall to the south wall, tons of nudis, I've never seen so many on 1 dive, actually saw one swimming/hovering about 2 feet of the sand which was really cool to watch, tons of crabs, gobies, anemones, a large sea hare and others; I'm terrible at identification, don't shoot photos (yet) and have a terrible memory, but there was alot of different species on this dive. Made our way over the wall and into the sand dollar bed which was neat, never seen a sand dollar in the wild let alone hundreds of them. This dive was probably in my top 2 or 3 SoCal (mainland) beach dives.
By the time we got back to base camp, most everyone had gone, but there were probably 50 people there at somepoint throughout the day, a great turnout; never did see booth22, he and his wife were supposed to be there, hope everything is OK. Everyone was done diving, I would have loved to do a night dive, but didn't have any takers; so packed up the gear, and joined the dinner crowd at "The Spot" in La Jolla Village. Good food, good company, great day! 1 more dive would have made it perfect, but I slept in, so my bad.
I'd decided to drive up to Orange county that night and stay at my parents house and go diving at Laguna on Sunday, so I said my farwell's (until next time) and got on the road, arrived in Anaheim Hills at midnight, woke up the house sitter and gave her a bit of a fright, my parents were in Florida visiting relatives, they apparently forgot to tell her I may be coming, but she's known me for 20+ years so after the initial shock, she went back to sleep and so did I.
Sunday: Got up @ 7am and made the trek to Laguna Beach, where two groups were supposed to be diving, one at Diver's Cove and another was going out to Deadman's Reef, I decided to go to Diver's, I've only dove there once in bad viz and after the surface swims at La Jolla I wasn't looking forward to another out to Deadman's. Arrived at Diver's at 8am, but no group, swell had picked up overnight and there was foam all in the cove, Oh well Deadman's it is, so I drove the couple blocks to Deadman's, just in time to see the group surface swimming out, guess it was 8am in the water not to meet; Oh well. Drove around Laguna dive spots for a few minutes looking for someone gearing up that I could tag along with, but they were all already in the water or not there because of the swell. I was still tired from Saturday so I headed back to my parents.
After a nice hot shower and cat nap, I headed out to enjoy some sunshine (without the heat of AZ). Picked up some flowers for my mom and stopped to get something to eat. headhunter called my cell and said he was about ready to leave La Jolla and asked if I wanted to meet him in Laguna for a dive or two. So I ran back to my parents and picked up my tanks and headed back to Laguna, we were meeting at Laguna Sea Sports to get fills and figure out where to dive. I arrived before him and they told me the beaches were closed because of the surf, this has just been my luck at Laguna for my last 3 or 4 trips. headhunter arrived and I informed him of the bad news, but we went to check it out for ourselves, surf wasn't unmanageable steady 3's with the occassional 4-5', not a real problem if timed right, but we decided the viz probably wasn't worth the hassle unless we went out to Deadman's to possibly get under the muck; I wasn't really up for it, as the day went on I got sorer and sorer from the previous day, not in diving shape and still have my winter fat (OK, OK it's year round fat, but sshhh don't tell anyone my secret)
So we thumbed the dive and went searching for someplace to have a late lunch. We ended up at Laguna Beach Brewing Co.; good food, looks like a fun place to go to at night.
Christian (headhunter) is great company, and does a hell of a job running and organizing the SoCal scubaboard get togethers along with TechAdmin (Ted). He wanted me to make it a point of letting all the AZ divers know they are more than welcome to any of the gatherings, the more the merrier (Beach (Wrinkles) every 2nd Saturday of the month, Boat (Mo2vation) every 4th Saturday, I think, and locations change every month so check the Socal trips and marketplace forum for details). Next month's beach dive is Heisler Park, Laguna, July is at Avalon Dive Park, Catalina. There is a [thread=123344]boat dive[/thread] Memorial Day weekend (May 27th) on the Sundiver out of Long Beach 5-6 spots still open as of this posting (I'm going on this). If Santa Barbara and camping is more your style, you may want to check out the [thread=141121]Tri-Counties Dive/Picnic/Campout[/thread]
After lunch I headed back to my parents, who had gotten back from Florida, so I was able to give my mom some love on mother's day in person for a change.
Laguna has become my personal nemesis, I can't seem to get a good dive in there ever since last Thanksgiving. Maybe memorial day weekend my luck will change. In retrospect I should have just stayed in La Jolla and dove there Sunday, but what's the saying; "Even the best laid plans can be laid to waste".
Monday: I tried to find someone for an early morning dive, but people got to work, so I understood when I couldn't find anyone. It was my birthday, so I needed to head home early & quickly so I could spend it with my kids, got on the road at 10:50am and arrived at I-10 and Loop 101 at 3:15; that's a new record for me. Picked up the dog at the kennel, dropped off the gear at home and picked up the kids at their mom's. They took me out to eat at Red Lobster for my birthday; when I got home, I promptly got sick and spent the evening praying to the porcelain god, Thank you for that Red Lobster and Happy freakin' Birthday to me
All-in-All it was a good trip, would've been better with more diving, but you play the hand your dealt.
Garrett
