shaxs
Contributor
Hello All!
So, I went with my group from San Diego State this weekend to Catalina Island to the Wrigley Marine Science Center to finish up our dives for our certification. It was an interesting weekend that was loads of fun. We got to stay in the dorm/apartments at the center since of D.O. Mark Flahan (I am sure some people have heard of him before) has been teaching Scuba for over 30 years and has some good hookups. We headed out Friday morning on a boat from SCMI (http://www.scmi.us/).
Anyways, our first dive was to Buttcrack. We were diving off 12' dingies (as I call them). 5 persons w/ gear per boat. That was interesting. Unfortunately my weight pouch plastic was busted a little and my wetsuit got tore on a broken piece of plastic attached to the boats. Well, we finally got out of the boats and descended. the viz was 40-50ft and it was beautiful. Some people saw the two lonely butterfly fish. I saw a bunch of awesome marine life. Our teachers always stresses the use of simple, streamlined gear. He hates all this fancy "crap" as he puts it. I can now sort of see why. One of my classmates had some fancy new type of belt with a weird buckle. His weight belt ended up falling off at 70ft under water. Luckily, he is small and only dives with 14 lbs and was able to swim downwards with all his strength and grab a hold of a rocky on a ledge and straddle it cowboy style. Then, that rock broke and went tumbling down and he grabbed another one. By this time the AI he was diving with (we all got AI's to dive with during our deep and night dives, which I thought was outstanding) gets over to him and is doing her best to hold him down and two other dive groups come over to help. They retrieved his dive belt where he out it on again and he continued the dive. I was pretty impressed with my classmates ability to think clearly and fast to react to his situation.
We then headed back and ate then dove the docks in front of Wrigley to orient ourselves for our night dive. This dive was uneventful except for the huge bat ray we saw. What an amazing sight! We then dove this area at night. I was very apprehensive at first to dive at night. We were paired up with a classmate and an AI and were all given lights and little red lights to attach to our tanks. I can probably say this was one of my favorite dives all weekend. Since this is a reserve, we saw lobsters the size of my leg! They were huge and everywhere. We also saw some scorpion and sculpins as well. For some reason my dive buddy tried to pick up a Sculpin and I quickly grabbed his hand and shook my head and finger no. I later explained to him why. He should have paid more attention in class. I also had problems with my dive buddy taking off way ahead of me and the AI. He definitely would not stay with us. I opted to stay close to the AI and we had to run him down a few times. Before we had gotten in the water, someone picked up my dive light and so I was stuck with someone elses. They hadent tightened the light down properly when inserting their batteries so the o-ring was bulging out and my light proceeded to flood a little and one light burnt out. That made me stay close to the AI just incase the other went out.
The next day we headed back out in our dingies to Blue Cavern. The sea was super choppy and about halfway there we had taken on too much water and turned around back to the dock. We proceeded to hand pump and use masks to empty water out of our boat so that the battery didnt get flooded out. That was an interesting experience. We got back to the boat and rearranged gear so that our front sat up higher and decided to bird rock instead. We anchored and headed down. Bird Rock is an interesting place to dive as well. If your not careful, it drops off super quick. We were given instructions to not go past 80ft. I was with the same guy from the previous night dive and when you go through kelp, you cant always stay side by side. So, we were swimming through the forest and my dive buddy starts descending more into blue nothingness. My computer said 75 so I stopped while my AI motioned for me to stay put while he swam down a little bit to get my buddy who went down to 88ft. Im not sure in situations like that what I should have done if it were just the two of us. Do I chase after him even though he is going a lot deeper then we should? I do know I will never dive with him outside of class. I also took my Canon A70 underwater housing I got on eBay with me empty to test it out. I did no leak at 75 feet. Good news.
We then headed back to the docks where we did rescue dives. One buddy and an AI would descend to the bottom at 20 ft and lay face first while I had to descend, and do RBHABET. Responsiveness, Bouyancy, Help- call for help, Airway-Listen for breathing and create an airway, Breathe- Begin mouth to mouth, Equipment- Take off all your gear then his/hers, and Transport- Transport to shore while continuing breathing. That was good. The AIs did the same thing except they had to take an unconscious person and get them into a boat as well.
We then dove the opposite side of the dock along the wall to orient ourselves for a night dive. I put my camera in my case and took it with me since the case had past the test before. We went diving and it was all dandy and I took pictures. Then, when I got out of the water I noticed my case had a small puddle of water in it. I guess the case started leaking after I touched buttons this time. Needless to say, my camera will no longer turn on. Bummer. If anyone know anything about these cases and wouldnt mind taking a look, let me know!
Later that night during dinner, I was having some weird pains. Every time I swallowed, I could feel pain and food move down my esophagus. It hurt pretty dang bad. It still hurts a little now infact. I am not sure what caused it. So, I opted to sit the night dive out. Infact, everyone except one person sat out because we were pooped. Our instructor dove with the one diver.
Sunday morning we woke up at 7am to go try Blue Cavern again. A storm had settled on the island and there was lightening in the distance. My instructor opted for Chalk Cove instead since it was safer and limited us to a 20 minute dive just in case swells and surge picked up. So, I went down with my buddy and he starts pulling on my bc and points. He moves some kelp away to reveal a horn shark. This is probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. He proceeds to touch the shark which spooks it and sends in flying into my chest where it bounced off. Well, although he is small, still a little scary to a new diver. Although I am now telling everyone a shark swam straight into me. Im sure in a few years from now, it will be a HUGE shark when I tell the story. Thats how story telling works right
We also were taken into the hyperbaric chamber and taken down to 40ft. That was a total trip. There was water polo ball and it was neat to see Boyles Law in affect when the ball shrank in volume at depth. That is an experience I will never forget.
Well, we went back and packed and we told that all boats were cancelled for that day. This was bad. We then heard rumors that maybe a boat was on its way. So, we sat for a good three hours in the dive locker until we were told for sure no boats were coming. This caused a major dilemma for some of us. I personally had two projects to hand in on Monday and a quiz to do. I need to do well this semester to get into business school, so I was quite worried. One of my classmates in a loan officer and was going to lose a lot of money if he didnt show up to work on Monday. He wanted to charter a helicopter to take him home, but they never happened. Monday we got a shore boat to Two Harbors where we boarded the Catalina Express. While on there, we talked to a few crew members and found out some interesting information. On that Sunday, they tried to run a boat from Avalon to San Pedro, but the swells were so bad they blew out the front windows and water started getting into the cabin frightening many of the passengers. One lady was flung into a pole and knocked out and that is why they cancelled all other boats. We finally arrived back in San Diego at 5:00pmish today, Monday.
So, all in all, I had a great weekend. I now have 16 dives under my belt, including rescues. As long as I pass my test, I get certified. YAY! Some crappy things did happen this weekend, but all in all, I was very happy. Anyways, sorry this was so long!
So, I went with my group from San Diego State this weekend to Catalina Island to the Wrigley Marine Science Center to finish up our dives for our certification. It was an interesting weekend that was loads of fun. We got to stay in the dorm/apartments at the center since of D.O. Mark Flahan (I am sure some people have heard of him before) has been teaching Scuba for over 30 years and has some good hookups. We headed out Friday morning on a boat from SCMI (http://www.scmi.us/).
Anyways, our first dive was to Buttcrack. We were diving off 12' dingies (as I call them). 5 persons w/ gear per boat. That was interesting. Unfortunately my weight pouch plastic was busted a little and my wetsuit got tore on a broken piece of plastic attached to the boats. Well, we finally got out of the boats and descended. the viz was 40-50ft and it was beautiful. Some people saw the two lonely butterfly fish. I saw a bunch of awesome marine life. Our teachers always stresses the use of simple, streamlined gear. He hates all this fancy "crap" as he puts it. I can now sort of see why. One of my classmates had some fancy new type of belt with a weird buckle. His weight belt ended up falling off at 70ft under water. Luckily, he is small and only dives with 14 lbs and was able to swim downwards with all his strength and grab a hold of a rocky on a ledge and straddle it cowboy style. Then, that rock broke and went tumbling down and he grabbed another one. By this time the AI he was diving with (we all got AI's to dive with during our deep and night dives, which I thought was outstanding) gets over to him and is doing her best to hold him down and two other dive groups come over to help. They retrieved his dive belt where he out it on again and he continued the dive. I was pretty impressed with my classmates ability to think clearly and fast to react to his situation.
We then headed back and ate then dove the docks in front of Wrigley to orient ourselves for our night dive. This dive was uneventful except for the huge bat ray we saw. What an amazing sight! We then dove this area at night. I was very apprehensive at first to dive at night. We were paired up with a classmate and an AI and were all given lights and little red lights to attach to our tanks. I can probably say this was one of my favorite dives all weekend. Since this is a reserve, we saw lobsters the size of my leg! They were huge and everywhere. We also saw some scorpion and sculpins as well. For some reason my dive buddy tried to pick up a Sculpin and I quickly grabbed his hand and shook my head and finger no. I later explained to him why. He should have paid more attention in class. I also had problems with my dive buddy taking off way ahead of me and the AI. He definitely would not stay with us. I opted to stay close to the AI and we had to run him down a few times. Before we had gotten in the water, someone picked up my dive light and so I was stuck with someone elses. They hadent tightened the light down properly when inserting their batteries so the o-ring was bulging out and my light proceeded to flood a little and one light burnt out. That made me stay close to the AI just incase the other went out.
The next day we headed back out in our dingies to Blue Cavern. The sea was super choppy and about halfway there we had taken on too much water and turned around back to the dock. We proceeded to hand pump and use masks to empty water out of our boat so that the battery didnt get flooded out. That was an interesting experience. We got back to the boat and rearranged gear so that our front sat up higher and decided to bird rock instead. We anchored and headed down. Bird Rock is an interesting place to dive as well. If your not careful, it drops off super quick. We were given instructions to not go past 80ft. I was with the same guy from the previous night dive and when you go through kelp, you cant always stay side by side. So, we were swimming through the forest and my dive buddy starts descending more into blue nothingness. My computer said 75 so I stopped while my AI motioned for me to stay put while he swam down a little bit to get my buddy who went down to 88ft. Im not sure in situations like that what I should have done if it were just the two of us. Do I chase after him even though he is going a lot deeper then we should? I do know I will never dive with him outside of class. I also took my Canon A70 underwater housing I got on eBay with me empty to test it out. I did no leak at 75 feet. Good news.
We then headed back to the docks where we did rescue dives. One buddy and an AI would descend to the bottom at 20 ft and lay face first while I had to descend, and do RBHABET. Responsiveness, Bouyancy, Help- call for help, Airway-Listen for breathing and create an airway, Breathe- Begin mouth to mouth, Equipment- Take off all your gear then his/hers, and Transport- Transport to shore while continuing breathing. That was good. The AIs did the same thing except they had to take an unconscious person and get them into a boat as well.
We then dove the opposite side of the dock along the wall to orient ourselves for a night dive. I put my camera in my case and took it with me since the case had past the test before. We went diving and it was all dandy and I took pictures. Then, when I got out of the water I noticed my case had a small puddle of water in it. I guess the case started leaking after I touched buttons this time. Needless to say, my camera will no longer turn on. Bummer. If anyone know anything about these cases and wouldnt mind taking a look, let me know!
Later that night during dinner, I was having some weird pains. Every time I swallowed, I could feel pain and food move down my esophagus. It hurt pretty dang bad. It still hurts a little now infact. I am not sure what caused it. So, I opted to sit the night dive out. Infact, everyone except one person sat out because we were pooped. Our instructor dove with the one diver.
Sunday morning we woke up at 7am to go try Blue Cavern again. A storm had settled on the island and there was lightening in the distance. My instructor opted for Chalk Cove instead since it was safer and limited us to a 20 minute dive just in case swells and surge picked up. So, I went down with my buddy and he starts pulling on my bc and points. He moves some kelp away to reveal a horn shark. This is probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. He proceeds to touch the shark which spooks it and sends in flying into my chest where it bounced off. Well, although he is small, still a little scary to a new diver. Although I am now telling everyone a shark swam straight into me. Im sure in a few years from now, it will be a HUGE shark when I tell the story. Thats how story telling works right
We also were taken into the hyperbaric chamber and taken down to 40ft. That was a total trip. There was water polo ball and it was neat to see Boyles Law in affect when the ball shrank in volume at depth. That is an experience I will never forget.Well, we went back and packed and we told that all boats were cancelled for that day. This was bad. We then heard rumors that maybe a boat was on its way. So, we sat for a good three hours in the dive locker until we were told for sure no boats were coming. This caused a major dilemma for some of us. I personally had two projects to hand in on Monday and a quiz to do. I need to do well this semester to get into business school, so I was quite worried. One of my classmates in a loan officer and was going to lose a lot of money if he didnt show up to work on Monday. He wanted to charter a helicopter to take him home, but they never happened. Monday we got a shore boat to Two Harbors where we boarded the Catalina Express. While on there, we talked to a few crew members and found out some interesting information. On that Sunday, they tried to run a boat from Avalon to San Pedro, but the swells were so bad they blew out the front windows and water started getting into the cabin frightening many of the passengers. One lady was flung into a pole and knocked out and that is why they cancelled all other boats. We finally arrived back in San Diego at 5:00pmish today, Monday.
So, all in all, I had a great weekend. I now have 16 dives under my belt, including rescues. As long as I pass my test, I get certified. YAY! Some crappy things did happen this weekend, but all in all, I was very happy. Anyways, sorry this was so long!
