Wow--- how cool is this!?

Rare "PINK DOLPHIN" Photos

This extremely rare and beautiful "pink dolphin" was spotted and photographed by Capt. Erik Rue of Calcasieu Charter Service on June 24th, 2007 during a charter fishing trip on Calcasieu Lake south of Lake Charles, LA.

Ok I'm shopping for dry gloves...

(and just deleted my entire post because a pretty nice guy helped me find the Diving Concepts gloves)..

Anyway- what this entry boiled down to was: shopping for dry gloves.. Hate DUI's prices. Went to Scuba Show.  Got hooked on Diving Concepts gloves.. http://divingconcepts.com/dryglove.htm  Seems that nobody sells them, even online. Major frustration.. Complained online..  Nice guy hooked me up with a store in San Jose who might have them.. Emailed this store, within 30 min they replied...  Called them, ordered my gloves.  They should be here in 2 days.

Then the fun part of trying to get them ON the rings and not ripping them starts when the gloves get here...  :)     

Took the new housing/stobe setup out on its first dive this week~  and couldn't have picked a much better day (well for SoCal anyway).. The ocean was FLAT... vis wasn't spectacular, but probably a very decent 15-20ft.... surge was minimal... and the water temps weren't quite as bad as they have been... Snapped random pics, adjusting the strobe (I haven't put the 2nd one on yet)~ trying to figure out what works best.. Somewhere around my 40th pic, my shutter stopped working- which is something that had been mentioned to me by another person who had the same setup... grrrr... Supposedly by adding a little knob to the end of the lever in the housing, it should depress the shutter more than it does now-- and that "should" fix it.  Other than that, no problems at all.. The buttons are easy to use, and the housing with the strobe didn't seem as bulky as it did on my first dive with it.. I love the difference that the strobe made- and I can't wait to see how pics turn out with dual strobes :o)     MDL is giving me problems with uploading but I finally managed to get one pic on here (see below).

I certainly do- yuck!! Decided to go back to beach diving over the last couple of weeks~ and I remembered (very quickly) why I don't like it. It wasn't so bad doing the couple of beach dives in Cozumel because you could get out of the water via ladder and there were showers & dunk tanks steps away..  But throwing on a set of doubles in Laguna beach (Shaw's Cove) last weekend was so not fun! lol.. The trek down the stairs was ok..  from the bottom of the stairs to the water was semi-ok (I don't like walking in loose sand)... Getting into the water was ok... Getting fins on was doable..The dive sucked though- no vis, lots of surge- and then.... the exit. Let's just say it wasn't graceful. And I had sand everywhere on my gear...        So, whaddya do now....  Well, go back to your "sandy roots" and beach dive in La Jolla..  But when theres 4ft surf pounding, sets coming in fast, and you're testing out your new camera housing, well sometimes thats not the best time to dive..  Anyway, despite the surf, poor vis, fogged & leaking mask, 51F temps, and buddy separation, my dive wasn't bad.  And my housing didnt leak     (Yes I finally got an Ike housing! A dear friend of mine actually managed to find me TWO of them... one complete w/ strobes. Very big thank you to him for that).  So, next time the camera goes into the housing and we'll see what kind of pics I'll get with the strobes...

And hopefully it'll be a boat dive.. hehee

After all of my losing battles with the ladder on the boat, we finally got a new one--- much more conducive to diving!  I've been battered, beaten, and driven to utter exasperation with the previous ladder, so I do NOT miss it  

Anyway, today was the first time using the new one... took the boat over to the Yukon for a couple of dives (which ended up only being 1 dive since the conditions were terrible)..  Nothing particularly exciting to see, but I did get a visit from a massive school of Blacksmith, who seemed to have a seal after them in hopes of getting a meal out of some of them...  Also this was my first solo dive on the Yukon~ which didn't thrill me since I couldn't see much of anything in that nasty pea soup water...

Me & the new ladder... awwwww                (Yah, I know.. mask strap isn't under hood, I had my C4 instead of my can lite, and my MP3 player wire was in my mouth *giggle*    But thank you for pointing those things out)

PBY.  190 ft in Lake Mead~ just recently discovered... And I did my first Trimix dive on it  :)

Joel (Silverstein) was my buddy (and instructor).... The dive went off without a hitch (with a minor bout of pre-dive nerves & some "sea"sickness from the boat rocking in the rough lake).. The descent seemed to take forever- mostly because it was DARK down there and you couldn't see the bottom until you almost hit it... Water was cold, vis was low, but finally we spotted the orange line that ran about 300ft away to the wreck.. Even with trimix, I was still feeling some narcosis down there- most likely because I was cold and my earlier case of nerves. The wreck came out of the gloom and into sight finally... and for a moment I did not move.. When you encounter a "real" wreck for the first time (not an intentional sinking), the reality of it stops you...(and I was hoping I wouldn't see the 2 bodies that have never been discovered).  We moved around the plane slowly, but after 15 min or so, the temperature of the water was beginning to get to me and I moved back to the line to wait for my buddy..  The gas switches went flawlessly on the ascent, and since we both had Mp3 players, the deco time was almost fun  (almost because I was freezing, even with argon)..     My camera's housing wasnt rated or that depth, so I wasn't able to take it down and get pics  :(

But I do get the title of being the 1st female to ever dive the PBY    Here's Steves post on sdtech to prove it:  

Re: PBY Catalina Found in Lake Mead -

Guess which pink wearing diver did her first mixed gas dive and was the FIRST WOMAN ever to dive the PBY up here in Lake Mead? Nasty day out, very hard conditions, terrible visibility... but she did fine. Congratulations Missy!!!!! Nice job.

An article on the PBY:

Missing Plane Discovered
At Lake Mead
BOULDER CITY, NV - The National Park Service (NPS) announced yesterday a submerged PBY Catalina flying boat that crashed 60 years ago in Lake Mead has been located. On October 24, 1949, the Navy PBY-5A Catalina flying boat, converted for civilian use by the Charles Babb Company of Los Angeles, took off from the Boulder City Airport for a test flight. The aircraft was attempting a water landing in the Boulder Basin area of Lake Mead. Unfortunately, the landing gear was still down, causing the plane to flip and burn.
The occupants of the aircraft were pilot Russell Rogers, mechanic Charmen Correa and Clarence Masters, all from Southern California. Boulder City Airport Operator Tom Swift and his associate George Davis were invited to join the group on the test flight. Swift and Masters were thrown clear of the plane; however they never regained consciousness and later died at the hospital. George Davis, the only member of the group that was strapped in his seat, survived the crash but did have a broken leg, cuts and bruises. Rogers and Correa went down with the plane. Body recovery operations were conducted shortly after the crash, but researchers are unable to confirm if the bodies were ever retrieved.
PBY Catalina was the United States Navy designation for an American and Canadian-built flying boat of the 1930s and 1940s. PB stands for Patrol Bomber, with Y being Consolidated Aircraft’s manufacturer identification. When used by the military, it could be equipped with depth charges, bombs, torpedoes and .50 caliber machine guns and was one of the most widely used multi-role aircraft of World War II. All weaponry was removed from this aircraft when it was converted for civilian use by the Babb Company.

Geez- its been 2 months since my last entry... BUT-- it's not my fault!  MDL wouldn't let me sign in for some reason    Ok so what happened to all of the smilies here? Ok, so whats been happening over the past few months...  Well.. I took 2 TDI classes (Adv Nitrox & Deco Procedures, and Trimix is slated for a couple months from now- although I have my 1st mix dive coming up this Friday..).  I've done quite a bit of LAKE diving in the past 2 months as well... yes lake diving... as in diving in a LAKE.. *grin*.    No, not Lake Parasite (Perris), but over in Mead and Mohave.. Mead has some wonderful sites that I wasn't aware of (wreck alley, aggregate piles/batch plant, and a couple of plane wrecks- one of which isn't open YET, but I'm chomping at the bit to dive it..).  The PBY plane wreck is a new one and has just been 'opened' to divers by the NPS..  It sits at about 190fsw (cross your fingers for calm winds this Friday *hint hint* )....        The B29 is the one I'm waiting for~ I'm so excited & waiting on the NPS to open it is driving me nuts!        Wreck Alley is set up quite well- the lines are already in place, so all you have to do is follow em.. (I believe you can thank www.lakemeadtechnicaldivers.com  for it, thanks double Steves!) The first boat sits in about 150-160fsw, if you look closely you'll find a frog sitting on it.. The 2nd boat is the Ranger, which sits in about 180- I'd like to spend more time on it, get some pics... I haven't gotten to the other wrecks (yet), but I have a feeling that it's just a matter of time... Lake Mohave was... hmm.... interesting. The dive was the "school bus" wreck but I was SO cold on that dive that I didn't have much interest in seeing it~ my hands were numb by the end of the dive..  I think the temp was 46-47F, which wasn't terribly cold- but I froze my tail off!

The Pacific hasn't been very cooperative over the last 2 months~ we've been getting hit by storm after storm and I think the frustration level in the dive community is getting high. Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't been diving *grin*... Several dives to the Yukon, Ruby, P38, and even a couple of beach dives (yeah, as in I put my stuff on at the car and WALK into the ocean... ugh).. lol..   Uh huh, I've gotten spoiled..  I have acquired my first  wreck "artifacts" recently- I won't say from where, as I will no doubt get chastised for it.. But I'm pleased ...   Speaking of wrecks & artifacts, I went to the DSD banquet and met John Chatterton and Richie Kohler (pics are on my MySpace page-  http://www.myspace.com/_missy_p  ...  Oh, as long as you're there, check out my pic of my  2 backplates- haha-- purple one matches my purple drysuit, pink plate matches pink drysuit.. now THATS coordination!  Fortunately for me theres a dive shop that has a  flair for matching stuff like that (and yep, its a tech dive shop, lol)... 

Ok thats all for now.. It's late and I have to finish packing for Vegas (read up a couple of paragraphs to the "hint hint" & you'll know why).  Remember, wish calm wind thoughts for Friday!            ~*M*~ 

Me and Rebecca (my wife) decided during my day off to take a dive from Merimbula Wharf to Bar Beach. A 1 km dive from 9 mts to 4 to 5 mts. An easy and nice dive.

After 45 minutes we discover this HUGE Dead Bull ray....  it was quite amazing to see such a big Bull Ray like this.

The new year must be started off with a dive, regardless of conditions, so off we went to my favorite dive site~ the P38. Why is it my favorite?  First, it's not a commonly dived wreck (the coordinates are not freely given to people). Second, its a beautiful site- the plane is fairly intact & the amount of life on it is amazing. Third, I have a fondness for things that have a history behind them.  I have many dives on the 38, and have loved each one...

 The ocean wasn't playing nice that day and the boat felt like a toy in a washing machine Got to the site and anchored (which was tricky because there were some major currents & swells going on).. By this time, nobody on the boat was feeling well, me incuded, so I threw on my doubles & jumped into the water- which was COLD! I was using a new mask and although I'd toothpasted & defogged it, well... it just wasn't being cooperative, so I had someone from the boat hand me another one of my masks... Ok, much better. Dropped down the anchor line into thick green murk and upon hitting the bottom, the vis had not improved.. 2-5 ft at best, and the current was blowing.. Needless to say, I never made it to the wreck (it's very small and without good vis, its not easy to find, even w/ good coordinates).. After heading back up the line, I let the current pull me over to the boat and grabbed the ladder.. Took off a fin and tried to toss it onto the boat~ unfortunately I missed and the fin bounced back into the ocean, several feet away Black fins tend to sink but I was able to grab it after several tries.
The ride back was equally unpleasant as the ride over- except that the swells and wind had both picked up.. We did go through a huge pod of dolphins (prolly 80-100- I've never seen SO many!)...
Not a good dive~ but it was a New Years dive regardless.

B-day dives are usually a requirement... however it seems that the ocean had other plans. The water has been rough all weekend, so I stayed high & dry (which was ok because I finally got my Xmas shopping DONE).

Now.. birthdays & diving do go quite well together~ even when you don't need any new gear (what?? I always "need" new gear!).  Anyways, I just celebrated the anniversary of my 29th birthday again- oh wait-- I think I turned 26 this year-- well, irregardless~ the birthday gods were pretty good to me.  Got this little doohickey:

Cute, yet it's awfully heavy so I doubt I'll be wearing it much..  Next was the GPS thing- the one you put in your car with the touchscreen that talks to you as you drive.. ok well, apparently someone who must love me doesn't want me to get lost on the way to divesites.. hehe... So I keep setting the thing in various languages~  now if I visit Italy or China, I'll be able to speak the language (of course I'll only be able to say "turn left in 1 mile" "your destination is 300 ft on the right")...   Next, a dear friend gave me a 5 lb book all about diving (and I'm trying very hard to read it but..)...  Ok there were other presents, but yanno what? I did not get a cake!  Ok so I'm *supposed" to be on a diet... but still.... at least give me a cake with a flavor that I don't like so I wont eat it... lol...    :o)      It was a good birthday... but I wish I could've gone diving....   

Ok, so this is the story, you are doing a wreck course and you get out of the water, it is a calm day... ok? Stay with me... don't close this page, keep reading... so you are happy, the vis wasn't that great, but the sun on top of you is lovely and you can't wait to go back into the boat and talk about the dive... but then...

ooopssss...

a big wave. Not a wave like a Tsunami wave, but big.

Strange...

I mean, it is such a calm day, and the sea is quite flat.

So then after the wave, 40 meters away, you hear this sound...

and it goes like this:

PFUUUUUFFFUFUFUF!!!

and then a lot of water that looks like a garden hose

So you look to your left and you try to understand why the water is going higher or what is that big fish raising up ....

A WHALE!!!!!!

Yes... yes... yes! A WHALE...

So you go and think OMG... OMG ..., OMG.... and then the whale comes again, but then you see the little whale baby with mummy whale... and they are swimming just in front of you and you can only feel like crying or laughing...

Anyway, that was my dive 4 days ago.

Me, and whale family. Quite special. Don't you think?

It's been nearly 2 months since the memorial plaque for Steve Donathon was placed on the Yukon ( http://www.mydivinglife.com/Missy/1948/Wreck+Diving+Weekend.html ) and while I've done dives on the Yukon since then, I haven't been back to the bridge area where the plaque is until this dive. As I descended down the line, I could clearly see the ship when I hit 28 ft- but vertical vis is almost always better than horizontal, so I wasn't expecting 40ft vis down there. When I saw the plaque, I let go of the line and swam over to it~ and suddenly realized that I wasn't alone.. a sleek sea lion buzzed by me..  :)    Vis turned out to be a respectable 30+ft down there, but there was quite a current blowing so I stayed in areas where I was shielded. The first thing I noticed about the plaque was that the lock on the bottom right was rusted out and broken, but it was due to salt water and not being tampered with..

Next, I noticed the chain is rusting.. (notice the little resident on the bottom corner).

Next it was time to poke around a little bit, so I dropped in and checked out the toilet, lol..  Pics are of the toilet and bathroom wall (yeah I know its called a "head").  While I was down there, another seal came out of one of the ship's cutouts- doing some penetration diving in search of lunch I guess..  :o)

It's a funny thing to look back through this blog and see how much has changed from the beginning to now~  confidence level, gear, dive buddies, types of diving, and moving into the professional status (DM).  It's been one heck of an adventure, that's for sure.. and I certainly cannot say that it's been dull     ...  Made some awesome dive buddies over time, lost some of the not-so-awesome ones.. but have learned from them all.

My beach diving days have become a rarity, with the exceptions of Divemaster duties which sometimes require beach dives at LJ Shores & also some shore dives with the dive club when we have a club function..  Any other time, my happy little butt is on a boat out in the ocean.. 

Boat diving opens a lot of doors~ you get to see places that you'd never see on a beach dive, plus you don't have to deal with walking, crowds, surface swims, surf zones, etc..   So, since the addition of a boat to my family (plus my dive buddy has 2 boats), things have changed considerably.. The majority of my dives consist of wreck dives now, with some occasional reefs (Pt Loma), Coronados, and Scripps Canyon dives... Yukon, Ruby E, El Rey, NOS tower, P-38,  High Seas, & the Hogan (http://www.cawreckdivers.org/Wrecks/Hogan.htm). It's pretty awesome to be diving ships, planes, etc that have been underwater for decades... but it's the P-38 that's my absolute favorite by far.. The plane has been down there since 1943 and is in great shape for the amount of time it's been down there.. http://www.cawreckdivers.org/Wrecks/P38.htm  

Anyways, here's a little summary & a few surface pics from the Hogan dive this past Friday (I don't have my pics of the wreck itself online yet).

A WICKES (LITTLE) Destroyer launched in 1919. 314' long and 31' wide, she boasted four 4" guns and two 20mm anti-aircraft guns. In WWII she served as a minesweeper and convoy escort. She took part in the invasion of North Africa as well as the battle of Iwo Jima. In 1945 she was slotted as a bombing target and was sunk off San Diego. She lies in 125 feet right on the Mexican Border. Currents are common in the area and visibility can be reduced. There is not much in the way of penetration; most of the structure is collapsed. Skill Recommendations: With a 130 foot maximum depth and unpredictable bottom visibility, this dive is for experienced divers only. Currents are common in the area and all divers are required to have a surface visual signaling device and well as an audible device. )

Watching the sunrise as we're anchored at the Hogan (which lies on the Mexican/US line):

Sean helping Nate get all set up...

Tyler running over me (ok well almost, hehe) with the scooter~

Saturday's dive had nothing to do with anything wrecked or historical, lol.. Sean & I took his rib (rhib, whatever) out in Oceanside for a night dive.. Vis was almost non-existent and surge was at least 5 ft~ lol~ but it was still a pretty cool dive since I'd never been diving in that area before.

Dive Report: Avalon Banks, 5 miles off Avalon, Catalina.
 
Depth:          48/ 62 ft (bottom depth 1,500 ft)
Dive times:     50/ 53 min
Viz:  A hazy 30-40'
Temps:          ~62 degrees
Currents:       light

Went out with Scuba Luv on the King Neptune Monday to see what their shark dives were all about. We motored out 4-5 miles off Avalon out over the Avalon Banks with a bottom depth of 1,500 ft. Filmed Avalon Mayor Bob Kennedy and the rest of the crew setting up the shark cage, as well as a diver or two who inspected the "flimsy" aluminum cage with some concern.

Laura, a third year law student, was the first one in the water and in the cage. I guess she is just used to swimming with "sharks." She was out of the cage quickly and all the divers swam free with the cage as a depth reference or resting point.

A five foot blue arrived first on the scene. After checking us out from a distance, it made several close passes allowing me to get some good video footage from which to extract stills for my newspaper column (archived on my web site at http://www.starthrower.org/products/DDDB/DDDB_200-249/DDDB_212%20blue%20sharks%20pt%201.htm and http://www.starthrower.org/products/DDDB/DDDB_200-249/DDDB_213%20blue%20sharks%20pt%202.htm). In fact, it accidentally bumped my housing as I was descending to film it from above and it decided to ascend directly beneath me. Read more in my column.

Also had two smaller (about 3') blues and a 4-5' mako appear, but they kept their distance.

I'm not a big fan of blue water diving, but this dive was lots of fun and the group of divers on board were great, too.

Especially when it spills all over    .  Anyway, I know I need to start adding more entries on here, and I'll get to that this week hopefully..

Diving a lot lately, and I'm up to 300 or so dives... Of course having a boat helps.. heh... and I am LOVING the boat... It's still nameless though, but somethings bound to click one of these days..

Pics of recent dives can be found here- http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c283/SoCalDiveGirl/  The wrecks (Yukon, Ruby, El Rey) & P38 are the only albums with new pics though..  except for nudi-zilla on the main page.. That was THE most massive nudibranch I've ever seen! It was also at a 'secret' reef, so I guess the extensive nudi population there is due to the area being non-publicized.. Awesome place~ it makes Marineland look barren of nudis in comparison!

~M

On a recent dive at a site I often visit, I decided to explore an area that I had never looked at before. In fact, it was an area I doubt any diver has really looked at because it just does not look diveable.

As I approached my intended exploration site, I noticed a green abalone. Although most abalone were decimated decades ago by the one-two punch of sport and commercial harvesting, and a disease known as withering syndrome, it is not unusual for me to see 1-3 abalone at this site if I look hard enough.

I continued into the area and discovered a 5-6' long crevice with 7 abalone in it. Now THAT was a find. Abalone are broadcast spawners that need to be no more than 18" apart for successful reproduction. I continued on and counted 28 green abalone before I stopped counting! This is the largest cluster I've seen in about 25 years. I'm estimating there were at least 100 abalone in this one small area.

I reported the find to the California Dept. of Fish & Game. Hopefully this refugium will provide a breeding cluster to help restock abalone populations over the next few decades.

I also saw additional abs at the other two sites we dove today. One adult looked like the flat abalone. One of the young ones also looked different... possibly a baby pink or even a white.

Also filmed my second and third brachiopods. They were on the bottom at about 175 ft. Cool.

Healthy kelp is beginning to return at some of the sites on the windward side of the island and the West End. Great to see real kelp "forests" reappearing after the summer's blast furnace.

After a week out of the water, I went down to Scuba Luv this morning expecting a simple two-tank dive since there were only five divers on board besides myself. However, not long after I entered the door, I discovered this would be a special dive day.