Went for a night dive last night at Les Davis Pier. Standing in 4 feet of water and shining our lights down, the vis didn't look too good. Air temp in the upper 30's and dropping, water temp at about 49 (it didn't feel any warmer...), we decided to go for it. We were originally going to dive at Titlow at 9am, but rescheduled because it was TDC (Too D*m* Cold). At 29deg at 8am, we didn't want to become diverSicles when we got out. Titlow will be there next time....
The plan was to swim out at 30deg to about 60fsw, turn to 120deg and follow the contour for a while, turn to 210 and go until we hit about 25fsw, then turn to 300deg and follow the contour back.
We surfaced swam out a little ways, and dropped down at about in about 12 fsw. I was using my brand new Faber HP100 (combined Christmas and Birthday gift), I had dropped 4lbs from a tank strap mounted weight pouch that I had used with rental tanks to adjust my trim. My trim was improved (I think the tank is a little top heavy), but I was a little light and couldn't drop very easily.
Vis cleared as we went deeper, but I was starting to feel the cold. Luckily, I was prepared to warm up my wetsuit (at least temporarily). We had a great dive, and followed the plan almost all the way (went to 67fsw before we realized it, then came back up). Saw lots of fish that I don't usually see during the day. We stayed within 3 feet of each other the whole time, and checked our gages and each other's air often.
We both had moderate difficulty in maintaining 15fsw for our safety stop (he was a little light, too). We came up exactly where we wanted to (Thank you, Grateful Diver for teaching me to navigate better!). Total dive time was 42 minutes, and ended with 1600psi left (SAC: 0.54). The vis had cleared greatly when we were done...I think it got churned up a bit from some passing boats (or there was a tsunami out there somewhere causing the waves).
Lessons learned (never go diving without learning something): It's better to dive in the cold water than to not dive, stop often and see what's hanging around the bottom, stay close to the bottom because it helps you maintain consistent buoyancy (alright, this was a goal Grateful Diver wanted me to work on), and make sure you cover your communication signals before you sink.
