Date: Saturday, Oct. 23, 2004
Dive Location: Diver's Cove/Fisherman's Cove
Time: 9:53 am
Bottom Time: 49:00
Max Depth: 38 ft.
Vis: 10-15 ft.
Wave height: Lake Laguna, occasional 2-3 footer
Temp at depth: 66 Suunto Degrees
Surface Temp:66 degrees water, 66 degrees air
Tide information: High +5ft, going low
Date: Saturday, Oct. 23, 2004
Dive Location: Diver's Cove/Fisherman's Cove
Time: 1:29 pm
Bottom Time: 47:10
Max Depth: 37 ft.
Vis: 10 ft.; very murky in spots
Wave height: Lake Laguna, occasional 2-3 footer
Temp at depth: 66 Suunto Degrees
Surface Temp:66 degrees water, 68 degrees air
Tide information: Low, +2 ft.
Comments:
Arrived at Diver's at around 8:15am, and pulled into a metered spot right next to the stairs. Note: there were available spots the entire day, especially if you didn't mind paying 25 cents per 15 minutes. Myrna and her daughter and I scouted out Fisherman's, Diver's, and walked around Heisler a bit. Found the nearby restroom at Heisler. Sweet. The weather was gorgeous. Waves were ankle slappers, with the occasional 2-3 footer. Headhunter pulled up, then quickly found a free parking spot across the street. We did a walking tour of Diver's and Fisherman's, and tried to figure out the layout of the common reef relative to the Sheckler's map. Decided to take previous advice and enter at Fisherman's, then follow the reef around to Diver's. After contemplating the surf, we considered calling the dive, but decided we were tough enough to handle the waves. (That was facetious, by the way). Asked some of the other divers if they were Otter, and they said no, but they knew who he was. Then we suited up and went for the gusto. I was in the driver's seat on this one, which Headhunter would later come to regret. We walked into the lake near the boats, kicked out a bit, and dropped down into less than 10ft. of murky water. We headed southeast and caught the reef. We were on the lookout for the Mermaid's Grotto on our left, but didn't see it. Visibility improved a bit. I was hoping to keep the well defined reef our our left the entire way, but we came to learn later that the reef wasn't nearly as well defined as I had hoped. Anyway, we got out to the tip of the reef at around 35 ft., where it became very brown and murky, with a lot of surge. Passed by the remnants of a scotch bottle. As we rounded the tip of the reef I figured we'd see the "mini wall", but that didn't happen. I did find a golf ball though, and after a bit of exploring the reef decided to leave it sitting on top of the sand, and continued diving. I figured we were heading in the right direction, but after a few more minutes guess what we found...A golf ball sitting on top of the sand. Bummer. Actually I MEANT to leave it as a marker...yeah, that's right. At this point I realized that this reef wasn't as nice and clearly defined as Crescent Bay, and things deteriorated navigation-wise from there. Anyway, we wandered around a bit more (I'm sure Headhunter was chuckling as I led us around in circles), and finally decided that since we were on top of a reef that was getting shallower and shallower we'd surface and see where we were. We found out we were over on the Fisherman's side of the reef, and decided to drop down and head directly across the reef to Diver's. Headed almost due East in 10-15 ft., and finally decided to surface and swim in. When we got to the surface we realized that due to the fact we are such strong, macho swimmers we were past the Diver's stairs and over towards Heisler by about 50 yards. I told Myrna and her daughter that it was intentional. Neither believed it. Also, Headhunter told a major film star how screwed up my navigation was, so now you'll be able to read about it in the Star.
Anyway, after a 2 hour + surface interval, we decided it would be best for both of us if Headhunter did the navigation. We entered at the Diver's Cove stairs, and kicked out to be in line with the rocks breaking the surface (which I assumed marked the end of the reef). Dropped down, and headed West across the sand to hit the reef. Viz had deteriorated substantially due to the tide going out. In no time we finally found the Mermaid's Grotto, and it was VERY cool. Did some exploring, went over to Fisherman's, turned around, went around the end of the reef, and saw the same scotch bottle. Something about the surge and not having a good handle on location makes me swim harder and suck more air, and Headhunter had to throttle me back. We had been matching each other in air consumption, until the tail end of the dive when I turned on the jets. When I got around 700psi I thumbed the dive, we did our safety stop by bounciing up and down +/- 5 feet, bumping into each other, and finally surfaced about where we had dropped down.
Anway, it was a great dive, viz wasn't all that great and it was a bit surgy, but we made a day of it, and it was just a spectacular beach day. There were very few people at the beach, and we had the place to ourselves all day. Myrna and her daughter had fun snorkeling, too. Very cool. And after a decontamination shower and some rubbing alcohol eardrops we're doing fine.
By the way, I'd love to find a good map of the reef area between Diver's and Fisherman's, other than the Sheckler's map. I found out there are at least two versions of the Sheckler's map. The one in the book shows an entrance to the grotto on the west side, the other (website:
http://www.saintbrendan.com/cdnjuly02/Fishermans.html) shows there isn't one. Also, I may have been fooled by thinking that the rocks that break the surface over towards Fisherman's are the tip of the reef. Shecklers seems to indicate that the reef goes out much further than that.
