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Ain't no flatlander
climber
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May 29, 2017 - 12:12pm PT
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"Looks like a macro dive" was our euphemism for visibility sucks.
When the water is clear, the kelp beds off Santa Barbara Island offer world class diving; far superior to all the other islands. San Miguel offers the most fun when it's pupping season for the sea lions. Both are hard to get to.
Trivia question: who knows what "Going to Italy" means?
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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May 29, 2017 - 01:25pm PT
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Moose- sorry to hear about her ruptured ear drum. But somewhat crazy coincidence... I just reserved 2 pairs of diving slots at Point Lobos for next Saturday, for my kids and me. We have one unused spot if you want it.
We'll be taking 2 inflatable kayaks, and just snorkeling (no SCUBA). Not sure what we'll see, weather forecast is patchy fog clearing to sunny and a high of 59F... we all just got new surfing wetsuits but won't keep us warm for long term submersion. As long as we get full sun, it should be nice but cold.
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nature
climber
Boulder, CO
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May 29, 2017 - 02:18pm PT
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Wow Moose... sorry to hear about her ear drum. I didn't realize they did that "replacement". Guess I don't blame her for not wanting to dive.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
but to scared to climb them anymore
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2017 - 02:54pm PT
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Dang Moose! I hate to hear that, but glad she got it healed up.
I screwed up my right ear dropping down in zero vis and not holding the anchor line. It healed up and now clears better than it has for years! Best of luck to you guys.
Q
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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May 30, 2017 - 09:51am PT
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Moose! Sorry to hear about your daughter's ruptured eardrum. Sux big time!
I was a water baby from the age of 5 on, but scuba never really captured my interest outside the tropics. Free diving was another story. But if I lived close to Moose, I would get re-certified just to dive with him. So I really only have that one scuba story.
An old college mate of mine had a good one tho. After getting her BS in Geology, she swung a gig in Antartica diving under the ice sheet. I am not familiar with gear she used (mid 80's) so I may have some terms wrong, but here goes. About two weeks into the stint she goes in for another routine dive, puts on her dry suit and tank, checks that her gear works and heads under the ice. Once in she decides she wants more buoyancy and tries to fill her BC/drysuit. But there is a piece of ice or something stuck in the device and she continues inflating until she is pinned to the bottom of the ice sheet. Finally she gets the thing to stop inflating, and puts a hole in her drysuit with a knife so she can get back to her starting point safe and sound. That day is over as her drysuit needs to be repaired.
A couple days and routine dives later, she's done the basic gear check and heading under water but doesn't mentally register that tank weighs more than normal. When she goes in, she sinks to the bottom like a rock some 50 ft down. The tank was filled with water and after a short blast to try and fill the drysuits BC on the way down, she is out of air. At the bottom she strips off her weight belt and tank and heads back towards the surface. Luckily, she gets back safe and the diving gear guy caught holy hell from the project lead. Thank goodness the rest of her diving in Antartica was "uneventful" in comparison.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 30, 2017 - 10:15am PT
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Diving used to be my favorite sport, way before climbing.
I had my best ever high visibility experience at Pt Lobos. Somehow there was this thermocline or whatever about 20 feet down that apparently settled (downward) or unsettled (upward) the sediments. Anyways at the surface the visibility was more or less average, then as my buddy and I descended further there was a dramatic step change and suddenly the 20' opened up to about 150'. Blowing our minds. It was magical, a magical moment, and I've never forgotten it. 25 years ago now.
Ocean kayaks are the way to go along the CA coast. Monterey to Big Sur. We had two. Fun times.
NutAgain, get your scuba training and certification, you won't regret it! Your kids neither.
So, finally, submerge! As we slowly descend, I can barely see my daughter from the distance of two feet! Visibility is 3-4 feet. But, sine we put so much effort to it, I didn't want to quit. As we were going down,
Moose, I initially thought your post was going to second my experience from the way it was reading, lol!
PS.
I would guess this sharp high visibility (150') low visibililty (< 20') thermocline barrier experience was a 1 in 500 dive probabiity - or at least statistic - it was that rare in my diving career along the CA coast.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
but to scared to climb them anymore
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2017 - 11:27am PT
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My father was diving with Jacques Cousteau in Belize. He had been making fun of my dads octopus rig (regulator with a spare). At 100 ft he grabbed my dad and gave a signal running his hand across his throat. Dad simply reached over and stuck his spare regulator in his mouth.
They surfaced and Jacque never said thanks. My father still gets a sneer on his face when you mention that guys name.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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May 30, 2017 - 01:04pm PT
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Hmmm, Jacque should have said thanks. And an octopus saved my first dive experience.
Moose, the water in the tank still sounds strange to me, but I believe her story. A couple of facts; first, she was an experienced diver diving 6 days a week and had her "going in" pattern down which included giving the BC a couple squirts of air before going under. Second, they recovered the tank and weights and evaluated the incident. The tank was not completely full of water and had enough headspace to allow some compression of air. She was never prone to exaggeration when I knew her. And she did say the tank felt heavier than normal when she put it on, but the weight did not register mentally until after the fact. My recollection is that they never did really figure out how the water got in there. So to summarize, I believe the second event happened and the tank somehow ended up about 3/4+ full of water. :) pay attention to your equipment, lol.
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surfstar
climber
Santa Barbara, CA
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May 30, 2017 - 03:51pm PT
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I got my wife (then g/f) to climb with me, so it was only fair that I got certified. She loves to dive and I love her, so it works out quite well :)
The charismatic megafauna are always highlights at the Channel Islands (she's also a great U/W photog)
Me, somehow not looking intimidated (remember u/w things appear larger and closer!)
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nature
climber
Boulder, CO
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Jun 12, 2017 - 10:30pm PT
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My new stories start tomorrow. I board the MV FeBrina in an hour. Can't believe I made it with all my gear.
So... until I get underwater here's a few shot of this area.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Jun 13, 2017 - 02:12am PT
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Gotta love diving.
Every trip, for me, has been magical, with no really scary moments. The feeling in the body after all that pressure is also magical. Pissing feels like every toxin in the body is being eliminated.
My very first ocean dive was at night, in the Molokini Crater, with sharks cruising around the big lights mounted to the keel of the dive boat. Then, I got separated from the group because I couldn't clear my ears, and get to the bottom fast enough to keep up with the group. I accidentally found another dive group, and was with them. The grass eels were so strange, I thought, "Oh, this is one of those LSD flashbacks they've been promising us for all these years". Later, at the surface, the confusion about which group I belonged to was solved, and the appropriate boat motored over, and picked me up.
Another story is diving the wrecked SS Yongala at the Great Barrier Reef, and coming around the port side of the wreck to the stern, passing the rudder, and coming face-to-face with a giant grouper that looked like Andre The Giant's big brother. His mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. So, I used my arms to back up, turn and go back the other way.
The worst diving experience I had was making the mistake of having one margarita with lunch, before going out for the second dive of the day. The cliff reef dropped down, and down, and down. I wasn't paying attention, and at about 120 feet, I became nitrogen-narced. I looked down, and wondered, "Gee. I wonder what is way, way, way down there?" Luckily, I remembered my PADI training, and reduced my depth, and soon enough, my head cleared right up. I never dove after drinking alcohol again. And, I have never narced since.
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BigB
Trad climber
Red Rock
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Jun 13, 2017 - 09:09am PT
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Been scuba diving ALOT longer than climbing...and I have a few stories.
One: Were lobster hunting off of the channel islands on a small chartered craft.(for those that don't know you hunt lobster at night in the great BIG DARK pacific ocean, and its typically done alone not on the buddy system, akin to free solo?)During the day I decide to do a solo check out dive of the area to get my bearings for the night dives. As I'm motoring along I notice a medium size cave. When I peer in I see lobsta like lots and lotsa of lobsta... I'm giddy(for those that hunt, I have buck/lobster fever) I know from experience that I wont be able to catch them in the daytime as they'll just back into a hole and be gone in the back of the cave. So, I decide to leave be and promise to myself to hit the spot on the night dive. Well like most "sporting" things between friends there's a lil competition, and with lobster its who catches the biggest bug or the most bugs for the trip. Needless to say you don't go blabbing about what you saw or where you saw it. Come nighttime and we do our first dive so probably around 11pm. I must have been showing my nervous excitement prior to entering the water because as I'm descending I notice that one of my dive buddies is following me... I think no worries he'll get distracted by the one and two bugs in the broken rock structures and kelp forest before finding the cave. So, I fin quickly for the cave so I can maximize my time there. As I enter the cave I start seeing bugs and more BUGS, I'm in a honeypot!:D I literally start grabbing them two at a time and as I'm stuffing my bag, I notice that there's a current in the cave and its pulling me rapidly towards the back of the cave. I realize that I've put myself in a "not-good" situation and instantly drop to the sea floor and start to climb 5.10 along the bottom of the ocean. The sand patches between the boulders were like climbing slab...no holds! As I'm coming to terms with what I have to do to get back to the entrance, I see....yep... you guessed it. My buddy coming into the mouth of the cave and he sees some of the bugs, that I've now forgotten about. I start to signal with my light but to no avail, he has lobster fever and assumes I'm waving my light to notify him of our big score.....not! I'm now trying to control an almost panicky feeling because even finning as quickly as I can I'm only making headway when I can grab actual anchored rocks and pull myself forward HARD..my buddy drifts past ...fast. I make a decision to go after him knowing it could cost me. I quickly catch him and show him what's happening...as the severity of the situation slowly creeps into his thick skull. We both start clambering our way towards the entrance...luckily this time I knew what we were in for and I directed us towards the wall of the cave where it met the floor ...because of this, we were able to use more hand holds along the wall and 10 min later were both looking at each other in 15' of water doing our safety stop with the eyes the size of saucers and only 300psi in our tanks. When we both had gotten on the boat and gotten our masks/bcd's off neither of us talked for like 5 min or so... just kinda sat staring blankly at each other. Then we both stood up simultaneously and gave each other a hell of a bear hug, and decided that we had had enough diving for the night.
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Jun 13, 2017 - 09:39am PT
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I'm going to Indonesia in a couple of months!
The wildest dives in my experience are the drift dives. You're flying over the site like it is skydiving. In a shallow divesite, there can be a heavy current as the tides go in and out. But that will be where the shallower wrecks are. Some other stuff.
In Scapa Flow, in Northern Scotland, we waited for "slack tide". All dressed up on the deck waiting for the time. Time came, and everyone punched in off the high deck in a "negative entry" straight on down. The current grabbed us and we went flying by the wreck. Had to grab it on the fly. Otherwise, you'd be past the wreck and have ascend to shoot up a sausage. Get picked up before you drifted out to the open ocean.
Once inside though, it was quiet, no current, it was a big boat lots of decks and structure.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Jun 13, 2017 - 09:46am PT
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I've done some pretty cool drift dives in the South Pacific after I finally got certified. The outer reefs near Pohnpei were some of my favorites. Heard a horror story in the news while I was in the S.P., where a couple was lost during a drift dive. They searched for them a couple of days before giving up.
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Jun 13, 2017 - 12:35pm PT
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The big thing now, is diver/shark inter actions. We did this in 2015 went to "Tiger beach" in the Bahamas.
I floated up and lensed this one ritf.
It's a Tiger, you can see the stripes.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
but to scared to climb them anymore
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2017 - 12:16pm PT
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Last night a guy jumped from 65 feet into a quarry that is 200 feet plus deep. He never surfaced. My buddy on the rescue squad was first in and at 60 ft he called it off due to safety reasons. Another individual somehow lost their weightbelt and rocketed to to the surface.
That individual is now in ICU. Please pray or send good thoughts to the family.
Also please give time to think of the individual who passed. A ROV was used to locate the other individual in approx 200 ft of water.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Jun 19, 2017 - 01:12pm PT
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BigB fantastic story. Q-Ball hoping for a full recovery.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
but to scared to climb them anymore
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 26, 2017 - 09:01am PT
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In the 50s my father lived on Bloody Bay Tobago. His friend went on a single diver drift dive with the boat following his bubbles.
The guy in the boat lost sight of the bubbles, and blamed it on the Russians because he was so smart (found them a spy) Terrifying way to go.
Edit my dad was not on the boat
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 26, 2017 - 01:32pm PT
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Lived at the beach as a kid, either surfing or snorkeling. Was about 12' down
swimming along the edge of a thick kelp forest off Corona del Mar when I
came face to face with a ginormous grouper. I swear he coulda swallowed me!
I almost swallowed my snorkel!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Oct 26, 2017 - 01:42pm PT
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There was an intense write up on Nat Geo about the fresh water dives in Australia to retrieve another diver. Hard read. Serious challenges at 900+ foot dive.
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