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Oil Rig Eureka Aug 5, 2007I don't dive the oil rigs that often, even though they are covered in life, as they can get very "samey" despite the often excellent vis.However, with no other diving scheduled, we managed to sneak on a last minute trip to the rigs, with the (slim) hopes that we could talk everyone into doing our third dive on the wreck of the olympic (which is a really excellent wreck dive). There are three rigs clustered together that we are allowed to dive, although all diving is done only with the permission of the rigs owners as they are still active. Some (or all?) of these rigs are near the end of their lifetimes/leases and soon will be removed. Apparently, the original agreements are such that the owner of the lease (Chevron?) is required to remove the rigs down to the seabed, as though they were never present. However, there are also proposals to just lop off the tops, and leave the structure in place. Given the huge amount of life on them, I cannot imagine getting rid of them completely (although maybe with the current desire to reduce foreign oil usage, maybe GWB will just extend their leases for another 50 or so years as an amendment to a bill to provide milk for kids or something). I do agree that Chevron shouldn't get a "discount" for not removing the entire rig (seems it would be way cheaper to just lop the top off). Maybe they could use the extra money to actually clean up some of the disgusting pollution in that area. Anyway, on with the report! We usually dive rig "Eureka" first as it is furthest from shore (so on average better conditions) and in much deeper water (although I am not sure diving in 300 feet is much "safer" than 500)  Ellen and Elly are joined at the hips and in shallower water. One is a rig and the other I think some kind of pumping station.  The water looked pretty blue from the boat, which is a good sign, but there is often a really murky layer around 20 feet, coupled with the rigs notorious "vertical surge" can make things a little unpleasant. The plan was to descend to around 100 for 10 mins, then work our way back up to 50-60 feet (where there is a horizontal "cross beam"). Generally the best vis is on the first beam, and the second at 120 is too deep for 32% Vis was pretty good for the first 70 feet or so, but as we neared 100, just got worse and worse (some people said it opened up at 120 or so, but they may have just been narked). Since my video lights are in for repair (again), I was getting no light into the camera at 100 (the video has been lightened up some from these stills), so we ascended up to 50 pretty quickly. The vis was "good" (probably 50 feet vertically and a cloudy 40 horiz) but the horizontal vis was mainly reduced only by the sheer numbers of fish being chased around by Sea Lions!  It's kind of hard to see from the stills, but there was a pack of three sea lions herding the fish      There were just hordes of small fish everywhere we looked.   The fish were so numerous that they could even hide entire divers.   The sea lions stayed with us the entire dive, zipping around our heads.  On the ascent, the vis started to lighten up a bit   All in all, a really nice dive, but I am definitely done with the rigs until next year! 10:31 AM - 8/8/2007 - post comment
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