Avalon Harbor Clean up

[PhotoTJ]

We went over Friday evening, it was a little dreary all day Friday, so we were a little iffy about the prospect of a nice day for the clean up. Boy, I've never been more glad I can't predict the weather, Saturday dawned spectacular! Got in at Step Beach, found a couple of plates for free food at Antonio's, and the usual junk. A half of a motorcycle tire, bottles, golf balls, etc. One diver found a Rolex, (yes, a REAL one!), a sleeping bag came up, fishing gear, pretty much the usual suspects, with some neat stuff here and there.
You could see the snow capped mountains from the beach in Avalon. Great weather!

After the dive, we had the awards ceremony, gave away $27,000 worth of prizes. Hey, a good dive, good food, good times!

A great weekend, if you missed it, you missed out!

[Jefe]

Sounds good. Somehow I always miss this event every year.

[DrBill]

Hey, TJ... good to see you here, too. Thanks for the great PR when you announced the winner of my DVD set at the raffle.

I produced a 30-min episode of my cable TV show on the clean-up. Of course TJ is featured in his role as emcee.

[Papa Bear]

I will be there doing the Green Pier area with the Sea Creatures Dive club! Hope we see you there! I will have a few Reed's Rods if you want to take a look! Say hi and don't be shy we are all divers who love what we do!

[Papa Bear]

Okay, I just picked up my new steel LP95 and I am ready to put in some bottom time! How about you?

[hbh2oguard]

I'd love to but stuck in the cold, rainy, norther part of the state. Oh well I'll be out in Monterey this weekend freezing my ass off helping check out ow class

[Papa Bear]

I'd love to but stuck in the cold, rainy, norther part of the state. Oh well I'll be out in Monterey this weekend freezing my ass off helping check out ow class

LOL, Well we had an interesting weekend! I think I heard something about 115 divers for the clean up? It was interesting because the night before they had 2-1/2" of rain and the run off was silting the Harbor! The viz was pretty close to Zero in some places! We had the Green Pier and and hit the water at 9:30am with the sun out and shining for the moment! The Harbor had bands of silt and water that had a bout 12 to 15' of viz. My buddy Doug and I dropped in and headed out at about 15* heading for the 50' depth limit! Once we got to about 32' the viz got better and you could see the bottom. I got a few odd things in my bag and my buddy collected a couple more, including a child's folding chair, in the 55* degree water. We headed in a big U shape and came up near the steps at the main plaza for a 40 minute dive! (I brought back 1300psi)

They had $37000.00 worth of raffle prizes that filled the time slot from 1:00pm until after 3:30pm. Giving away a lot of nice stuff and awarding prizes for a number of categories of trash collected.

By a little after 4:00pm I was entering the water at Casino Point for a quick look around with the wind coming up and the sun gone the viz was down to about 20ft. The forecast for Sunday was rain and wind with 12ft to 15ft swells! So we decided to take the 10:30 fairy back just in case! It was a good time like always when divers get together. I donated a number of Reed's Rods and my Tiger Shark DVD, I hope the winners enjoy both! I saw a lot of old friends and met some new ones! All in all it was worth the trip!

[hbh2oguard]

Sounded like fun. The water never seems to warm up at catalina but I guess it isn't much warmer on the main land either, actually probably colder. Thanks for the report.

[Papa Bear]

Catalina in the summer can get close to 80*!!!!! On the surface of course, in the low 70's top 10 to 30ft!

And yes we all had a great time and a lot more dive stories!

[hbh2oguard]

Key word is close but that's when the water on the mainland is mid 70's so it's not much warmer I've only been to the back side where it's more exposed so it seems to be colder. Actually I dove the casino once and it wasn't too bad.