First timer with Waterhorse Charters. We had a full boat. 22 divers + 1 ride along. When I first got to the boat I was thinking there was no way the boat would handle that many divers comfortable. I was sooooo wrong. The captain and crew were great, and the boat handled the divers well. Nicely set up. Food was plentiful, hot and GREAT.
The divers on the boat were all pretty nice folks. Lot of fun conversations. Had a nice mix of folks from OW to Instructor (not a class).
My dive buddies were Steve L., and his wife Becky. Steve's been a long time friend of mine, and I had just met Becky. Great divers, lots of experience, and pretty familiar with the dive sites.
Trip out to the Coronados was pretty quite. Over cast and cool, until right about the time we got to the islands. Sun broke out and we had a spectacular day.
Dive 1, we hit Lobster Shack. Large colony of Sea Lions visible on the rocks at the shore line. Water temps were 75 top- 71 bottom. We dropped into the water in about the middle and headed north toward the point. Stayed out around the 50-70' level out and back. Lots of eels, normal fish for the area. Vis was in the 50-60' range. Probably a little better. Nice relaxing dive.
Dive 2, we motored out to the middle grounds. Hit the wall at "Boomers"(?). It's a north south running mini wall. Couple of hundred yards long. Bottom of the wall was about 70', top about 60'. Temps there were generally low 70s. Bottom of the wall got down to 61, but was 65ish most of the time. Lots of nice crevices. Vis was down a bit from Lobster Shack. I think the swell there from the tropical storms down south had it chopped up a little. Saw some nice eels again. A few nudis, some sea slugs. Found a few dead cowerys.
As we were recovering divers, a Mexican Armada helicopter showed up. He circled us a few times then headed off to mess with a couple of Mexican fishing boats. He dropped down right on top of the two boats and soaked them with water picked up by his rotor wash.
Dive 3, back to Lobster Shack. We contemplated Key Hole, but the water was a mess due, again, to the tropical storms down south. This time the we stayed shallower and closer to the shore. Hoping to get to see some sea lions swimming with us. And we did get visited a few times. My new UW housing had shown up from China, Friday afternoon and I had not had time to figure out it's usage. I took it empty on Dive 2 just to flood test it. That was fine so I took the camera along with on the last dive. Just set it to Auto (Fish Mode), and went to town. Had a couple of decent pics.
The trip back to Mission Bay was pretty spectacular. We ran across a couple of large pods of Dolphins. Not an uncommon thing. What made it nice, was that there were a few Football sized babys with them. The cute factor of a 18' long baby dolphin rivals any puppy you ever saw. One passenger reported spotting hammer head shark off the side. And we spotted a couple of medium sized blue whales.
Anyway, end of report. Thanks to the crew of the Humboldt. Had a great day!!!
The divers on the boat were all pretty nice folks. Lot of fun conversations. Had a nice mix of folks from OW to Instructor (not a class).
My dive buddies were Steve L., and his wife Becky. Steve's been a long time friend of mine, and I had just met Becky. Great divers, lots of experience, and pretty familiar with the dive sites.
Trip out to the Coronados was pretty quite. Over cast and cool, until right about the time we got to the islands. Sun broke out and we had a spectacular day.
Dive 1, we hit Lobster Shack. Large colony of Sea Lions visible on the rocks at the shore line. Water temps were 75 top- 71 bottom. We dropped into the water in about the middle and headed north toward the point. Stayed out around the 50-70' level out and back. Lots of eels, normal fish for the area. Vis was in the 50-60' range. Probably a little better. Nice relaxing dive.
Dive 2, we motored out to the middle grounds. Hit the wall at "Boomers"(?). It's a north south running mini wall. Couple of hundred yards long. Bottom of the wall was about 70', top about 60'. Temps there were generally low 70s. Bottom of the wall got down to 61, but was 65ish most of the time. Lots of nice crevices. Vis was down a bit from Lobster Shack. I think the swell there from the tropical storms down south had it chopped up a little. Saw some nice eels again. A few nudis, some sea slugs. Found a few dead cowerys.
As we were recovering divers, a Mexican Armada helicopter showed up. He circled us a few times then headed off to mess with a couple of Mexican fishing boats. He dropped down right on top of the two boats and soaked them with water picked up by his rotor wash.
Dive 3, back to Lobster Shack. We contemplated Key Hole, but the water was a mess due, again, to the tropical storms down south. This time the we stayed shallower and closer to the shore. Hoping to get to see some sea lions swimming with us. And we did get visited a few times. My new UW housing had shown up from China, Friday afternoon and I had not had time to figure out it's usage. I took it empty on Dive 2 just to flood test it. That was fine so I took the camera along with on the last dive. Just set it to Auto (Fish Mode), and went to town. Had a couple of decent pics.
The trip back to Mission Bay was pretty spectacular. We ran across a couple of large pods of Dolphins. Not an uncommon thing. What made it nice, was that there were a few Football sized babys with them. The cute factor of a 18' long baby dolphin rivals any puppy you ever saw. One passenger reported spotting hammer head shark off the side. And we spotted a couple of medium sized blue whales.
Anyway, end of report. Thanks to the crew of the Humboldt. Had a great day!!!
