Dr. Jay
Contributor
A Day of Diving at Venice
What can I say...an awesome dive.
The day didn't start out too well, however. The trip was really unorganized, as I had suspected. I would have posted our intent to dive at Venice Beach here on the board, if I knew everything would go as planned. The drive only took around 2+ hours from Orlando. Poor planning left no tanks for half of the club group, so some folks were stuck snorkeling.
Finally, after getting the mess sorted out, it was time to gear up in the blistering heat and head off of Casperson Beach for some fossil divin'. Matt ran off into the water to beat the heat and left me with one of the club divers. After getting the car locked up and her gear sorted out, we headed to the beach. This was her first beach dive, so I figured I'd be nice and help her into the water. The surf wasn't that bad at all. Our first task was getting the fins on. Whoa...what a mess. It took her around 10 minutes to get 2 fins on. After I got done slipping my first Jet Fin on, I heard a hissing. At first, I thought it was a snicker from those onlookers who saw us struggling with her fins, but it turned out to be her rented first stage, leaking from God knows where. I dunked her reg into the water to see where the leak was coming from...to no avail. After we got her stood up, I decided to turn her air off (after making sure she was fully inflated...BC that is
). We got her fins back off...yep, just as bad as putting them on...and I attempted to disconnect her first stage. While struggling to unscrew the first stage with my Kevlar-lined gloves, I determined that the thing was probably screwed on too tight to begin with. A hint of relief entered my mind, because I did not want to go back up the beach with her. With the help of a big dude on the beach, we unscrewed her first stage. I checked the o-ring, and found no problems. I looked into the cavity of the 1st stage, and no problems there either. So, after chalking it up to be a over-tightened screw, we replaced her first stage on the tank and turned her air back on. Viola! No hissing.
Can you guess what happened next? Yep...it was time to put the fins back on. We made just about as good a time as we did with the last fin excursion, and then it was off into the abyss. I made about 10-20 fin cycles on my back, when I looked horizontal again and saw her about 60 ft. away from me...so I should have expected. I stopped swimming for a while and let the tide push me in a little until she caught up. Once she was with 10-15 ft. I began swimming for a few more fin cycles...relaxing...looking up at the nice sky. I retured my eyes to find her 60 ft. away again. Time to wait. This went on for a few cycles. Finally we met up with Matt about 50-60 yards from shore and it was off to fossil huntin'. I attached the buddy lines between Matt, me, and the girl. We (the club girl and I) exchanged ok signals and it was descent time. After a foot or two it was into the horizontal position and hovering a few inches from the sand. Matt and I spent a couple minutes at around 8 ft placing sand into the colander and filtering, when I felt a sharp tug coming from her end of the 10 ft buddy line. I turned my head to see her at the surface with one of the snorkelers. I give Matt the "wait here" signal and go up to see what's going on. No sooner did I surface than did I hear the forboding hisssssss. Now I was starting to get annoyed. I kindly asked the snorkeler if he could please take her in, and he smiled and nodded. I detached her (whoa, that would have been a mess in deeper water) and sent her to shore. One problem solved...or was it?
Anyway, I return to Matt for a little more sifting. No sooner was one problem eliminated than another "swam" right up. Let's call them, the Bobbers. Remember those little things you used to take fishing to hold your line at the surface? How they would bob up and down continuously in the water? No big difference here, except the Bobbers had 80 cu ft aluminum tanks strapped to their backs. The would "bob" back and forth between Matt and I as we were hunting, somehow managing to stir up everything 5 feet away from them in the water. Viz wasn't that good anyway. After watching the Bobbers go back and forth between us, Matt and I decided it was time to move. Matt took off with the compass and 'urged' me behind. We were headed for deeper waters.
With the Bobbers out of the way and the snorkelers far behind, it was time for some serious fossil hunting. We passed the sand dollar fields and we were into the ledges at around 18 ft. Not very many spiny urchins at all. It seemed that Matt wanted to keep going and going...going and going. I was wondering when it was time for fossil hunting. After getting slightly frustrated, I started falling behind and getting "dragged". It worked out kinda ok, as I would search the bottom while getting pulled along...that is, until, we came up upon a ledge. I looked up and about 5 feet in front of me was a big rock. OK, time to inhale...gotta go up! I just cleared the rock and was floating nicely up, when I got a stiff jerk from the buddy line, and was face planted into a mess of seaweed. All ready to to a reverse-jerk on the buddy line when I looked to my left. There, sitting in front of me, was a megalodon tooth! Wohoo! The first catch of the day. The tooth was about an inch and a half long. Definately a welcome discovery in leiu of the earlier events. I showed it to Matt, placed it in the sock, and it was time to continue hunting. After about 20-30 min. of hunting, the unthinkable....the Bobbers returned.
My guess is they tracked the dive flag (the ONLY dive flag) and caught up with us. Same deal...up....and down.... This time they went interactive. I remember reading a thread about the "ok" signal in the Basic Scuba section, about a guy who was a compuslive "ok-er". Well, the Bobbers seemed to be just that...or...worse. It acutally was a "thumbs-up" version of OK. Maybe there's a scuba agency out there that uses "thumbs-up" for OK? Anyone ever heard of this? Well, it was a "thumbs-up" followed by a standard "ok". I gave him the "huh" signal...you all know this one...and he just Bobbed off. Thinking, "this guy isn't even my buddy and he's trying to call my dive?", I swam over to meet Matt. Yep...he was being attacked by one of the Bobbers too. Matt made the mistake of bringing out his slate to try and determine what the Bobbers were trying to tell us at 18 fsw. After watching the two write back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, I was shown the slate by Matt. The first line was something to the effect of "Hi". Now, mind you Matt had to remove his glove to drag his slate out of his harness pocket here...all for the word Hi! After weeding through the "What?"...and the "Hey, this is so cool"..and the "What do you want?"...I found the line that read "So-and-so needs your key to get his stuff out of your car". Ah...a useful piece of information. So, back to the surface to give up my key. Turns out the guy I needed to give my key to was about 100 yards from me, and didn't feel like swimming back. So...back to hunting for a little while more. Our time underwater was around 1 hr 30-40 min. I'm sure the Bobbers had run out of air long before that. At about 800 psi it was time to swim back to shore.
Current was nothing, and we made it in in no time. But it doesn't stop here...
I met so-and-so back at the beach, and he told me that club girl had hear gear stolen. Oh great...how the heck did that happen? Well...she left her gear sitting next to the car (since she didn't have the key) and returned to the water for some snorkeling (glad i wasn't there to do the fin thing again). Moral: Don't leave your gear laying around on Casperson Beach.
So...the cops came and took a report, right next to their sign that said THESE BEACHES PATROLLED HEAVILY, and it was time to go home. The sandy gear and the sandy girl were loaded up into the car, and we were off back to Orlando. Since sandy-club-girl wasn't in a good mood (understandably), she remained in her wetsuit for the trip home. Now, not so much of a problem...a little wierd...but not a big problem...until the smell hit us. Yep...it was pretty rancid, and I had to fumigate my car when I got home.
Now...surprisingly, I had fun this day at Venice. The dive is an awesome dive, I got a shark's tooth, and Matt and I may be going back this Saturday. I'd like to maybe take someone along with a little more knowledge of the area - and hopefully a little more experience putting fins on for a beach dive.
Hope you guys have fun on your August 9th dive. It doesn't look like I'll be able to make it. Plans just can't be changed sometimes. Venice is a great place for a beach dive, the buddy line made a world of difference, and the world's largest waterbed was definately a plus after a long hour of hunting.
Jason
What can I say...an awesome dive.
The day didn't start out too well, however. The trip was really unorganized, as I had suspected. I would have posted our intent to dive at Venice Beach here on the board, if I knew everything would go as planned. The drive only took around 2+ hours from Orlando. Poor planning left no tanks for half of the club group, so some folks were stuck snorkeling.
Finally, after getting the mess sorted out, it was time to gear up in the blistering heat and head off of Casperson Beach for some fossil divin'. Matt ran off into the water to beat the heat and left me with one of the club divers. After getting the car locked up and her gear sorted out, we headed to the beach. This was her first beach dive, so I figured I'd be nice and help her into the water. The surf wasn't that bad at all. Our first task was getting the fins on. Whoa...what a mess. It took her around 10 minutes to get 2 fins on. After I got done slipping my first Jet Fin on, I heard a hissing. At first, I thought it was a snicker from those onlookers who saw us struggling with her fins, but it turned out to be her rented first stage, leaking from God knows where. I dunked her reg into the water to see where the leak was coming from...to no avail. After we got her stood up, I decided to turn her air off (after making sure she was fully inflated...BC that is
). We got her fins back off...yep, just as bad as putting them on...and I attempted to disconnect her first stage. While struggling to unscrew the first stage with my Kevlar-lined gloves, I determined that the thing was probably screwed on too tight to begin with. A hint of relief entered my mind, because I did not want to go back up the beach with her. With the help of a big dude on the beach, we unscrewed her first stage. I checked the o-ring, and found no problems. I looked into the cavity of the 1st stage, and no problems there either. So, after chalking it up to be a over-tightened screw, we replaced her first stage on the tank and turned her air back on. Viola! No hissing.Can you guess what happened next? Yep...it was time to put the fins back on. We made just about as good a time as we did with the last fin excursion, and then it was off into the abyss. I made about 10-20 fin cycles on my back, when I looked horizontal again and saw her about 60 ft. away from me...so I should have expected. I stopped swimming for a while and let the tide push me in a little until she caught up. Once she was with 10-15 ft. I began swimming for a few more fin cycles...relaxing...looking up at the nice sky. I retured my eyes to find her 60 ft. away again. Time to wait. This went on for a few cycles. Finally we met up with Matt about 50-60 yards from shore and it was off to fossil huntin'. I attached the buddy lines between Matt, me, and the girl. We (the club girl and I) exchanged ok signals and it was descent time. After a foot or two it was into the horizontal position and hovering a few inches from the sand. Matt and I spent a couple minutes at around 8 ft placing sand into the colander and filtering, when I felt a sharp tug coming from her end of the 10 ft buddy line. I turned my head to see her at the surface with one of the snorkelers. I give Matt the "wait here" signal and go up to see what's going on. No sooner did I surface than did I hear the forboding hisssssss. Now I was starting to get annoyed. I kindly asked the snorkeler if he could please take her in, and he smiled and nodded. I detached her (whoa, that would have been a mess in deeper water) and sent her to shore. One problem solved...or was it?
Anyway, I return to Matt for a little more sifting. No sooner was one problem eliminated than another "swam" right up. Let's call them, the Bobbers. Remember those little things you used to take fishing to hold your line at the surface? How they would bob up and down continuously in the water? No big difference here, except the Bobbers had 80 cu ft aluminum tanks strapped to their backs. The would "bob" back and forth between Matt and I as we were hunting, somehow managing to stir up everything 5 feet away from them in the water. Viz wasn't that good anyway. After watching the Bobbers go back and forth between us, Matt and I decided it was time to move. Matt took off with the compass and 'urged' me behind. We were headed for deeper waters.
With the Bobbers out of the way and the snorkelers far behind, it was time for some serious fossil hunting. We passed the sand dollar fields and we were into the ledges at around 18 ft. Not very many spiny urchins at all. It seemed that Matt wanted to keep going and going...going and going. I was wondering when it was time for fossil hunting. After getting slightly frustrated, I started falling behind and getting "dragged". It worked out kinda ok, as I would search the bottom while getting pulled along...that is, until, we came up upon a ledge. I looked up and about 5 feet in front of me was a big rock. OK, time to inhale...gotta go up! I just cleared the rock and was floating nicely up, when I got a stiff jerk from the buddy line, and was face planted into a mess of seaweed. All ready to to a reverse-jerk on the buddy line when I looked to my left. There, sitting in front of me, was a megalodon tooth! Wohoo! The first catch of the day. The tooth was about an inch and a half long. Definately a welcome discovery in leiu of the earlier events. I showed it to Matt, placed it in the sock, and it was time to continue hunting. After about 20-30 min. of hunting, the unthinkable....the Bobbers returned.
My guess is they tracked the dive flag (the ONLY dive flag) and caught up with us. Same deal...up....and down.... This time they went interactive. I remember reading a thread about the "ok" signal in the Basic Scuba section, about a guy who was a compuslive "ok-er". Well, the Bobbers seemed to be just that...or...worse. It acutally was a "thumbs-up" version of OK. Maybe there's a scuba agency out there that uses "thumbs-up" for OK? Anyone ever heard of this? Well, it was a "thumbs-up" followed by a standard "ok". I gave him the "huh" signal...you all know this one...and he just Bobbed off. Thinking, "this guy isn't even my buddy and he's trying to call my dive?", I swam over to meet Matt. Yep...he was being attacked by one of the Bobbers too. Matt made the mistake of bringing out his slate to try and determine what the Bobbers were trying to tell us at 18 fsw. After watching the two write back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, I was shown the slate by Matt. The first line was something to the effect of "Hi". Now, mind you Matt had to remove his glove to drag his slate out of his harness pocket here...all for the word Hi! After weeding through the "What?"...and the "Hey, this is so cool"..and the "What do you want?"...I found the line that read "So-and-so needs your key to get his stuff out of your car". Ah...a useful piece of information. So, back to the surface to give up my key. Turns out the guy I needed to give my key to was about 100 yards from me, and didn't feel like swimming back. So...back to hunting for a little while more. Our time underwater was around 1 hr 30-40 min. I'm sure the Bobbers had run out of air long before that. At about 800 psi it was time to swim back to shore.
Current was nothing, and we made it in in no time. But it doesn't stop here...
I met so-and-so back at the beach, and he told me that club girl had hear gear stolen. Oh great...how the heck did that happen? Well...she left her gear sitting next to the car (since she didn't have the key) and returned to the water for some snorkeling (glad i wasn't there to do the fin thing again). Moral: Don't leave your gear laying around on Casperson Beach.
So...the cops came and took a report, right next to their sign that said THESE BEACHES PATROLLED HEAVILY, and it was time to go home. The sandy gear and the sandy girl were loaded up into the car, and we were off back to Orlando. Since sandy-club-girl wasn't in a good mood (understandably), she remained in her wetsuit for the trip home. Now, not so much of a problem...a little wierd...but not a big problem...until the smell hit us. Yep...it was pretty rancid, and I had to fumigate my car when I got home.
Now...surprisingly, I had fun this day at Venice. The dive is an awesome dive, I got a shark's tooth, and Matt and I may be going back this Saturday. I'd like to maybe take someone along with a little more knowledge of the area - and hopefully a little more experience putting fins on for a beach dive.
Hope you guys have fun on your August 9th dive. It doesn't look like I'll be able to make it. Plans just can't be changed sometimes. Venice is a great place for a beach dive, the buddy line made a world of difference, and the world's largest waterbed was definately a plus after a long hour of hunting.
Jason
