cwhite6
Contributor
I figured I would post my report from my other thread so maybe more folks can see it. I went diving Sunday on the Sundiver Express out of Seal Beach. The dives cost $100 and I hired Julie as a DG for $100. I had a blast. Julie is wonderful and a hoot to be around. There were five certified divers and two classes on board. There were even two rebreathers on board, so that was cool to see. At least I didn't feel like the only newbie! I actually enjoyed watching them and helping out with their equipment and stuff. Julie and I saw some cool sea life and generally farted around slowly on the dives. She is an excellent critter spotter.
This was the first boat dives for me. It is some much better than shore diving as in the ease of getting into and out of the water. I will go on on the Sundiver again if I get the chance. I got to try out my full BP/W, computer and reg setup for the first time and learned some stuff about them and improved my rig a little. I need to find a way to control the inflator hose better. I know we dove one point called Pirates Cove and one called Yellowtail Point I believe. We dove another that had a good deal of kelp, but I do not remember the name of it. By my computer, the coldest we saw was 50 degrees and warmest was 62. We only went to 42 feet and stayed between 18 and 33 most of the time. The vis was around 30 feet or so. Sometimes we had further. We saw a couple of horned sharks, a big Bat Ray, some smaller Rays and a huge mass of big black slug looking things that were getting jiggy and leaving huge piles of spaghetti looking eggs all over. The hand signals Julie used for me to grasp what was going on way funny as heck. One thing that was funny was Julie and I were swimming along on the first dive and the vis suddenly went to crap, less than 10'. We swam a little and could see the students thrashing around doing drills so we swam on. I don't mean it is funny to laugh at them, just funny how the vis got so bad so fast and why. I know I looked the same way and still do on occasion. One thing Julie did was do a formal weight check on me. We ended up dropped 6 pounds of lead. I ended up at 16 pounds and my trim was much, much better. I may get the hang of it one day.
We had chicken sandwiches or hamburgers for lunch grilled by the Scuba Chef Trevor who was on board. Lots of snacks and chocolate at the end. All in all, it was well worth the drive from San Diego and the money to go.I feel the extra for hiring Julie was well worth it. She made me much more comfortable and put me at ease. One thing I did notice was that I didn't see any of the students put any money in the tip jar. I guess their instructor did not tell them about it or the norm for tipping. I made sure I tipped Julie as she was awesome and I put some more in the jar.
It was a fun trip, never had a boring one on Sundiver
