socaldiver
Contributor
My dive buddy (Kath) had yesterday off of work (she works retail) so Sunday night we decided to take the morning Express to Catalina for a couple of dives. We took the 10 AM boat out of Long Beach. It was nice to finally get wet after being landlocked for 3 months but it was a sad day. This was no doubt my last trip to Catalina for quite sometime (since I will be moving to Florida next week) and diving in what I feel is the best diving spots in the world. Obviously there were not too many people in the water, actually, there was an instructor with 1 student besides ourselves. So we pretty much had the place all to ourselves. We did 2 dives and took the 6:30 Express back to Long Beach.
Dive 1: Nothing spectacular happened, had a little trouble with my mask leaking, so I was clearing it quite often and couldn't figure out why it was doing that. Air temp was a nice 65F with a little overcast, surface water temp was 61 and the temp at depth was a very balmy 57. We climbed down the steps and entered the water during low tide. After descending to 51 fsw we headed west along the rocks and kelp forest just relaxing and taking it all in. Plenty of marine life to see but what struck us as being odd was not many garibaldi, but lots of blacksmiths, calicos, kelpfish and senoritas. We were only down for 31 minutes, ascended with 900 psi still but cut the dive short because I was getting frustrated with my mask.
Dive 2: After walking back to Green Pier to get our tanks refilled and a little lunch (a 2 hour 10 minute SI), we geared up and went for our second dive. This time we entered the water with the tide starting to come in so it wasn't as tricky of an entry. We descended to 45 fsw and headed east towards Avalon Bay. Again this was just an easy dive with temps still at 57 at depth. Was checking out the rocks looking for lobsters (not to catch but to take pics of) when I was confronted with a fairly good size garibaldi. We were staring each other down when I decided to take his pic, and then move away. It dawned on me that he was probably guarding his nest. We moved on a,little further and Kath and I almost at the same time pointed down below us (we were cruisiing along the top of a wall) about 20 feet was a HUGE elephant seal just booking it. I didn't even have time to get the camera up before he was gone. When it was first going by I thought it might be a giant sea bass but then in a parting glance I noticed it's flippers. Wow, it was big. We cut the dive at 26 minutes because my never ending fight to keep my mask clear. When we were doing our safety stop a big school of sargo when cruising by. Normally you only see 1 or 2 and normally by themselves, this is the first time I saw a school of them. Took a pic of another fish but my ID book is put away so I will have to waittil next week to identify it probably. But I have never seen one of them before off Catalina.
All in all, a good day when you can go diving but the end of era for me in diving Southern California waters, at least for awhile.
I will post my pics after I get them developed and scanned.
Happy Holidays everyone!!!
Dive 1: Nothing spectacular happened, had a little trouble with my mask leaking, so I was clearing it quite often and couldn't figure out why it was doing that. Air temp was a nice 65F with a little overcast, surface water temp was 61 and the temp at depth was a very balmy 57. We climbed down the steps and entered the water during low tide. After descending to 51 fsw we headed west along the rocks and kelp forest just relaxing and taking it all in. Plenty of marine life to see but what struck us as being odd was not many garibaldi, but lots of blacksmiths, calicos, kelpfish and senoritas. We were only down for 31 minutes, ascended with 900 psi still but cut the dive short because I was getting frustrated with my mask.
Dive 2: After walking back to Green Pier to get our tanks refilled and a little lunch (a 2 hour 10 minute SI), we geared up and went for our second dive. This time we entered the water with the tide starting to come in so it wasn't as tricky of an entry. We descended to 45 fsw and headed east towards Avalon Bay. Again this was just an easy dive with temps still at 57 at depth. Was checking out the rocks looking for lobsters (not to catch but to take pics of) when I was confronted with a fairly good size garibaldi. We were staring each other down when I decided to take his pic, and then move away. It dawned on me that he was probably guarding his nest. We moved on a,little further and Kath and I almost at the same time pointed down below us (we were cruisiing along the top of a wall) about 20 feet was a HUGE elephant seal just booking it. I didn't even have time to get the camera up before he was gone. When it was first going by I thought it might be a giant sea bass but then in a parting glance I noticed it's flippers. Wow, it was big. We cut the dive at 26 minutes because my never ending fight to keep my mask clear. When we were doing our safety stop a big school of sargo when cruising by. Normally you only see 1 or 2 and normally by themselves, this is the first time I saw a school of them. Took a pic of another fish but my ID book is put away so I will have to waittil next week to identify it probably. But I have never seen one of them before off Catalina.
All in all, a good day when you can go diving but the end of era for me in diving Southern California waters, at least for awhile.
I will post my pics after I get them developed and scanned.
Happy Holidays everyone!!!
and I am sure I will be able to witness a different variety of marine life but it just is not the same as cruising through the kelp forests. Although wearing a 3 mil instead of a 7 mil is sort of inviting. :devilish: I am more concerned about the :gator: taking a bite out of me.
