Tuesday Night Dive at La Jolla Shores
Hi, all:
I, too, got a message saying that SM 'missed me,' so here's a LADR [I am known on other boards for my Looong Assed Dive Reports, so don't say you weren't forewarned! :)
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Date: 3/25/08
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: La Jolla Shores, Vallecitos Pt.
Conditions: incoming tide: low, 2-3 ft. waves, but with a bit of 'knock you back a couple feet' punch on the way out; slightly stronger on the way back in
Viz: not great: some greenish 'red tide' in top layers, with stirred up 5-8 ft. murk on the bottom
Dive Length: 45 mins
Max Depth: 92 ft.
Temp: a solid, b-b-b-bone chilling 50 F.
Buddy Teams: Me, Dave, Kathy and Merrianne
Critters Seen: Swimming crabs everywhere, Southern Kelp Crabs on Kelp, many Red Sea Hares, a couple nudis, Thornback Rays,
Round Rays, Target Shrimp, Brown Shrimp and Coon Shrimp
Remarks:
We must be one of the most literate dive groups around: the most memorable part of the dive was Kathy B. reciting to us, from memory, Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Telltale Heart' on the way out to the drop zone [!].
Luckily, I was able to get Merrianne to commit to reciting Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' for us [from memory] on our way out to Waaay North Wall next week. :)
We are so lucky to have such an educated group of divers here in San Diego!
Unfortunately, the literary salon was the high point of the evening. It sort of went down hill from there.
Upon arrival at the drop zone, I had apparently decided to see how far I could descend without putting any air in my dry suit, having conveniently forgotten to hook up my inflator hose before the dive [see? I'm not afraid to admit these things...].;)
Needless to say, by the time we reached 60 ft. or so, I was pretty much bug-eyed and purple from suit squeeze and reduced to making frantic gestures for assistance from Dave, who thought I was gesturing for him to connect his dry suit hose, which caused no end of comical confusion on his part, since his was already connected.:eek:
Actually, I had managed to locate my dry suit hose, but due to all the various crap I had dangling from my D rings, was having trouble getting it onto the dry suit connector, so finally, Kathy, in her instructor mode, patiently swam over to see what all the commotion was about and swiftly had me hooked up and ready to go.........but, not before I lost about 15 lbs from the ambient outside water pressure alone.:o
When we finally resumed the dive and began heading down into the canyon, I looked down to discover that, in all the commotion, I had now lost the pencil I had planned to use for my REEF survey, thereby putting a quick end to that project and rendering useless all the slates and other gear I had brought along to accomplish that.
This dive was getting off to a stellar start, I could tell.
Finally, we found ourselves at around 90 ft., blundering about in the dark and murk in the detritus pits.
It was here that I wished the locally famous Terry S. and his magical camera had been with us: in addition to all the Coon Shrimp and Target Shrimp everywhere, I came across a rather large Sea Hare with the tiniest little Cleaner Shrimp you ever saw, about 2 mm long, in between the rhinophores, busily working to clean them off. It was a classic Shot of the Night, and of course, no camera.
We poked along, through the detritus pits, heading South for a while until we were back along the sloping sandy bottom, which didn't offer much to see, so I angled Dave down a bit again, towards 90 ft. again, hoping we'd come across something noteworthy and sure, enough, we found the steep sandstone walls of Zion--as in Southern Utah.
Here, various large Rockfish darted about here and there, trying, unsuccessfully, to keep out of the range of our lights.
By now, the 50 F degree water was starting to have its effect, so I began steering us up and over the shallower canyon walls towards the shallows, where we were escorted into shore by numerous Round Rays and Thornback Rays, including a really tiny juvenile, who was really cute: about 4 inches long.
Coming in through the now slightly larger and more powerful surf, I made the mistake of thinking I was clear and turned my back on it for a second and when I turned around again to face it, without my regulator in my mouth, of course, I got slammed with a face full of high velocity sea water and that always pleasant, but mercifully short sensation of drowning, before recovering my reg and my dignity and limping my way back into shore with Dave.
Not the best dive I've had in recent memory, but certainly worth it, if only for the literary education to be had on the way out to the drop zone!
Dive safe, everyone,
Mikey
