The Lexy October '05 Dive Reports Thread

[whalerkyle]

Date: October 1, 2005
Dive Location: Rock Quarry, Catalina
Time: 12:00 am
Bottom Time: 34 minutes and 11 minutes
Max Depth: 35'
Vis: 50+, as far as my lights would go
Wave height: Nill
Temp at depth: 59F

I'm just happy to be back in the water diving again after 6 months of stress with the new business. Anywhoo......

I was finally able to use my new boat for a good purpose other than boozing on it in my driveway and loaded it with 4 divers, and 12 tanks, and we were off to the secret island of Catalina from Los Alamitos.
My next purchase is radar because at 8pm, we couldn't see 150' due to the fog, and it was very scary for the first 4 miles. We had to keep our ears peeled to listen for any other boats. We missed a freighter on anchor by about 150'.

We anchored up near the power plant and started a little bbq before the good times started, and at midnight we hit the water. Somehow we managed to anchor on top of a colony of bugs. I even measured a few before grabbing them, lol.
Awsome vis, no surges, no waves, and 4 limits of bugs in less than 40 minutes. Back on the boat we made a 1am snack with some fresh grilled bug, and made dive #2 for 11 minutes to fill our limits back up again.

After organizing the little whaler, and getting into some warm clothing, the sun was starting to come up, so we headed for home. At wide open throttle I am only able to hit 24mph with all these divers and gear, so I need a bigger boat.

It's good to be back.

Kyle

 

[twinpop]

Date: October 01, 2005
Dive Location: Cortez Banks
Time: 9:30 AM
Bottom Time:
Max Depth:
Vis:
Wave height: Oh My GOD!!!
Temp at depth: 52
Surface Temp: probably in the mid 60's
Tide information: Rising.
Gas mix: nitrox 36%
Comments: no way am i going in there!!!


Got out there about 9-9:30 approx. 5-7 other boats in the area, surge at 40ft. was 30-40ft. Dive master called off dive. Got to see some huge breakers though - surfing side of me was like get me a board!!!

Date: October 01, 2005
Dive Location: Church Rock, Catalina
Time: 7:30 PM
Bottom Time:30
Max Depth:59
Vis: 40-50
Wave height: nil
Temp at depth: 64
Surface Temp: probably in the mid 60's
Tide information:
Gas mix: nitrox 36%
Comments: first night dives, yea!

stunning! I was too caught up in gazing at the kelp in the night than looking for bugs.
2nd. dive was basically the same. Dove with a great guy I met on the boat - where's Casey? No one was really catching any bugs. As I was getting on the boat - a pod of dolphins, about 7-9, swam by and played a little bit 20-30ft from the boat. that was too cool.

Date: October 02, 2005
Dive Location: Long Point, Catalina
Time: 9:00, 10:30, 1:15
Bottom Time:30
Max Depth:64, 45, 89
Vis: 40-50
Wave height: nil
Temp at depth:
Surface Temp: 65, 75, 79
Tide information:
Gas mix: Air 21%
Comments: bug hunting for real

Perfect conditions - some bugs on the first two dives, mostly juvies - a couple of decent size ones but too far back in their holes to get to and did not want to break off the antennaes. last dive of the day was awesome - 89ft. lots of bugs, still didnt catch any but it was cool - saw my first shark, about a 2 foot horn shark, caught a octo, well he happened to be in a shell I was going to get for my aquarium, he was very cool - before anybody says anything, I tossed him back. Good weekend all together.

Kevin

 

[Mo2vation]

Date: October 1, 2005
Dive Location: Rock Quarry, Catalina
Time: 12:00 am
Bottom Time: 34 minutes and 11 minutes
Max Depth: 35'
Vis: 50+, as far as my lights would go
Wave height: Nill
Temp at depth: 59F

I'm just happy to be back in the water diving again after 6 months of stress with the new business. Anywhoo......

I was finally able to use my new boat for a good purpose other than boozing on it in my driveway and loaded it with 4 divers, and 12 tanks, and we were off to the secret island of Catalina from Los Alamitos.
My next purchase is radar because at 8pm, we couldn't see 150' due to the fog, and it was very scary for the first 4 miles. We had to keep our ears peeled to listen for any other boats. We missed a freighter on anchor by about 150'.

We anchored up near the power plant and started a little bbq before the good times started, and at midnight we hit the water. Somehow we managed to anchor on top of a colony of bugs. I even measured a few before grabbing them, lol.
Awsome vis, no surges, no waves, and 4 limits of bugs in less than 40 minutes. Back on the boat we made a 1am snack with some fresh grilled bug, and made dive #2 for 11 minutes to fill our limits back up again.

After organizing the little whaler, and getting into some warm clothing, the sun was starting to come up, so we headed for home. At wide open throttle I am only able to hit 24mph with all these divers and gear, so I need a bigger boat.

It's good to be back.

Kyle

I figure the kid has to be, what, 15 - 20 pounds? I don't recall seeing a picture of Nino next to a 17 pounder. What up? :07:

Welcome back, bud.

---
Ken

 

[whalerkyle]

lol.
No biggies this year. Each bug was less than 3 lbs. The kid is about 22 lbs now, and would probably try and eat the lobster if I let him. He found a worm in the back yard yesterday and gulped it down.

 

[PhotoTJ]

lol.
No biggies this year. Each bug was less than 3 lbs. The kid is about 22 lbs now, and would probably try and eat the lobster if I let him. He found a worm in the back yard yesterday and gulped it down.

Ah, to be young and foolish again.

Well, one out of two ain't bad.

How big is your boat again, Kyle?

 

[mccabejc]

Date: Oct 2, 2005
Dive Location: College of Oceaneering Hyperbaric Facility, Wilmington
Time: approx. 11 am
Bottom Time: approx 40 minutes
Max Depth: 165 ft

I haven't posted a dive report here in a while, and I had a real cool one yesterday:

As part of the LA County ADP class (and our final session of the course, prior to finals in two weeks) we took a chamber ride. A MAJOR chamber ride. BTW, does it count as a dive if you don't see fishies?

After a briefing, and prior to entering the chamber they had us do a math test. This involved adding three two-digit numbers together, and one of the other students timed how long it took you to get the correct answer. The idea was to compare the surface time to the time it took you at maximum depth, and see how narcosis affects you. We also had to fit some odd-shaped blocks thru the corresponding holes in a child’s toy. Not being a child, it was tough. We then emptied our pockets of all metal, took off our shoes and stood on a “clean” mat. We than had a quick neurological exam by the chamber operator, and four of us climbed into the 5 ft (or was it 6 ft?) diameter chamber. The operator locked the chamber, and moments later announced over the speaker that we were leaving the surface. We had to equalize constantly on the way down, which probably took 4 or 5 minutes. Apparently it's something of a mystery why you need to equalize much more often in a chamber than in the water. But you do. Constantly. Wierd. As we got closer to the bottom I could feel my chest compressing, and it got warmer and warmer as the air pressurized the chamber. When we reached 165 ft it was hot. I mean sweatin' like a pig hot. Our voices sounded like chipmunks, and I felt like I had drunk a scotch and soda. A weak one. I was a bit lightheaded and slightly euphoric, but not much else. I was expecting that with the heat and tight quarters I'd feel claustrophobic, or maybe get confused or paranoid or something, but luckily it didn't happen. Overall I felt pretty good, which was a bit surprising. Of course we had people constantly staring at us thru the portholes, like we were some circus freaks or something. Anyway, I did the math test, and felt like I had done better at 165 ft than at the surface. Never found out the results, but I'm sure I'm a lot smarter at 165 ft. I didn’t have time to do the block test.

We left the bottom and headed up to 60 ft., and as the pressure dropped the perspiration on our bodies was released as fog in the chamber. At 60 ft we had to go on pure oxygen to accelerate the N2 offgassing, and held O2 masks over our faces. During the rest of our ascent we alternated between regular air and pure O2. Total dive time was about 40 minutes I think. When we exited the chamber they did another neurological exam to see if we were okay. I was, which is good...

For someone who hadn't ventured past 60 ft in the 70 or so dives I've done since I started diving last year, this was a very big deal weekend for me. On Saturday we dove the Sue Jac at Casino Point (also my first nitrox dive after getting a certification last week), and went down to 100ft, where we did a mask clearing exercise. Then yesterday a 165 ft chamber ride. I've gotta say I was a bit anxious about it all, but now I'm really thrilled that I went thru it. Very cool. Since these were my first times to 100ft and below it gave me a real good indication of what I could expect as the worst case effects of narcosis on future dives. Seems to be not be much of an issue. Also showed me that you can go deep and not die. Which is good...

Following the deep dive we went over to their 12 foot deep water tanks, donned commercial dive helmets with integrated communications, and froliced around the tanks for a while. I did a headstand and acted goofy.

This ADP thing is very cool...

By the way, looks like while I've been gone Lexy became the sponsor of the dive reports. Cool. Kind of like when big companies sponsor sports arenas? Maybe next we'll see the LexyDome?

 

[Redondoscubadude]

Date: October 2, 2005
Dive Location: PV somewhere
Time: 9:43 am and 11:31
Bottom Time: 36 minutes and 41 minutes
Max Depth: 33'
Vis: 10-15+
Wave height: N/A
Temp at depth: 59F

Escaped the red tide and captured a couple of nice bugs. Dove with a buddy off my sailboat. Thanks to tips on this board and others I was able to be successful on my first try at lobster hunting. I'm not a big hunter/fisherman type but I had a blast doing it and think I might be hooked.

 

[wetrat]

Date: 10/1/05
Dive Location: Ripper's Cove, Catalina
Dive Number: 27
Time: 12:01 am
Bottom Time: 59 mins
Max Depth: 42 ft
Vis: 50+
Temp at depth: 58F
Gas mix: Air
Some buddies and I sailed over from Long Beach and arrived at the cove in the afternoon with two other boats at anchor. Skipper did a brief dive to check the anchor and saw a giant black sea bass moseying through. At season opener there were seven other boats in the cove and the Aquatica joined us too. This being my first bug dive it seemed weird trailing a game bag, but I also had a brand spankin' new steel 100 to make up for the increased air consumption. Saw plenty of shorts and one or two big bugs, but couldn't dig them out of the rocks (and didn't try too hard, because I was really just there for the diving anyway). It was an OUTSTANDING night dive with some big sheepshead, sculpin, lots of blacksmith and garibaldi, a couple hornsharks, a shovelnose guitar fish and some weird sand ray thingy that I'll try to figure out later.

Date: 10/01/05
Dive Location: Little Gibraltor Point, Catalina
Dive Number: 28
Time: 11:32am
Bottom Time: 52 min
Max Depth: 64ft
Vis: 50+
Temp at depth: 55F
Gas mix: Air
Having bagged only one legal bug the night before, we turned to day diving. Saw a decent sized lobster - figured he decided to sleep in on opening night to avoid being caught so was out and about during the day. Other creatures observed were a ton of cool blue-banded gobies, scallops, some beautiful abalone shells, rock wrasse, kelp fish and halibut. Found a dead juvenile lobster - he looked like a casualty from the night before, so I broke him up to feed the locals. Seems they enjoyed the feast because everyone followed me around for the remainder of the dive. Even though garibaldi are so common in California I do believe they are my favorite fish. They are always staring into my mask as if to say, "IF YOU INSIST ON BEING HERE, FEED ME YOU MORON." They are like little orange New Yorkers with gills.

 

[whalerkyle]

Ah, to be young and foolish again.

Well, one out of two ain't bad.

How big is your boat again, Kyle?

lol, it's a whopping 19'

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Palos Verdes beach dive
6:55 PM splash in
21 fsw max depth
1:09 run time
Viz: 2-12 feet, swirly
temp: a balmy 64F

From the car to the surf, the lecture ran on: "OK, this is all about the bugs. This isn't pretty diving, don't try any of that pretty hovering stuff. Get negative and stay neg. We're gonna cover alot of ground, with surge and lousy viz. This is lobster hunting...it's ugly and it works."

Arrrrghh! Eye-patch in place and knife clenched in my teeth....In we go, getting sideways on the surgy, rocky entry, but making it out and down. Right away Ross is catching bugs! I watch the grab, the measure, the bagging ("paper or plastic or spring latched reinforced nylon??"), the moving on. Hmmmmmm.....

And suddenly I'm seeing them and....whammm! omg, I've got it!....it's a bit short...but **omg** I held it and measured and let it go. Just like Captain Tim said on the G.E. last season. "Don't admire them...just whack the flipping bug" (Well, he sort of said something like that.... approximately...) Several more shorts, another legal one, and I missed many.

And it was UGLY! Shallow, with waves overhead, surge shoving me into rocks, rolling me around urchins while scorpion fish scattered, horrid viz so that I could just make out the glow of my buddy's HID most of the time, and big repetitive sweeps over a large area. Thank the diving-gods for buddys with purpose and great team skills. We surfaced a few times to check our location and plan our exit. We did see one beautiful 4 foot silvery shark, shaped like a spiny dog fish, but I'm not sure what it actually was. A fleeting moment of beauty in the midst of the hunt. This is definitely a different spin on diving for me.
Oh, and speaking of the spin-cycle, the opaque surgey water and eel grass made for some spectacular moments of free-for-all disorientation....oooo-wheeeee! What a sensory explosion this dive was!

I'm glad I was using my little 80 hp flea-tank, 'cause the lobsters were heavy going back to the cars and the terrain was, uhm...challenging in the dark. Mud-coated gear, red-tide saturated wetsuit, a stunk-up car, late gear washing, calling my family on my cell driving home... ("Darling! I caught one! I caught a lobster!!"), lessons on cleaning/freezing, and tons of fun amidst tasty rewards. And work in about 6 1/2 hours....So, THIS is SoCal Lobster beach diving...Wow. When are we going again????:jump013: Thanks, Ross! That was a blast!!!!
Claudette