Diving the Oil Rigs?

Hello fellow bubble makers!

I am interested in doing some diving on the Cali oil rigs in April. Any thoughts or experiences you can share with me about diving the oil rigs please? Thank you!!

-Tyler

Greetings,
The rigs are a great dive lots of color, and something new always seems to float by on each dive. Bring a camera! and lights.

There are sea lions (I think they are sea lions) at the surface, lots of scallops, and plenty of other sea life as well.
It's a live drop with no bottom so listen to the DMs for instructions on when and how to inter & exit the water/rigs.
Most likely the easiest dive you will ever do.

Good Divin
SoCalRich

It's a live boat dive, so the boat backs up, drops divers, and pulls away, and then comes back at the end to pick you up. The oil rigs are in operation, so there are times when they can't be dived, and times when you need to stay away from certain areas.

The bottoms of the rigs are well beyond recreational depths, so good buoyancy control is important, but it's also kind of easy, because you are always within the structure. Currents can be impressive there, though. That's bad because you REALLY need to stay in contact with the structure, or the boat may lose you, but it's good because some fascinating pelagic animals get blown through the rigs with the moving water.

The views through all the impressive geometry on a good viz day are amazing, and the actual legs and crossbars of the rigs are as densely covered in life as anything you will ever see. It's funny to see the divers in the shallower water displacing brittle stars, which fall on the tanks of the folks down deeper, too!



Photo courtesy my friend Mo2vation . . .

Tyler,

Here is my post from an oil rig trip last summer. You will definitely enjoy it.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/socal/427896-wow-diving-oil-rigs-magician.html

The others have chimed in with the good, and TSandM's pix are really the best of the diving there. I have seen days like that and it is amazing. However, not all days are like that. Sometimes the viz can be 10ft and green, and currents and swells can keep you off them. It is not a sure thing. Also they occasionally have work going on and you may not get permission to dive certain rigs (but that is rare). But when it's good, it is very very good.

When conditions are nice, it's one of my favorite SoCal dives:

[vimeo]36954193[/vimeo]

What dive boat are you going to be on?

About the only boat that would regularly do the oil rigs is the Sea Bass. I've done one dive off one of the Es (I think it was the Ellie) off the Bottom Scratcher boat while on the way to Catalina Island. The rest of the times, it was off the Sea Bass boat.

I was lucky that all my oil rig dives thus far had been in good viz and good water conditions: mild current and low swells.

Nonetheless, oil rig dive can turn treacherous real quick if the water condition were to change. Current can easily sweep in and if you aren't good at recognizing changes in water condition, things can definitely turn nasty for you if you get swept off the rig.

Also, safety stop could be challenging because all those pillars create a lot of turbulence. One minute you can be at 15-ft, the next minute you might get pushed down to 40-ft, the next moment you may get pushed all the way up to the surface. I've learned to swallow my pride and literally hug a pillar/column for my safety stop.

Bring lights because at around 100-ft it turns into a night dive. Another issue that may come up is fishing line entanglement. I've come across several fishing lines before. I would cut them up into several pieces as far as I can reach.

I love diving the rig, but I am always apprehensive and cognizant of the additional danger.

I'd only recommend diving the rig to people who have mastered at least the basic diving skills: buoyancy control, propulsion, situational awareness, etc.

I've done the rigs on the Sundiver Express (limited load) and most recently a few times with Selky Charters (6 pack) - She does the rigs (and other coastal areas) fairly regularly.

Selky Charters?