socaldiver
Contributor
As you know, yesterday was Hump Day and I played hookie from work to go diving.
Got up at 6 yesterday and while having the morning cup of Java I was listening to the weather report saying in the LA suburb I live in it was going to be triple digit highs, zowie! Fought the LA traffic to Long Beach to board the 8:45 express to Catalina. Kath (my dive buddy) and I arrived about 10, walked over to Casino Point and suited up. Normally we take our own tanks (Scubapro 71 steels) but because we will be going to Maui next month and not taking our tanks we decided to rent AL80s to determine what weights will be needed for our trip (we will be packing our soft weights for our integrated BCs). I was also trying out a pair of Apollo Bio fins (normally I wear Twinjets). After downing a couple of bottles of water we entered the water for our first dive around 11:15.
dive 1: Nothing really spectacular, just a fun dive. We decided to go to the east end of the park and play around on the "wall" at the edge of the kelp forest. After initially dropping down to 35 fsw we leisurely swam to Cousteau's monument for a couple of photo ops. Then we made our way to the wall and dropped down to 70 fsw and played around with the marine life and taking a few more pics. Keep looking for bugs because Kath has never really seen one in "the wild" but never did see any. We headed back to where we normally ascend at the end of our dives in the Park to do our 3 minute safety stop, I was down to 900 psi by this time and had a hard time staying down. I finally had to grab the line of one of the bouy's to complete my stop. I was wearing my farmer john 3 mil with 16 lbs of lead, figured that would be plenty because I normally go with 12 lbs. The dive lasted 39 minutes, 70 fsw max, surface air was 75, water on the surface was 70 and at depth 68. The vis was about 35 fsw, a lot of plankton in the water.
We ate some lunch after the dive and after a 1 1/2 hour surface interval we suited up for our second dive.
Dive 2: Again we descended down to 35 feet and moved in a westerly direction. We had decided this dive we would just swim through the kelp forest and stay in relatively shallow water, no deeper than 40 fsw. We came across 2 huge calicos, biggest I have ever seen there. They were about the length of my arm and also a sheephead that was relatively the same size. Shot a couple of pics of them. We went thru a couple of "pillars" of kelp and when we came out the other end there was a wall of kelp in front of us that had a huge school of fish (close to 100 I would think) just hanging there motionless. I tried getting close to get a pic it was so cool to see without scaring them. I hope the pic comes out, because I have no clue what they were and the pic will help me identify them. We then left that "room" and went thru more of the kelp and came across another fairly large school of fish, they were silver and bluish silver with a blue neon stripe going down their side, snapped a shot of them and will look them up for identification also. We were starting to get low on air so we headed back towards our ascent location. There were some large rocks in the area so we decided to play around there while doing our safety stop (we were in 18 fsw). Alas!! "BUGS". We came across 1 legal size and 1 junior just peering out from the cracks in the rock. Kath was smiling ear to ear she finally got to see them. We surfaced and packed our gear for the 5:15 return to Long Beach. The second dive was 45 minutes at 41 fsw depth, water temp was still 68 at depth, 70 on the surface. Surface air was down to 72 (nice!!). I also didn't have a problem with my stop on the 2nd dive as I added 4 more lbs of weight. 20 lbs, geez, that's the same I dive with in the winter with my 7 mil.
Anyway, I will be taking the pics over at lunch to get processed and should have them scanned and posted later tonight.
BTW, Joewr, please forgive me for not posting at midnight, I hope you didn't stay up all night. By the time I finished rinsing gear I needed to go and check the back of my eyelids. :egrin:
Ahh, 2 days of work left and then it is time for the shark dive. Life is Good.
Got up at 6 yesterday and while having the morning cup of Java I was listening to the weather report saying in the LA suburb I live in it was going to be triple digit highs, zowie! Fought the LA traffic to Long Beach to board the 8:45 express to Catalina. Kath (my dive buddy) and I arrived about 10, walked over to Casino Point and suited up. Normally we take our own tanks (Scubapro 71 steels) but because we will be going to Maui next month and not taking our tanks we decided to rent AL80s to determine what weights will be needed for our trip (we will be packing our soft weights for our integrated BCs). I was also trying out a pair of Apollo Bio fins (normally I wear Twinjets). After downing a couple of bottles of water we entered the water for our first dive around 11:15.
dive 1: Nothing really spectacular, just a fun dive. We decided to go to the east end of the park and play around on the "wall" at the edge of the kelp forest. After initially dropping down to 35 fsw we leisurely swam to Cousteau's monument for a couple of photo ops. Then we made our way to the wall and dropped down to 70 fsw and played around with the marine life and taking a few more pics. Keep looking for bugs because Kath has never really seen one in "the wild" but never did see any. We headed back to where we normally ascend at the end of our dives in the Park to do our 3 minute safety stop, I was down to 900 psi by this time and had a hard time staying down. I finally had to grab the line of one of the bouy's to complete my stop. I was wearing my farmer john 3 mil with 16 lbs of lead, figured that would be plenty because I normally go with 12 lbs. The dive lasted 39 minutes, 70 fsw max, surface air was 75, water on the surface was 70 and at depth 68. The vis was about 35 fsw, a lot of plankton in the water.
We ate some lunch after the dive and after a 1 1/2 hour surface interval we suited up for our second dive.
Dive 2: Again we descended down to 35 feet and moved in a westerly direction. We had decided this dive we would just swim through the kelp forest and stay in relatively shallow water, no deeper than 40 fsw. We came across 2 huge calicos, biggest I have ever seen there. They were about the length of my arm and also a sheephead that was relatively the same size. Shot a couple of pics of them. We went thru a couple of "pillars" of kelp and when we came out the other end there was a wall of kelp in front of us that had a huge school of fish (close to 100 I would think) just hanging there motionless. I tried getting close to get a pic it was so cool to see without scaring them. I hope the pic comes out, because I have no clue what they were and the pic will help me identify them. We then left that "room" and went thru more of the kelp and came across another fairly large school of fish, they were silver and bluish silver with a blue neon stripe going down their side, snapped a shot of them and will look them up for identification also. We were starting to get low on air so we headed back towards our ascent location. There were some large rocks in the area so we decided to play around there while doing our safety stop (we were in 18 fsw). Alas!! "BUGS". We came across 1 legal size and 1 junior just peering out from the cracks in the rock. Kath was smiling ear to ear she finally got to see them. We surfaced and packed our gear for the 5:15 return to Long Beach. The second dive was 45 minutes at 41 fsw depth, water temp was still 68 at depth, 70 on the surface. Surface air was down to 72 (nice!!). I also didn't have a problem with my stop on the 2nd dive as I added 4 more lbs of weight. 20 lbs, geez, that's the same I dive with in the winter with my 7 mil.
Anyway, I will be taking the pics over at lunch to get processed and should have them scanned and posted later tonight.
BTW, Joewr, please forgive me for not posting at midnight, I hope you didn't stay up all night. By the time I finished rinsing gear I needed to go and check the back of my eyelids. :egrin:
Ahh, 2 days of work left and then it is time for the shark dive. Life is Good.
