Mike Boswell
Contributor
The Red Tide is so thick off San Diego right now that it's hard to find decent vis near shore, and the ocean is literally the color of the Mississippi River for many miles out to sea.
So...My wife and I and a photographer friend did our first blue-water dive today. We took the boat out to the "9-mile bank" about 9 miles offshore where the water depth is about 2,000 feet, found a floating kelp paddy, dropped the anchor down 90 feet and tied it to a bow cleat, and jumped in.
First we played with four big Mola Mola under the kelp for a while and then attached our 25-foot jon lines to the anchor rope and just drifted under the boat, watching the jellies drift slowly by. Some of the jellies floating by pulsed and blinked with light, like alien space ships out of a Steven Spielberg movie.
The surface water was very clear - vis was probably 40 feet - and warm at about 61.5 degrees F, but starting at about 60 feet the water turned cold and dark, full of brown pea soupish stuff. Earlier we had stopped to watch some huge Fin whales, and I supposed that this stuff was their dinner.
All was fine, except it was difficult to maintain a constant depth. I was always either floating up or down in the water column, and with few visual clues it seemed like the only way to maintain depth was to continuously be looking at one's depth gauge. This was not a good option, because the parade of fascinating creatures drifting by was just too engrossing.
Can anybody give me some pointers about blue-water diving?
So...My wife and I and a photographer friend did our first blue-water dive today. We took the boat out to the "9-mile bank" about 9 miles offshore where the water depth is about 2,000 feet, found a floating kelp paddy, dropped the anchor down 90 feet and tied it to a bow cleat, and jumped in.
First we played with four big Mola Mola under the kelp for a while and then attached our 25-foot jon lines to the anchor rope and just drifted under the boat, watching the jellies drift slowly by. Some of the jellies floating by pulsed and blinked with light, like alien space ships out of a Steven Spielberg movie.
The surface water was very clear - vis was probably 40 feet - and warm at about 61.5 degrees F, but starting at about 60 feet the water turned cold and dark, full of brown pea soupish stuff. Earlier we had stopped to watch some huge Fin whales, and I supposed that this stuff was their dinner.
All was fine, except it was difficult to maintain a constant depth. I was always either floating up or down in the water column, and with few visual clues it seemed like the only way to maintain depth was to continuously be looking at one's depth gauge. This was not a good option, because the parade of fascinating creatures drifting by was just too engrossing.
Can anybody give me some pointers about blue-water diving?
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