Scubaboard Westward Surge - Cool People, Cold Water, Warm Vibes

[noj3333]

I'd be interested and would be willing to make the trip west.

Let me know the rough dates, and who to make the deposit out to!

 

[drrich2]

SB seems to be more about warm water diving and midwest / east coast participants.

Glad you posted; I've wondered about this, and enjoyed seeing people's responses. A few thoughts...

1.) Group trips appeal to people who haven't done much traveling and like an organizer, but from what I saw at the 2019 Curacao Surge, plenty of well-seasoned divers attend these, too.
2.) A number of people bring non-divers (I brought a wife, kid and mother-in-law), so live-aboards are probably out. Also, the dive groups swapped out different boats day-to-day, so everybody got a mix. If you booked Truth Aquatic's boats, somebody's gonna get the big boat with the water maker (the Vision) and somebody's going to get the Truth (unless things changed since I was there).
3.) In addition to cold water diving having a more limited participant base, California diving tends to be unguided diving. That's way different than a lot of people are used to.
4.) Another poster mentioned the lack of a big resort that could handle everyone's needs onsite; Santa Barbara didn't look bad, but I grew up hearing horror stories about the L.A. freeways. Be interesting to see where you'd base the group.
5.) Catalina Island might work - if you could get enough boats serving in addition to the shore diving. If the non-divers would be entertained.

I have the impression these big SB events tend to largely be travel destinations (not all local divers) to warm water destinations with resorts (A.I. an option) can handle them, a single dive op. with multiple boats that aren't overcrowded can handle them and the at least in the Caribbean region there's probably a dive guide.

Those who went - do SB trips like to the Philippines and Fiji tend to have guided dives?

Since it coltish water we may want to call it a SB shrinkage rather than surge.

That's just cold.

Richard.

 

[muzikbiz22]

@cardzard and @diversteve pretty much laid it out. There are no "dive resorts" here in Southern California. The closest thing or "best bet" would be to do an event based on everyone being ON Catalina Island, at the same hotel, through the same dive shop, with the same boat.

 

[StefinSB]

Since it coltish water we may want to call it a SB shrinkage rather than surge. The truth aquatics boats are not huge as far as numbers of divers goes, best with 20 to 30, they run a good live aboard though, added bonus it the SB in SB. Ventura has some good day boats, Spectre and Peach both have hot tubs. If I’m in country and my wife hasn’t booked my time you can count me in.

I would take the long 10min drive to the SB harbor to join. ;-)

 

[lexvil]

I would take the long 10min drive to the SB harbor to join. ;-)

SB in SB SB

 

[WarrenZ]

I would be interested if the timing and price is right.

 

[JohnnyC]

I think it's a great idea. Some people are just fragile and that's ok. I wouldn't be able to attend as I'm OCONUS for work, but I think it would be a great idea to have a west coast surge in an entirely different environment.

I get that it will be significantly different, and the logistics are different, but I think the juice would definitely be worth the squeeze.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

@cardzard and @diversteve pretty much laid it out. There are no "dive resorts" here in Southern California. The closest thing or "best bet" would be to do an event based on everyone being ON Catalina Island, at the same hotel, through the same dive shop, with the same boat.

That's a good possibility if we want it to be structured like the tropical surges with a venue big enough to handle everyone. But like many have mentioned, it is cold water unguided diving and that will automatically shake off a large amount of people.
A west coast SB event might just be fairly small by default.
I have a feeling it would mostly be attended by people who already dive cold water and don’t mind it.
If you’ve never dived cold water and never had a 7 mil on or used a drysuit and all the associated ballast weight it requires, then it can be a little challenging getting used to it. It’s not something you want to learn in a crash course during the limited time you have to be enjoying the diving.

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

Sea lions....I want to dive with sea lions. We struck out on Catalina except for the douchebag sea lion that appeared about 8 feet away while we were waiting in line to get on the ferry to leave. He flipped me the bird, mooned me, and swam away.....

Include a sea lion dive or 2 and Me and Kelly will try to fly out for it.

Jay

 

[MichaelMc]

Sea lions....

Include a sea lion dive or 2 and Me and Kelly will try to fly out for it.

There's a colony of sea lions at the end of the breakwater in Monterey. Just swim out to the end, descend and some juveniles will come down to check you out, zooming back and fourth, spinning, hanging out looking at you. Or an adult, which is much more startling!

There's also a conference hotel across the street from the dive boat docks, not sure how expensive that hotel is. Dragging dive gear through their lobby could be interesting. And the water up here a little chillier than SoCal.