SoCalSwami Diving

2/15/2009 - 021509 - The Day of The Whale

Seeking relief from the extended diving drought due to wind and rain, Spencer and Kim decided a dive was in order and text'd me for a dive at high noon. Little did I know it would be one of my finest dives EVER!

As Kim mentioned in her report, our first encounter with the Mr. Whale (presumable a Grey) was on a section of wall just N/E of The Point. While glancing down the slope in hopes of catching glimpse of a Horn Shark or maybe a D. Iris, I was over-whelmed to see a West-bound Greyhound Bus passing before my eyes. Having seen a handful of whales from topside perspective, I can say for certain, nothing prepares you for seeing one of these monoliths underwater.

After staring in disbelief for 2-3 seconds, my first reaction was to signal my buddies rather than take a picture. Doh! Taking what seemed like forever for them to turn around, I nearly pulled off Kim's fin in hope of sharing this amazing sight. But as we turned round, I saw only a fleeting second of the fluke plunge into the dark depths below. Neither Kim nor Spencer saw it. Dang me!

As I attempted to indicate the thing I saw was "HUGE" [arms stretched wide]. They both looked at me like I had seen a sea lion. yah. yah, that's great mike.

Mike: "No Really, It Was THIS big".

Spencer: [hand on head] "Was it a shark?"

Mike: "NO, Bigger!"

Spencer: "Ok Mike" [presumablly thinking I saw an oversized sea line]

The next 5 minutes of the dive were a blur until we reached the new section of wall and investigate the "new block and chain".

Moving on, Kim steered us to the "old" block to confirm it was still in place.

After clearing the safety stop, I started to get a bit queazy from the large floating particles in the water and signaled I wanted to ascend. When I turned back round, there he was again, no more than 8' away. A frick'n Grey Whale in 12' of water! Amazing!

In a fit of insanity I made a few swift kicks in hopes of brushing my hand against the mid section of this magnificent creature. But once I got to within 4', I realized the business end of the monster would be passing by any second and sudden fear of being crushed flashed before me. So I eased up and watched as the fluke passed just beyond arms reach.

I don't suppose I'll ever see another whale as close as the one I saw today; this was truely a once in a lifetime experience.

We are all lucky to dive such a world class location, some are just luckier than others ;)

Dive well,

Mike

Photo Album:

Sorry, no whale pictures :(

http://tinyurl.com/cd5y85

*** KIM'S REPORT ***
[Divebums] La Jolla Shores Sun 021509 - WE SAW A WHALE UNDERWATER

How do you like that for a subject line - talk about a once in a lifetime dive. We also found a new engine block and part of the main wall has collapsed.

Location: LJS Vallecitos Point to the engine block

Descent: 12:44pm

Vis: 15 at the point, 5 tops above 40 feet and full of salad

Depth: 70 max 47 avg

Temp: 51 min and 52 avg, yes chilly with a leaky wrist and slushy dryglove

Bottom time: 66 mins

Buddies: Spencer and Mike H

I'll just give the short version of the dive because its all that matter. We were along the point when I saw this flashing light and really firm tug on my fin, I turn around and Mike is giving me the signal he saw something HUGE, Spencer asked if it was a shark, no but it was HUGE and then Mike makes this motion with him arm of how it moved I thought Dolphin cause it couldn't be a Whale. Mike keeps looking for HUGE as he was beginning to think he was crazy and even signaled that he must be and lets move on. As we moved north almost to the draw with the engine block I got really excited to see some really impressive new wall. The main wall has collapsed and created a new shear wall in its place. Even more exciting is the engine block Mike found 15ft down the slope. At first I thought it was the old one we've seen for so long and had gotten displaced but this one has no growth on it and has some chain laying next to it with link big enough for me to put my hand thru and pick up. We swam up to the engine block to verify it was still there and it is, so this one is new. This new wall and block are just south of the almost buried engine block we've seen the last couple years.

Spencer says he's ready to go in so we head in, lots of salad and a good amount of surge, at 12 feet Mike tells me he's going up, so I look to my right and check for Spencer, and we both look forward for Mike who is frantically flailing to get our attention and Spencer and I see this Fluke move up and down in front of us, not 5 feet from our faces, and its gone. I grabbed Spencers arm to make sure I wasn't dreaming and he had seen what I had seen and we follow Mike to the surface and we all started screaming with glee and exclamations and what have you and we all turn to face west and there it is again, the head of the Whale comes out of the water not 30 feet away from us but now it is west of us and goes back down and we didn't see it again. Immediately we ask Mike is that what you saw at the point, YES YES YES.

Amazing, dive of a lifetime!!!!

*** SOME SHOTS FROM THE DAY ***

F. stearnsi