So today was the day my wife finally got her last certification dive done. While she was doing that I went out on the kayak from the service club by sharkies. This was about 9:15. I paddled out about a mile NW, ended up about 3/4 mile off the beach.
Depth: 30 feet
Vis: 6"-1.5 feet at times. Lot of silty stuff down there. At times a foot of silt in places. Now the crazy part was it was only hazy for the bottom 1.5 feet. I could lift my head and look up and clearly see my kayak and the wave action on the top of the water while touching the bottom at 30 feet! That was cool.
Moved NW about .3 mile and found better stuff that might yield a tooth but no luck. Did find a whale ear bone there.
Depth: still around 30 feet
Vis: Vis was better here it opened up to 3-4 feet on the bottom and could still see the surface. Just ran across too many patches of silt to want to waste my air on it so I headed back up and moved straight north until I got the south end of the alhambra towers.
Depth: Mostly 26-28 feet.
Vis: I would say 8-10 most of the time. Didn't have the same top to bottom clarity but was better vis on the bottom. By then the wind was starting to pick up SW and it blew me off the spot I wanted to be on. Too muck rocky stuff. Ended up finding a beat up meg a little over 2" here.
Ate lunch and attempted to take my newly certified wife out to the blocks for the first time. By then the wind was really kicking up the waves. We tried to pull off a tandem on my 12' kayak and we flipped it when I tried to get in. We need to practice in calmer water first. The good news is I found out my system for securing all my gear is solid and I didn't lose anything. The bad news was that my wife bailed on me and I went out myself for tank two.
This time I paddled out about a half mile fighting the waves and sw wind. Never hit the spot I wanted to off of Alhambra but managed to find 1/2 a 3", 2 intact 2", and a broken 2+".
The cool thing I tried today was bringing along a water proof case with my cell phone. I downloaded an app for biking that records your gps position for your rides. I let it run for the whole first tank and forgot to turn it on for the second. It's free. And it is cool to see my dive track on google maps. See if this works:
Bike Ride Profile | Morning Ride near Venice | Times and Records | Strava
Depth: 25-27 feet:
Vis: 5-8 feet
Time: 2:00 PM
Cool sights: Sea cucumber, Pretty big sea horse 9-10 inches.
