Date: Jan 4th, 2007
Dive Location: Vets Park
Buddy(ies): HBI'llDiveAnythingGurl
Time: 6:40-ish PM
Bottom Time: 72 minutes
Max Depth: 90-something
Vis: 20 feet when it was good, 5 feet after the surge hit (second half of the dive)
Wave height: Going in: 1' to 2'. Coming out: 4' - 6'.
Temp at depth: 57 degrees
Surface Temp: Whatever. Cold, wind, rain... drysuits rule!
Tide information: Low 4:16 PM - rising to High Tide at 10:55 (we got out at about 8:20-ish)
Gas mix: Yokohama
Top reason Pasley should hurry home: eTicket rides at Vets can be kind of exhilarating!
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Holy Moly, what a dive!
Tonight marked my 750th dive. We meet up at Vets just after 6:00. Its raining, its misty, there’s supposed to be a storm on the way in. Whatever – it’s the night after a full moon, and we’re looking for some squid.
We gear up in record time, I grab my cam and we head down the stairs. We get to the water’s edge and its not too bad – maybe a foot or two. Certainly nothing HBSquidGurl and I couldn’t plow through. We find a good spot, want for a lull and dash in.
I’m on my back up mask, and its fogging like a beast. So I trade with ‘Chica and hers doesn’t fit as well, but at least its clear. We square away and we drop.
The water is pretty clear – much cleaner than I expected. I’m pretty excited – except for the water torture on my grill…. Drip. Drip. Drip. ()&*%#&^%$^%$ I’m looking down trying to find some of the Dendronotus (as its pretty clear, even though the surge is pretty rough) and every time I look down I’m looking through a puddle. So I maneuver so I can look UP the canyon wall along the detritus line… much better. I snap some shots of some Fakeyssendas, a couple of Fed Ex and one really bad Dendy pic.
We decide to head down the canyon and look for some squid. I wanted to try shooting one more time at night with my 105mm Macro. Big mistake. I need to bring my 60mm on these night dives – the 105 is just too tough to use when the light is really low and the surge is really high. Memo to self: if its dark, leave the 105 at home. PLUS, I really couldn’t pick a worse lens for trying to short squid and the associated foofoorah that go with them (bat rays, egg baskets, dashing sea lions, etc.)
Speaking of Sea Lions, we were buzzed several times by one or more. We could hear them barking the whole time we were below 80 feet (I think we got to 90-something) and we startled one. In fact, I think he went up for a breath and came back for revenge.
Shortly after we freaked him out, as I was shooting a squid, I felt Claudette kick me several times in the side, then in the left butt cheek. I thought, “this isn’t like her.. .what’s going on…” I look over and she’s panting and writing a note in her Wetnotes. With a quaking hand she said we just got buzzed by papa Sea Lion, and he wasn’t happy! Apparently, the Sea Lion came through at about 90 MPH and split us – I mean zoomed right between us! If you’ve ever seen us dive, you know there isn’t enough room between us for a few hundred pounds of fur and gristle. So if I felt him blast along my side, I can only imagine how close he came to ‘dette before she lunged out of the way of this freight train. I was completely oblivious, composing a shot when he blasted by.
So there weren't too many squid Thursday night. And most of the ones we saw were in bad shape. We saw a bat ray and some sea lions, and lots of evidence of stuff down there with is, you know? Silt clouds, but no animals. Swirling water, but we're alone. It was creepy. We were diving with a lot of critters (bigger critters - rays, lions and stuff) but most of them stayed out of site... you just
knew they were there.
We head back up the canyon and I fire off some more lame shots. The problem is the Squid are attracted to the front of the flat port. They probably see another squid and come in for a closer look, and keep coming until they actually run into the port. This happened with almost every squid. I posted one pic below of a guy that literally bounced off the lens port of the camera. Its hard enough to lock focus, but when I’m back-kicking as fast as I can trying to keep these slimers in frame, it makes it tough to get decent shots.
At the trash line I take a few more shots, and we make a slow ascent. The surge is really tossing us around. We’re at about 72 minutes now. We pop to the surface, and I hear Claudette say “whoa… Victory At Sea.” The ocean is as choppy as I’ve ever seen it on a dive. I was about 5 feet from her and I could only see her about ever 10 seconds or so. It was bad, and I’m thinking how are we gonna get in without getting rolled or losing the camera.
We get close enough to touch and we’re diving under waves that are now way over our heads. We have the fin-removal-hand-off-the-camera thing pretty wired, so we exit without any serious injury or camera damage. WOW. We’re sitting on the wall, puffing and looking at a sea of whitecaps that extends from the sand out to the horizon.
We catch our breath and hit the shower – congratulating ourselves on our good fortune, when all of a sudden the real wind starts. Its howling. All of the trash cans on the beach are blown over and start rolling towards us (that was very twilight zone.) We’re climbing up the stairs, wind aided, and its just getting worse. We’re yelling to each other to be heard.
I get to my truck and open it, and immediately the wind sweeps away my changing matt and blasts it across the parking lot. I’m out of my gear and running after it, but I can’t catch it. It wraps around the last parking meter pole in the lot, thankfully, or else it’d be a traffic hazard on PCH!
We’re freezing. No rain, just huge wind. We’re totally getting sand blasted. We dive into our cars and slam the doors without saying a word….and get on our cell phones – just laughing!
What a lesson. The Ocean can turn on you so fast. If it looked like this when we went in, we would have blow this off and gone to dinner! No way we could get in through this wind. I knew it was going to get uglier, but I had no idea in 72 minutes it would get unsafe to dive. We’re both very thankful we got in a nice dive and got out safely.
Thanks ‘dette! There is nobody else in SoCal I feel more confident with in big surf than you. You’re the reason I do these crazy dives. What a team!!
Some fuzzy pics below.
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Ken
Tiny Lil Octo. Maybe 1.5" across. He was half buried in the sand. Little cutie!
Full size here.
I could not shake this guy. So I finally took his picture.
GoodYear Blimp View! Look at the Oral Tentacals on this Fed Ex. They white tipped, like bull horns. I've shot thosands of Fed Ex pix, and I went back though a few dozen - I don't have any with white tips like this. Very strange. Very cool.
Fuzzy full size original here.
A classic Fakey. Its been months since I've seen one on the sand. They're all ON something. They must GET to that something somehow... I can't belive we'll dive and see 20 of these, and not a one on the sand.
Squiddly making a break for it. This guy also bounced off my lens port.
This tiny (1/2") Dendy was hanging out in about 30 feet of water. This is right at the end of the dive, with the surge raging. The surge hit us, and he sort of splayed open, but I also got shoved so the pic is a little fuzzy. But I like the fact you can see all of him.
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Remember - if you get the Red X of death, just right click and select "Show Picture." If it still doesn't fill in, hit f5 and re-load the page. The gallery is here.
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Yeah, I'm right there with ya, John. :eyemouth: 
