Wasted Days And Wasted Nights

[MaxBottomtime]

Have you ever had one of those night dives when the visibility is so bad, your light barely penetrates the water? Merry and I had one of those. Unfortunately, it was at 9:00 this morning.

We've been watching the swell models all week, hoping for a day without getting beaten up on the way to the dive site. They all showed a nice week ahead. The National Weather Service predicted 1.6' swells today. The buoy data kept telling us it was between three and four feet, but we trusted the swell models. We were fooled again. I almost turned around as we passed the Avalon wreck, site of our last horrible dive, but held out hope that it would be better on the south side of the peninsula. It wasn't. We decided to make a dive at Marineland since we were already there.

As we dropped through the dark green soup that has plagued Southern California for months, the visibility actually got worse. We reached the rocky bottom to find slightly better than three feet vis. Merry and I each had our wide angle lenses on our cameras, so it was going to be a challenge. Merry was smart. She aborted the dive after a few minutes. I stuck it out trying to get close focus wide angle shots in a blizzard with the lights off.

I think we'll take some time off from diving until we hear about how clear blue the water is.

 

[Steve_C]

Not bad pictures for 3 ft of viz.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

That's what is so nice about a fisheye lens. I was only a few inches from each subject, but it looks like I was a few feet away.

 

[JamesBon92007]

Those gorgonia shots turned out very nice--I wouldn't have known how bad the vis was if you hadn't told us.

We were in the Gulf of California about 10 days ago (Loreto) and the visibility was up to 60' or more. Maybe it's time for a little trip. It's only about a 22 hour drive

 

[Rooster59]

I thought we were going to talk about Freddy Fender

 

[paowdan]

Phil, go around the peninsula and dive the south side of PV/San Pedro! Conditions have been surprisingly good compared to what you've experienced on the west side. Heard about great conditions on the Olympic II and went last week for great conditions (better than Catalina recently!).

Video (not mine) from 8/18 that I saw posted to FB:

I've been using surf-forecast.com to try to get a sense of what conditions might be like... South side sites have been pretty consistently swell from a single direction last few weeks...

On the other hand, the west side sites have had this mixed swell (even if low energy) that shows up as blue/red on the "Wave Graph"... not sure if accurate but it seems to make sense that viz could be bad if multiple swells from different directions stir up the bottom?

Anyway, at least the water is warming up! After two months of 52-57 degree bottom temps, had first dives in 61-64 degree water last night off the Long Beach breakwall!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The warmer water is bad! It will just keep the plankton bloom here longer.
I've been talking to Jim Simmerman every day lately. He said it's been hit and miss. On Tuesday the oil rigs had decent vis but not until the divers got below 70 feet. Last week they were near Pt. Vicente and reported good vis, yet a few days later it was three feet.
Some friends of mine were tuna fishing 40 miles off San Diego last weekend and reported green water out there as well. I just need to roll the dice and hope I find a good spot on the right day. I look at the chlorophyll maps and see that Huntington Flats has been better most of the time.
TempBreak.com

 

[paowdan]

Hmm, didn't consider that! All of our diving last 2 months has been LA Harbor area (White's Pt to the LB breakwall) and conditions have been cold but viz decent/good. Have been hoping for the kelp to recover but haven't seen that either even with the cold water...

 

[MaxBottomtime]

There is a healthy kelp bed at Marineland (Terranea) right now. It extends from Cardiac Hill to the cove at Terranea. Also, Rocky Point, Resort Point, and the area near the Avalon still have plenty of kelp.