| Limey Diver |
Tripod?Perhaps its time to get one ... 
6:46 PM - 4/15/2007 - comments {0} - post commentEdmonds underwater park, Seattle (March 2007)Richard and I did a little warm-up dive (well, as warm as you can be for 75 mins in 46F water) to get me used to my new drygloves before we attempted the bomber in Lake Washington.I love this spot, shallow water, easy entry and more metridiums and ling cods than I can shake a stick at!   A nice set of metridiums hanging out (literally)  And a ling cod...  Some kind of wreck (I saw way more wreck-like things than when we did this site last september)    More lings (sleeping)  We dont have these kind of orange metridiums down here (must be a coldwater special)    Some weird kind of hollowed-out wreck  We encountered a bit of a propeller farm at one point   Some other odd kind of structure   Some odd box thing  Some kind of rockfish guarding his home?  ...and more wrecks  Some kind of ugly fish  Metridiums growing everywhere...    Some kind of weird barrel/christmas tree/street-light combo  Oversized bee-hives?  And finally an odd-looking cement shrine/sculpture  4:27 PM - 4/15/2007 - comments {0} - post commentHarpoon bomber, Lake Washington March 2007We dived on the Lockheed PV2-Harpoon bomber that sank in Lake Washington.The surface conditions were a little ugly, but it wasn't really raining...  The boat dock...  We loaded our gear into the inflatable...  This was our first dive on the Harpoon, and we landed the shot line within 10 or so feet of the plane. We ran a spool to the plane and tied it off (tying off is a mixed blessing -- the plus is the line will still be there later, the minus is that if we have to do a free ascent, we cannot easily pull the line later)  One of the bomber's wheels has come loose and sits on the bottom  The other one is still attached.  The bomber went down headfirst, and there is a large layer of silt on the bottom, so it is somewhat hard to get bearings. One of the wingtips  The whole tail section has come loose, and sits on the bottom. This shot is down the end of the fuselage.  Inside the fuselage.   The guns are still intact. From above.   The gun turret   Some kind of plaque  A section of the wing  Some part of an engine?  The bomb bay doors   Who left the gas cap open ?  
9:26 PM - 4/14/2007 - comments {0} - post commentEagle Reef Feb 2007          And some attempts at color correction First 3 are red filter on. Original  Fix1  Fix2  Fix3  No Red Filter Original  Fix1   
12:25 PM - 3/9/2007 - comments {0} - post commentShip Rock Feb 2007         
12:21 PM - 3/9/2007 - comments {0} - post commentPalos Verdes....sometime in 2006 ... somewhere near Point Vicente...I thinkBeen a while, but here are some stills ...     
12:14 PM - 3/9/2007 - comments {0} - post commentCasino Point Dec 2, 2006 (Preview)Full report is coming later, but I just couldn't resist posting these images first !      8:31 AM - 12/5/2006 - comments {0} - post commentPalos Verdes on the Seabass (November 18, 2006)We love to dive the Palos Verdes shoreline, but hauling gear down goat-paths onto rocky beaches and diving in wetsuits (so as not to prang our drysuits) makes it a very occasional thing. So when the chance came to dive some of those sites by boat, we eagerly signed up. The day dawned cold and foggy, which was something of a surprise as we've had decent weather. I had to drop the girlfriend off at LAX airport, which luckily is in the same general direction as the boat, but still meant a 3:50am alarm call! We boarded the boat, and took off in thick fog (which we were all convinced would soon burn off, but sadly did not). Due to the fog, we were slow in getting to the initial dive site, which put us behind for the whole day. Fog!  The first site was Point Vicente (Aka cardiac hill), wh ich we've dived from the shore a number of times (mostly at night). This is an awesome dive at 30-40 feet (purple anenome, starfish, huge rock formations), and is just as good (although different) at 80 or so feet. The ambient light was OK-ish given the surface conditions, but a lot of my video came out dark (partly from using the red filter)   the rock structures here are huge, but lack the purple anenomes.  there were plenty of these Cabezon fish though   and sheephead everywhere. Big ones too. They were almost schooling at some points.  plenty of these kind of smaller fish too  Not sure what kind this is, and the image is a little dark  This one must be some kind of zebra descendent  Dive 2 consisted mostly of sand and sea pens (the reef was MIA). This was supposed to be Buchannans (maybe next time)   Dive 3 was at Marineland. We almost called it on the surface due to the current that was running, but agreed to do the dive and just stay closer to the anchor line. It was a good decision because it was a fun dive. Plenty of these kind of anenomes too (one with orange sprangly bits too)  And some weird white rose anenome (or something)  Some nice schools of fish also  the red "sprangly" thing  A nice view of a big rock structure  And a really big cabezon. Unfortunately another diver had already spotted it first, and got it made by taking a bunch of pictures. It wasn't happy to see us.   A nice hole in the rocks  Some kind of fish  12:23 PM - 11/21/2006 - comments {2} - post commentCatalina (Ship Rock) (Nov 12, 2006) On the Psalty VThe original plan was to do the Caissons, Moody and Olympic, but the weather the night before looked a little too much like rain, so I had my doubts we'd be doing any such thing.Also, the Psalty was getting a compressor upgrade and so couldn't fill tanks, so we'd have to bring gas for all the dives with us (which turned out to be a good thing). Unfortunately one of our buddies put his shoulder out playing soccer, so we were already down to three. I arrived at the dock and was a little disconcerted to see an diver with a single tank (rented) wetsuit (rented) and singles regs (rented) getting on the boat. After a few minutes of discussion -- yes, this was the boat he was supposed to be on, no he didn't realize the first two dives were 140feet+ and this would be something like dive 20 for him, and his first in California (he was visiting from England), a bad feeling started to develop. Gary (boat owner) came back with breakfast, and told us conditions were too bad to make the Caissons/Moody, and he'd picked up the extra diver to make up the costs (even though we would have paid the fees for the 4th diver who was a no-show). I have no problem with a captain getting a replacement diver, but I figure the diver really ought to have the necessary skills to actually do the planned dives. Due to this inexperienced diver, our choice of sites was severely compromised as we needed water about 60-80 feet depth for the OW diver, but we had planned on deep diving. Luckily (for us) we had spare tanks of Nitrox and air, but we still wanted to get in a good tech1 dive first. We compromised on Ship Rock (again -- see *last weeks* dive report). The vis was if anything even better than last week, but due to diving with an AL80 stage, Al40 deco and a camera, the video is -- shall we say, less than perfect? Dive plan was 150 for 30 mins, using the stage first. We dropped into clear water but with a current running against us ('what current?' said buddy #3 after the dive -- coincentally, the only one diving with just an AL40) Since we'd agreed to live-boat the dive, we turned and just let the current take us. We actually went to a part of the pinnacle that we usually dont get to see (as we are starting our ascent there usually) it took us 6-8 minutes to get below 120 feet, so I was already adjusting the deco plan in my head (since I was supposed to be running it) -- I figured we'd get at best 25 @ 150, or maybe 160. Once again, the fish were prolific  This lump of rock was at about 160, and apparently there is a chain of step-like features down behind it that go down to 240 or so (not today!)  Got some half-decent shots aiming up at the reef.  A sea lion was herding these fish into the reef, trying to make them his lunch. I've never seen a sea lion at 150 before. Sadly he was moving too fast to get many decent shots.    Got some decent shots of the kelp, but the ambient light is if anything a little too bright. I considered playing with the red filter but (thankfully, as I was to find out on dive 2 and 3) decided to leave that for another time.    Bottom temps were a chilly 54 or so, with a thermocline to about 59F at 100 feet and another to 61 at 70 feet or so. Deco was very comfy in the warm waters with the sun streaming down, but a bit ugly as the plateau is covered in kelp which made it a bit tricky trying to hold formation. Gina ran the deco in the end, I think feeling that I had enough to worry about with the extra stage and an HD camera in tow. Due to the beauty of DIR, she had already adjusted the deco to exactly the profile I would have run. 1:13 PM - 11/17/2006 - comments {0} - post commentCasino Point (Oct 28, 2006) What an awesome day at Casino Point (despite the 4:30 am wakeup call and having to lug all our gear around) The kelp beds have been dying off due to extra warm temps, so we got to see the dive park in a whole new light. Did a total of three dives thanks to finally being able to get up the courage to risk pranging my drysuit (3 dives in a wetsuit is just not going to happen here) Dive 1, we planned to hit the wreck directly out from the stairs, but Pete had ear trouble so we ended up crusing around in the shallows. Dive 2, we made it out to the wreck and the swim platform, and then Dive 3 we did our usual visit to the Su-Jac (sans camera) Vis was pretty awesome, and the kelp is starting to come back  This shot was taken at about 55 feet, and the surface is easily visible.  We could see the entire wreck at once, which is definitely not a foregone conclusion.   There was so much ambient light, I almost wanted to darken some of the footage   Parts of the park looked more like a tropical reef.  There were plenty of schools of fish too, in all directions.    Maybe they were confused about the disappearance of the kelp...  Got some nice footage shooting up toward the sunlight.   We visited the Jacques Cousteau plaque (which I usually cannot find for the life of me)  A nice shot of the reef (usually obscured by all the kelp)  More fish shots!     The swim platform -- sometimes we miss it, but it was unmissable today     A nice shot of some other divers blowing bubbles  And finally back to the steps (which I found all three times for a change thankyouverymuch)  12:21 PM - 11/17/2006 - comments {0} - post commentI cannot recommend LaCie External hard drives (for video editing at least)Just over a year ago, as I got into video editing, I purchased a LaCie external 500G Firewire Hard drive for my Mac.i figured it would be perfect for the job (despite the fact that it was at least 20% more than other USB-based products). It had enough capacity for video editing, and I would easily be able to move it between my desktop and laptop for editing videos. Things went (mostly) fine for (co-incidentally?) just over a year. The Firewire 800 connection did not seem quite fast enough for iDVD to really work well, but editing with iMovie was fine. I admit that before buying the drive I had heard from other users via the Internet that these drives were flaky, not reliable and were frequently corrupted, but (to my misfortune) I shrugged these concerns off as the kind of grumblings that any company has against their products. What a mistake. 14 months after I purchased the product, an ominous "clicking and grinding" noise started to come from the drive. I know what that means. It means the drive is dying. It does NOT mean "Most likely the power supply is beginning to fail. You can purchase a replacement from our sales department or online store." (Thanks Mr LaCie customer support person) I frantically tried to get my data from the drive, but it was too late by this point -- there were bad sectors everywhere. I purchased a data recovery tool, which (after saying it would take 1300 hours to fix the drive) claimed to have restored my files, but none of them would open -- they were in worse shape than the files on the actual drive. Of course, LaCie is so confident in the quality of their product that they give them a whopping one year warranty. Thanks for nothing LaCie. The only "solution" was (from LaCie support) "If the new power supply cable doesn't resolve the problem we would recommend you replace the drive. Unfortunately, the drive is past its one-year warranty and we are unable to repair it. LaCie will repair products through their warranty period but we do not offer out-of-warranty repair. Even though most drives will work for years beyond the warranty period, hard drives are electronic devices with moving parts and won't last forever. Most hard drive failure is due to mechanical components wearing out through normal use." yeah, wearing out through normal use in just over a year. And there's more. "Failing power supply cables could be causing the problem. In some cases, the hard drive mechanism itself is still functioning and the hardware failure lies in the bridge or internal cabling. In these instances, it may be possible to remove the drive mechanism from the case and either install it onto an internal IDE bus of a computer or into another external case." So LaCie apparently knows there is a problem with the power supply cables but is unwilling to fix it and recall existing units. Again, thanks for nothing Mr LaCie. In the end, their only suggestion was to buy a new drive. I did. I got an internal Maxtor 500G for 1/2 the price, which will probably last 3 times as long. So bye bye LaCie, here's at least one person that will never buy another product from you again, and if I can inform other people who haven't had the experience, then good for me. 11:48 AM - 11/15/2006 - comments {2} - post commentCatalina (Ship Rock) (Nov 4, 2006 on the Second Stage)Had us an awesome trip to Catalina on the Second Stage. It was a last minute deal, so we only had Nitrox even though we planned to hit Farnsworth or Ship rock. The boat felt almost empty with just 4 divers aboard. Things started off well when we were treated some some awesome omlettes before we had even left the dock (the food situation was excellent the entire day -- we were stuffed). We loaded up, signed our lives away and lay down for a nap. Only to realize we were basically already there (I love the smaller, fast boats) Unfortunately the conditions were not good for Farnsworth, so we hooked up at Ship Rock. The sun was starting to come out and the ocean was flat and blue.  Plan was max 100 feet for 30 mins, either going 10 mins out, 20 back (if the current was ripping) or circling the pinnacle if we thought it was OK. I had a bad feeling when we dropped down as there was a current and the vis was kind of crappy, but as soon as we got around the re-gowing kelp and into the current, the vis cleared up to 50feet+. Once we got parallel to the Island, we figured the current was going with us rather than against, and just let it take us. Vis as 100 was great, but we noticed a carpet of fish just blanketing the reef at about 80 feet.   So not being depth snobs, we went a bit shallower and were suddenly engulfed in thousands of blacksmiths.    There is some lovely structure at ship rock. I especially liked some of the "peek throughs" which fish were swarming through.  Then we were buzzed by a seal looking for lunch. Was pretty cool to see him herding the fish around.  I still cant get over just how many fish there were.  i think this kind is a senorita. Many fewer than the blacksmiths but more colorful.  And schools of another kind of fish (no idea what they are but the way they swarm around reminds me of bees)    We surfaced into brilliant sun and mirror-flat seas (a little further from the boat than is 100% ideal, but I guess you can't have it all) 12:16 PM - 11/14/2006 - comments {2} - post commentDiving the dockPlans had been made, plenty of tanks had been filled and expectations were high ... if only Murphy hadn't had other plans for us...We were supposed to be diving the Missile tower and Hogan. Since it was a 7:30am start and we didn't fancy getting up at 4am followed by a 2+hour drive, we stayed in a San Diego hotel overnight. Arrived on Sunday at the boat launch only to discover that due to a miscommunication, the boat owner did not think we were coming. He was about an hours drive away, so we'd have a delayed start, which with the wind picking up was less than ideal. Then the (metaphorical) flood gates opened. I discovered that due to an unfortunate event with a burst disk on my buddies tanks a week ago, my left post DIN connector was deformed and wouldn't take a reg. Luckily a buddy had some spare LP80's of 21/35 (still, it was now strike 2). Then we noticed that on a set of tanks that were being used for the first time, the tank bands were more than 11 inches apart, meaning no backplate would fit. Luckily we had some wrenches handy, and were able to move them (already strike 3) It was about this point that the first mumblings about calling the dive at the dock started, but since we'd all paid a lot for gas, boat and getting there, we decided to press on. Then I discovered that the boat I had been on the previous day had forgotten to fill my argon bottle at the end of the dives as I'd asked. An innocent mistake and no biggy, but now I'd have to do two dives (a 150 and 120) on 1200 psi in a 6cf bottle. Not undoable but not ideal. (Strike 4) Then said buddy with the oddly-spaced tank bands noticed that he only had a 2200 psi fill, which had been 3500 when he'd analyzed the tanks, meaning there was either a slow leak, or a valve had been partially opened in the preceding weeks that the tanks had been sitting in the back of his car. He did have an AL80 stage of 31/35 that was divable, but definitely not ideal. We called this strike 5 and retired to the "Red Sails" for breakfast and then packed up and went home. Even with 5 strikes, it was something of a tough call since we were all really looking forward to the dives and had put in a lot of money and effort just getting to the boat dock. But you always have to put safety first, and in this case it only made good sense to pack in and try another day. 1:23 PM - 11/7/2006 - comments {0} - post commentBe kind to your burst disks or they will be ... burst disks :(Returning from a night dive the other day, I put my car in the garage and noticed that one of our sets of doubles had toppled over onto the floor, knocking over another set of doubles that was leaning up against them, and a stage bottle."Odd," I thought, "I don't remember feeling any earthquakes today." I righted all the gear, and on a whim opened up the valve on the rearmost set of doubles. Nothing. Not a whiff of gas escaped. Ulp, that was a $40 trimix fill. I checked the other tanks, and they all seemed to be fine. I figured one of the valves had just gotten cracked open when the tanks fell, and the gas had escaped (although ususally there is still some in the tanks if the valve is not fully open) Took them in to the store for a checkout and the story becomes clearer. Seems the burst disk must have gone, propelling the tanks forward with enough force to knock the others over. So let that be a lesson: never let the dive store fill your tanks to 4000 psi (well, not in SoCal summer anyway) 2:42 PM - 10/30/2006 - comments {2} - post commentIt's coming! And I can't wait ...http://www.uwimaging.com/fx1/index.htmget your bandwidth ready people -- I'll be posting some clips as soon as I get it in my grubby little hands! 1:15 PM - 10/20/2006 - comments {0} - post commentMalibu BBQ extravaganza 2006And what a weekend it was.For (at least) the second year in a row, Mr Jon Davies organized a Malibu BBQ campout. Sadly, this year, a lot of people either dropped out or were not up for camping. They definitely lost out on a fantastic experience. I was a little concerned as I drove up PCH as there were ominous black clouds filling the sky, and raindrops on my windshield. However, by the time I'd stocked up on food at Ralphs, things were looking a little better. After a minor skirmish with the "gate guards" at Leo Carillo state park, we got to our spot and proceeded to try to remember how to put up the tent.  There were some grey clouds above, and the feeling of rain in the air...  We'd barely got the tent pitched when Jon offered us up a batch of lobster tacquitos, and who were we to resist? (Although his wife later told us they were really lobster tacos as tacquitos need to be fried). Either way, they were delicious and a great way to start things off.  We hit Leo Carillo for a night dive on Friday to try to nab us some more lobster for the BBQ. Six of us went in in three groups of two. The surf and tide were down, and the vis was up (20 feet+) Pete and I spent a decent 69 minutes and managed to snag two decent-sized lobster (a record for us!). Back on shore, we waited for Jon and susan who had had a delayed entry due to Susan not checking her gear properly and her BC leaking ::) I was a bit surprised to see Jons lobster bag writhing around as he got to the parking lot. usually by that point, the lobster are resigned to their fate and stop struggling. However, the truth was soon to be revealed. "I got a halibut," said Jon (at this point, I really thought he was joking) "You mean like a fish?" "Yes, I stabbed it with my scallop screwdriver" I didn't believe it until I actually saw it.  (sorry about the hideous picture quality -- taken with a camera phone) I didn't know you could catch them like that. Total lobster take: 10 between the 6 of us (although Jon said 2 or 3 did manage to escape as he tried to stuff the uncooperative halibut into his bag) The BBQ was full that night -- more lobster tacos, lobster, chicken kabobs, Halibut (which Keith filletted for us) and abalone, followed up by heated up bananas filled with chocolate and marshmallows. The highlight for me really was the halibut. I dont think I've ever tasted fish as good as that. Halibut on the grill:   It did rain during the night, and thankfully our tent didn't leak (despite not being used for the last 5+ years) Saturday dawned sunny and bright   Sadly (for Pete) he'd double-booked the BBQ over his vacation with his wife. So we had to take down the tent and he begged off diving for the day. Definitely his loss. The rest of us headed over to Point Dume, a spot I have never dived before but definitely will again. I felt a little bit silly gearing up in my drysuit in 85 degree weather, but knew I'd regret wearing the wetsuit. The view from shore:   I had intended to take my small still camera on this dive, and had even remembered to charge the batteries. I put it in the housing, turned the camera on and oops, "No CF card in camera" so that was the end of that Idea. Jon, Mike and I were the only ones diving. We entered the water in pretty low surf, but the bottom dropped away fast, and I was definitely a little concerned over the exit. Point Dume is an awesome dive if the conditions are good, but it's a long surface swim to the pinnacles (definitely good to have a scooter). We planned to scoot around the pinnacles at 40-50 feet until we hit 1200 psi or so and then head back to shore, doing as much of the swim underwater as possible. The vis was awesome -- at least 30 feet, and the reefs and rock formations really cool. Jon got a lobster (but had to transfer it to my bag as he had no gauge--yes I *did* measure it) and 2 scallops of a decent size. it was really cool swimming along the walls in mid-water being able to see the bottom, and being able to look up at the surface -- definitely more like catalina island diving than beach diving. We saw plenty of ling cod -- one huge one. A decen-sized torpedo ray sleeping on the bottom, uncounted starfish and the like. An awesome dive, only marred by the long surface swim home and a less than graceful exit:  Why is it always me that ends up looking like the swamp thing? We retired to camp, and (I thought) to a relaxing feast of lobster. However, Fran O was on a scedule, and had to leave early, so we decided to get back in so he'd have a chance to dive. this time, Jon and Frank dove together and Maciek and I buddied up for a twilight Leo dive. Conditions were definitely worse than on Friday, lots of surge and vis was down also. Of course my primary light decided to die mid-dive (I think only one set of batteries is getting charged -- this is the second time I only got two hours out of it). Dinner was lobster, more lobster and Halibut, and was delish. We all decided to forgo the night dive. Sadly, I had to leave and couldn't stay for the final day, but it was an awesome experience. Huge kudos to Chef/organizer Jon for putting this together 1:09 PM - 10/18/2006 - comments {2} - post commentPracticing for cave class (well, kinda)Andy and I went out for a nice easy night dive at Redondo on tuesday.We figured it was about time that we did some actual diving together before we face up to Cave class in Jan/2007. Things were going swimmingly (pun intended) -- excluding Andy's narced fascination with a white shovel at 100 feet -- until Andy very carelessly kicked off my mask with his 10 feet long legs. Well, actually I took it off to see what he would do. For a couple of seconds I wondered if he was coming for me, but then I saw the glow of a light through my eyelids. He made touch contact and we swam for a while. This earned me "the bird" and I knew I'd have to be hyper vigilant since he was undoubtedly going to get his own back. Not right away of course :) He left it almost 5 minutes before carelessly running our of gas. I donated the long hose and we swam for a while. After that, we agreed to stop the drills for a while and just went diving. We saw plenty of octos (one hiding in a shell trying to disguise itself -- unsuccessfully), a sarcastic fringehead, plenty of guitarfish, and a bat ray. Also, a school of tiny glittery fish that ran right through me. Then at about 50 mins, I heard a "bzzzz" noise and my primary light died (really). We had just been discussing on the surface that I hadn't charged it in a week, but since it is supposed to have a 4.5 hr burn time, I figured it would be OK. Still, good practice for cave classes! Andy noticed right away (good buddy). I stowed my primary, deployed the backup and we made a controlled exit. Very nice. Very relaxing. Conditions were about 15 feet vis, ankle slapper waves and for once, i didn't eat sand on the exit. To top it off, it's $2 beers at the local bar on Tuesdays (shhhh, don't tell my GUE instructor, he might try to take away my cert cards!) I think we're going to make this a weekly event. 9:25 AM - 10/12/2006 - comments {2} - post comment"Cove 2" night dive, Seattle (Sept 23, 2006)And the final Seattle dive report (for this trip)Our final dive on saturday was kind of at the equivalent to our "Redondo Beach/Veterans park" dive site -- it's good for a night dive, almost always divable and everyone goes there. Except cove 2 is way way (way) better than veterans park. Once again, Richard briefed the site (including advice not to surface if we heard the ferry boats ahead of us on the initial part of the dive :) The plan was to hit the telephone poles, then move over to the I-beams, circle up around a small wreck and then cut across the cove in shallow water and surface. On the way out to the telephone poles, we picked up an extra buddy. Apparently he didn't realize that he hadn't started out diving with someone with dual 24W video lights (and 2 other buddies) and had latched on to us. Richard finally got rid of him with his wetnotes (which was a double-edged sword as him and his real buddy claimed later to have seen a 50 pound Octopus -- the exact quote from his buddy "I was waving my light around like crazy frantically trying to signal you guys" -- all that would get him would be a reg in his mouth had I actually seen it. yet another metridium hanging out on the telephone poles.   Some kind of rockfish/cabezon trying futiley to avoid being crisped by radiation from the dive lights.  The bigest ling cod I have probably ever seen (by this Point, Richard had a pretty good idea what things i was most interested in seeing) Sadly he was so big (and my left-side light adjusted poorly) that I couldn't get all of him in the frame.  More of my favorite metridiums  Moving on to the I-beams, we were met with an amazing (for us) sight. Especially at night -- this was just ghostly and beautiful at the same time. Seeing these metrids appearing out of nowhere all clustered onto the iron beams was awesome.  Bizarrely I kind of felt like I think I might feel exploring the titanic (maybe I got some bad air :)  And looking up at the I-beams  here's where the batteries on the video camera ran out.  Sadly, I had left the camera turned on during our surface interval and wasted the batteries. But it wasn't to make too much difference, as 40 mins into the dive (and with more than 140 mins of total time on them) my video lights (as expected) went out. We still got to see the wreck, some nudis and a sole before the lights went out. i switched to my backup light, and we made our way to the shallow water in the cove. 2:11 PM - 10/10/2006 - comments {0} - post comment"Finger Reef", Bainbridge island, Seattle (Sept 23, 2006)Ok, the eagerly anticipated penultimate Seattle dive report (Just the night dive to go!)Richard got the boat out for the second dive of the day, so we could get used to it on a recreational dive before our planned sunday tech dives. I was a little dubious as we loaded up our rigs, with enough tanks for 2 dives (1 set of doubles and 6 singles). Indeed. We got about 10 minutes out (at best) before we decided that at the rate we were going, we'd not have enough gas to make it back. So we returned to the dock and came up with some less ambitious plans -- a single dive only, and then we'd regroup and decide what to do. With the reduced weight, we made far better speed, but it did involve a few contortions. Yoga lessons would have been an advantage at this point. We finally found the right buoy to tie off to, and tried to reconcile what we had seen on the depth sounder with richards site description. This site is composed of a set of "finger-like" reefs that start shallow at the shore and then continue into deeper water, some of the fingers ending at deeper depths than others. We planned to descend one of the deeper fingers, spending a max of 20 mins at 80+ feet, and then work our way up to the shallower fingers. The first hilarity involved getting Lynee geared up and into the water from an almost impossibly full boat. I will spare her any further chuckling/embarrassment (oh if only I had had the camera!). Once we were all in the water (and a compass bearing back to shore installed), we were off. Except we weren't. Lynne had some kind of light-cord entanglement issue which she resolved under Pete/Richards watchful eyes. Then we were really off. This site was really nice. The sheer amount of metridiums is something we just dont see down here in SoCal -- at least not at these depths. One of my favorite kind of anenome's (Some kind of orange one is the best naming I can come up with as I'm too lazy to look it up)  There were plenty of starfish too.  Here are some of the "white kind"  Sometimes the metrids(I feel like we're on first name basis by now) like to grow in groups  It's a pity the colors in the background dont show up better in this shot  an orange one and a white one co-located  A closeup of a white one, and the funny "Obe-wan kanobi" creatures (well, i think they look like he/it anyway) -- they have feelers that come out and wiggle around too (hard to see even on the video though)  A whole cluster   And finally a closeup of a nice ugly-looking ling  We made our way slowly down the deeper finger, but ran out of reef at about 80 feet. So we slowly made our way back up, then traversed to a shallow finger, spending the latter part of the dive in about 15 feet of water before surfacing right by the boat. A very nice, very relaxing dive. 2:34 PM - 10/9/2006 - comments {0} - post commentEdmonds Underwater Park, Seattle (Sept 23, 2006)OK, this report is shamefully late due to other stuff getting in the way.Pete and I had flown in the previous night and were very graviously hosted by Richard and Melody. We all got up early so as not to keep Lynne waiting. This was going to be our first dive in Seattle, and I was somewhat concerned about the cold. However, by the time we geared up, the sun was already on it's way up, and Richard had informed us that water temps should be around 54F's (essentially on the slightly cold side of normal for us). Richard gave us a bit of a site briefing, and then we declined Pete's offer to go over hand signals (something that would lose us a little bit of dive time later -- oops, DIR divers are not infallible after all. Who knew) Luckily there was no surf whatsoever, and so it was plenty easy to get the video camera and ligths into the water and hooked up. Richard and Lynne were going to lead as a pair and Pete and I would dive as a pair but follow behind, keeping them in view as we didn't know the site too well (although I had appropriate compass bearings toward the exit) Since it was our first dive together, we'd chosen a shallow (but still very nice) site with max depth for the dive about 40 feet. We did what Lynne thinks was a long surface swim -- wait until we introduce her to Southern CA beach diving ! -- we dropped down into about 15 feet of slightly chilly water. The dive park with a handy car ferry dock next door.  Silly me thought we'd dropped right down into a cloud of jellyfish. Apparently these (and there were hundreds of them coating the eel grass) are some kind of nudibranchs.  A closer look  There are a bunch of small wrecks and other "reef" type things (broken up concrete pipes) in the park. Some of them are by now quite hard to identify, but they are all awesome collection points for wildlife. We dont get too many of the metridium anenome's in SoCal -- definitely not on a beach dive like this. I was in heaven.  Some kind of weird sea star with way too many legs/arms/whatever's  We found a wreck that was definitely recognizable. Even the steering wheel is intact.  The bow of the wreck  more metridium   Richard (I think) Looking good underwater.  Lynne and Richard, both looking good :)  Some kind of orange anenome that we dont seem to get in SoCal  And now what I went for (well, except the GPO's and six-gills which sadly we didn't see) I came for the Lings and I got em :) There were plenty on all three salt-water dives. All kinds of colors we dont seem to see down here, and some extra big ones (esp. on the night dive)   Some kind of blue Cabezon/Rockfish?   We wound around in, under, through etc. all kinds of pipes, wrecks, rocks, all the time manageing to keep in easy visual contact. the only (minor) snafu came when toward the end of the dive, Richard asked me how much gas I had left. I signaled 1500 psi, but he missed the '1' and has a different way to signal 10, so he thought I had 500 psi and high-tailed it for the exit (we were in about 15 feet of water). Still, we had 50 minutes of very nice diving. A great introduction to Seattle diving. We surfaced quite close to the shore, the sun was up and the parking lot was full (making us glad we arrived early -- oh did I forget to mention Lynne showed up late ? :) Lynne did a great job on navigation and it was obvious that her efforts to improve her skills for her DIR-F checkout have really paid off. She looked great underwater and apparently doesn't need to breath either! 9:38 AM - 10/6/2006 - comments {0} - post comment
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