Sole Searchers Newsletters

On Saturday May 1, Bromley, David, John, and I took the Catalina Express to Avalon to dive Casino Point.  The weather was perfect, and Bromley was kind enough to help me break in my new dry suit.  For me, it was the first time diving a dry suit, but it all went pretty well.  Amazing how you don’t feel cold at all at 100 fsw.

During our first early morning dive in the underwater park, Bromley and I surfaced so we can adjust the weights, then Bromley says “Hey, they’re calling us in.”  I look towards the shore to find a Sheriff officer waiving all of us divers out of the water.  A dive accident? was my first thought.  After exiting the water, we approached one of the officer and asked what was going on. “The underwater park will be closed off for the rest of the day” she said.  At first she wasn’t telling us why, but soon she revealed that someone had found a World War II artillery shell right near the stairs.  Ummmm… right near the stairs we just exited?  Yikes!  Our guess was that it was a left over practice shell from the early years.  Soon, the bomb squad was called in, and the dive area was taped off.

Although Casino Point was closed off, the trip wasn’t a loss at all due to the harbor master opening up Descanso Bay for us divers.  Descanso Bay is usually closed off to divers and can only be dived by permission from the Harbor Master.  So, after we grabbed a quick lunch at the burger place right next to the Casino (where we chatted with Karim and his GUE friends), we walked over to Descanso Bay for our next dive.   It was an easy beach entry and a short swim to the outer buoy.  Following the buoy chain down, we hit bottom at about 80 fsw.  John and David enjoyed the wreck of the Valient, and Bromley and I watched many large bat rays swimming around us.  Oh yes, and we spotted one angle shark in the sand perfectly hidden… well almost perfectly.  Anyway, the day gave us a different kind of excitement we never expected on Catalina.  By the end of our dive, it was (as Shawn would say) Beer O’clock.  We headed towards town and grabbed some really tall glasses of beer.

Oh yea, we never did hear a big boom, so I take it that they disposed the shell without any difficulty

-Kaz-

We had our first outing of the year with Ken Kollwitz and Channel Islands Dive Adventures (CIDA) on the Raptor out of Ventura Harbor. The trip was to the wreck of the Peacock off Santa Cruz Island. The Peacock is a WWII minesweeper and sits upright on a sandy bottom at about 65′ deep.

Our first attempt to get on the wreck had to be aborted as the anchor was dragging along the bottom and only two divers managed to find it. We all managed the second attempt without any problems. The hull structure was fairly intact with some superstructure left as well. Visibility was around 40′. There was plenty of life on and around the the wreck with the most numerous, and largest, Spanish Shawls that I have seen in one place.

The second dive was at ‘No Name Reef’ with some pretty big sheephead and lobsters here. The last dive was at ‘Let’s See 2′. The urchins had been out in strength here so it was fairly barren.

Thanks to Jim Babor, Gary, Shawn, Jack and Anastasia for a great day out. You can see the photographs from the trip on the club web site.

For anyone who is interested we are looking at another trip with CIDA on July 17th again on the Raptor but this time to to Anacapa for the TBM Avenger Plane Wreck. The Avenger is a WWII Navy torpedo bomber that crashed on a training mission in the early 50’. It sits in about 115’-120’ close to a shallower reef.

Bromley

We finally had our first Sole Searchers Dive Club beach dive of the season.  This year, the weather had been so bad that every time we even mentioned the words “beach dive” it would start to rain.  There were 12 Sole Searchers who showed up at the new Terranea Resort (a.k.a. Old Marineland).  Nine of us dove and the rest enjoyed the improved topside of the resort. 

The conditions weren’t the best at Old Marineland, but I’ve dove there in worse conditions.  The freedivers said as they were getting out that the vis was 4-5 ft max.  I’ve dove enough times to know not to trust either overly pesimistic or overly optimistic reports of vis by other divers.  The usual entry at the point looked iffy due to some larger swells coming in, so we decided to enter and exit from the cove. The cove is made up of smaller rocks making an easier entry, but it can be tricky to get your footing while the waves come in.  Also, since the bottom drops off quickly, you need to put on your fins just a few feet from the shore while keeping your eyes on the waves coming in and then quickly swim past the surf zone.  On a calm day, this entry is very simple, but on a day where there’s some surf, be very cautious. 

We all entered and surface swam west toward the point and dropped down about quarter of the way there.  At first the vis was about 8 ft at best, but as we swam deeper and farther west, it greatly improved to 10-15 ft.  Also the surge was minimal at depths of 30+.  The farther west we went, we saw plenty of healthy red, brown, and golden gorgonian as well as lots of fish including some large male sheephead.  We spotted a good-sized octopus in between a couple of rocks and two sheepcrabs mating.  Several sunflower stars were scattered throughout our dive, and being Old Marineland, we spotted some nice nudibranchs. Garibaldi were busy starting to tend their red algae to lay their eggs. The kelp looked healthier than I’ve seen in years past. I was totally happy to be back in the water at Old Marineland. I am really looking forward to the warmer months with lots of beach diving to do in our wonderful Southern California coast… did I just sound like Huell Howser?  Later we ate some awesome burgers at “Five Guys Burgers and Fries” in Carson.

Thanks for a fun day!  Lars, Gary T., Jimmy, Jovy, Bromley, Shawn, Sheree, Keelah, Barbara, Kari, Landen, Andrea, and John Marin.

The forecast called for rain with possible thunder.  It sounded like an awful day to be staging our dive gear outside at Casino Point.  I have to admit, I almost cancelled, but when I got an e-mail from John Marin saying “Andrea said she is going no matter what, and I’m going along with her,” well… I just couldn’t wimp out. Surprisingly, the day turned out to be a beautiful day with blue skies and just some scattered clouds.  Looking around I wasn’t sure if there was as many participants as last year (perhaps scared off by the weather forecast?), but there seemed to be still a good number of divers participating.   We staged our gear near the casino, right by the Hollywood Divers canopy.  Our friend Karim was there representing Hollywood Divers, and armed with some photo gear looking very high-tec.

The cleanup dive was actually a good dive with vis of 15-25.  Even though it’s a shallow dive, it’s beautiful to see the kelp with many juvenile fish schooling near them.  Also the harbor seems cleaner every year.  John was nice enough to carry the goody bag full of (heavy) found objects, as Andrea and I casually swam collecting more objects and passing it to him to carry (what a guy!).  We found the usual critters in the harbor but with the added bonus of a horn shark, a torpedo ray, and the biggest navanax ever seen by Andrea.

Feeling great after the dive, we headed for a hearty lunch with cheese burgers, kielbasa, and some tall glasses of beer.  Well, it turned out to be a great day, thoroughly enjoying the rest of the day laughing and relaxing with John and Andrea.  We really should do this again soon… and I’m so glad I didn’t wimp out.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, I saw a whale really close, around 40 feet or so from the Catalina Express as we sped our way home.  If I didn’t look just at the right moment, I would have missed it.Kaz

With water temperatures 12 degrees below normal it was perfect dry suit weather in the Florida Keys. Some really brave divers were wearing 3 mm suits.

The trip started with most of us meeting up in Miami airport where we demonstrated that a Lincoln Town car was the perfect dive vehicle. It holds 4 people and 12 bags, has room for tanks in the trunk recess and a wide bumper for putting on gear. That must be one testimonial they have not had before!

Most of our dives were with Conch Republic Divers who did an excellent job of looking after us and providing replacement equipment to anyone who needed it. The dives on the Spiegel Grove, a 510’ Navy supply ship, were the highlight of the trip for many of us with plenty of wreck penetration opportunities which were laid out with guidelines where an exit was not clearly visible.

The other wrecks we dove near Key Largo were the Eagle, a 287’ freighter lying on its side and broken in two, and the Duane, a 327’ Coast Guard cutter. All of the wrecks were accessible and well within recreational limits.

The other highlight of the trip was the Vandenberg, a 524’ missile tracking ship near Key West with the signature tracking dishes. We saw large barracuda at many of the safety stops but on the Vandenburg there were more than I had seen before patrolling the deck.

My thanks to Gary & Gary, Heather, Kathleen, Melani, Sheree, Carolyn and Kurt for making this trip. I would definitely like to do this again but preferably without the dry suit.

Bromley

Fun comes in many flavors and each year is fun in a different way. This year Gary decided that he wasn’t going to put up with a morning of light rain so he rented a little trailer in Santa Paula to ward off the wet. Naturally it didn’t rain and was perfect weather. The Santa Ana winds blew warm at night and occasionally an ocean breeze cooled things off. We got there early Friday playing hookey from work and most of the others showed up not long after. In all we had about twenty campers; Barbara and family, Soco, Jesus, Ericka, Juni, Glenn, Cecille, Andreas, Lilly, Fin, Mary, Gary, Kathleen and the four in my troop. Seems to add up quickly but we had plenty of space to all fit in with sites all abutting each other. I got lucky and had snagged the beach side site so we were all able to watch sunsets around the fire snacking on Kilbasa, Carne Asada, Home made Empanadas, along with all the fixings and Cheesecake for desert. All the neighbors were agreeable (once you got to know them too).

We pulled out the dive gear on Saturday morning and the water was a lovely 65 which was refreshing but sadly the vis wasn’t 65ft. Between that and Ceci’s continual mask flood we had an abridged dive but good practice for her having not geared up for a couple of years and she did pretty well. Naturally everything got sandy even though we made walking exits. Andreas and Lilly went kayaking with two people on a one person kayak. They did really well though the waves make it hard to tell which way is up.

A few walks on the beach and holding down comphy chairs and hammocks rounded out our weekend though many went bike riding. Refugio Road goes inland and makes for a quiet exploration on bicycle. Others preferred the beach side bike path. We had reserved through Monday so the park patrol wouldn’t chase us out but we also made an early afternoon return to stop in Santa Paula for Pumpkin Patch hunting. Happy Halloween to you all.

More pics here:
http://67.122.16.97/solesearchers/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album61

Lars

After hearing the report of big surf causing beach closures in Laguna Beach area, most members decided to either skip the day, or just show up sans dive gear.  Well, when we arrived, it turned out the beaches were open and the surf looking doable, but the surf was still large enough that we all opted to just have a nice day at the beach enjoying the good food and good friendship of our group.  Many jumped into the water anyway, with several members riding their boogie boards taking advantage of the waves.  Jovy and Jimmy even got there early and did a bike ride… all the way to I-5 and back. What troopers. Like I mentioned in the club group e-mail, we’ll have to come back and dive picnic beach on another day.  It’s really a great beach dive site.  Joining in on the fun were (back row): Dave Gaines, Jon Marin, Andrea Casanova, Paige Marin, Andreas Gritschke, Jovy Belmonte, Gary Faland, Lars Dennert, Kathleen and Gary; (front row): Ceci and Sven, Maggie McDermott, Sheree Lahey, Melani Pipo, Heather Poole, Lily Gritschke, Jimmy Quan, Max, Landen, and me, Kaz.

Kaz

Originally, we had planed to dive Diver’s Cove, but when I arrived there, I saw… gulp, one rather large surf (about 6 ft.) coming in.  The rest of the group was already checking out the surf conditions and assured me that most of the other waves were much smaller.  We studied the wave patterns for a bit longer and contemplated on whether to call the dive or not.  I can’t remember who made the suggestion, but we went over to the next cove (Boat Canyon) to check out the surf there.  Wouldn’t you know it…it was much calmer with almost no waves.  Amazing.  So, we suited up and entered the water from the Boat Canyon side. 

 As soon as we submerged, we were greeted with a dismal 5-6 ft. vis which was slowly worsening to boot.  Hoping the vis would improve towards the outer side of the reef, we swam heading south.  At times the vis dropped to almost 2 ft.  It was one of those This-Really-Sucks-Should-We-Abort? kind of dive.  As we passed the outer edge of the reef, the vis started to improve just a little.  Going further and heading north, more fish started to appear, and even the gorgonians started to look healthier.  Soon we were almost at the Diver’s Cove exit, so we turned around to head back.  Using caution, we swam though some of the shallower area towards Boat Canyon.  To my surprise, the surge was not bad at all. On a rough day, a diver can get tossed pretty badly in these shallow areas, but today it was really manageable.  The vis also improved greatly to about 15 ft. or better.  We enjoyed the shallows and we even dropped down into some of the cracks in the reef.  Inside these cracks you can be either protected from the surge above, or the surge can whip you forward and back through these channels.  Sheree was especially having fun playing Supergirl with the surge.  We totally avoided the murky outer side of the reefs by taking a shortcut near the exposed rocks in the shallows back towards Boat Canyon.  It’s amazing how diving conditions can be so different from one cove to another and from one side of the reef to another.

Max depth:  39 ft.  Total dive time: 54 min.  Water temp:  60.  Later we relaxed at Heisler Park and enjoyed a picnic.  Thanks to those joining in on the fun: Glenn, Cecile, Sheree, Kila (the rollover champ), Melani, and me, Kaz, and the family.

On Saturday, August 1, Heather Poole, John Marin and I assisted The Ocean Defenders Alliance with an assessment dive to the Olympic. The Olympic is a wreck just outside the Harbor that sank in the 1940’s. Not many people dive this site because it’s very close to active shipping lanes. But, it’s a site that ODA has worked on and was returning to determine if more work was necessary.

Their boat is docked in a slip about as far inland as you can get, in Wilmington. This means that you do not need to suit up before boarding! The ride to the end of the harbor is about 45 minutes and then another 45 minutes to this particular wreck. Kurt and his brother Jim were our crew and guides for the day, and were quite hospitable to our group. Keep in mind that this was a volunteer trip, so we were not provided with food or drinks, but they did allow us use of their refrigerator and they even had a microwave, which we did not use.

Enough with the scene-setting. On to the diving.

For the first dive of the day, we set out to check out the wreck and see what condition it was in. Conditions looked good from the get-go. Water was calm and warm. 72 at the surface and 56 at depth! Vis was probably 20-30 feet. The wreck is at about 90 feet and is absolutely stunning. I have never seen a reef this colorful in SoCal (granted, there’s a lot I haven’t yet seen.) It was covered in pink anemone and I even spotted soft coral. Beautiful! We covered about ¼ of the ship (it’s over 200 feet long) and even penetrated a portion where we missed a scorpion fish that Kurt was trying to show us. Kurt took video which we reviewed back on the boat, showing a section covered with net that we would attempt to retrieve.

In the hour between our dives Jim did a little snorkeling around the boat and we munched on the snacks that we brought. We planned the next dive, during which I would man the camcorder, Heather would hold the net, Kurt would cut and John would hang back as our Safety. We would also unhook the anchor from the wreck, as it had dropped right on it.

Normally we would always dive in buddy teams, but as this was our first ODA dive, we just did as we were told. Note to self (and the reader!): ALWAYS dive in buddy teams. Not only does this help prevent one person from being left behind, but it also should mean better familiarity with each other’s gear.

Also during that time, mother nature decided to kick it up a notch and bring on the wind and waves. In the matter of an hour the sea had gone from calm to choppy. After our surface interval, we suited up again.

Now for the interesting part, or “What Not To Do.”

Mistake #1 – No Defined Buddy teams.

As the four of us descended the anchor line, I discovered I was having a hard time equalizing my left ear. I rarely ever have a problem with my ears, so I knew if I gave it some time, it would be fine. I ended up stuck at 60 feet for a little while, doing the ear-clear bob. When the other three reached the bottom and I was nowhere to be found, John decided to head up and look for me. By this time vis was down to next to nothing, so as John ascended the anchor line and I hung out near it at 60 feet, we never saw each other. After I few minutes I reached the bottom. Kurt decided to head over to the anchor, so Heather and I followed.

Mistake #2 – Miscommunication or Lack of Communication

Once we reached the anchor, Kurt handed me the camera which I immediately tried to turn on so I could film. Kurt struggled with the anchor for a few minutes but finally got it loose and over on the other side of the wreck. By this time I was filming, but only then did I realize that the lights were not even on, so I was only supposed to be holding it. Oops!

Mistake #3 – Not being familiar each other’s gear and different computers’ safety stops

Heather and I followed Kurt as the anchor line was now practically dragging him across the ocean floor. We grouped up to ascend, Heather and I paired up to check out gauges, and we looked back and Kurt and the anchor line were both gone. The surge was so strong that the boat was moving away, anchor and all. So, Heather and I began to ascend where we were, which was the right thing to do, although we did not realize that our computers had different safety stops. Mine wanted me to stop at 60 and 30 and hers wanted a stop at 40. We managed to have enough air to make it to the surface, taking it slowly and doing our last stop at 15 feet, to the best of our abilities. Had we done pre-dive equipment buddy checks and become familiar with each other’s gear, this would not have been a surprise.

Mistake #4 – Getting separated on the surface

Despite our best efforts, when we surfaced we were REALLY far from the boat. I was afraid they could not even see us, so we started kicking as hard as we could. Now, this is difficult in a wetsuit, but in a drysuit it was virtually impossible. Not to mention the added weight of a pony bottle and a steel 100. So, eventually we were farther and farther apart and sometimes I could not see Heather at all. John later suggested that a johnny line would have helped us to not only stay closer together on the surface, but would have also kept us with the anchor line. So, noted for next time! I was so tired at that point that I did not think I could reach her again, let alone tow someone, and so I ended up almost making it to the boat before they zipped over to pick me up and then headed over to pick Heather up. We were exhausted and a little sunburnt, but we were ok.

And here’s the kicker: if asked back, we would do it again! But this time, with buddy teams.

On Sunday July 19. Glenn, Cecile, Greg, and I took the 8:30 a.m. Catalina Express to Avalon to dive at Casino Point.  I must admit, 8:30 a.m. departure is much more civilized than the 6:15 a.m. boat we usually take.  When we arrived at Avalon, the day was sunny, and the water temp at the surface felt like bath water.  In the shallows it was 68-69 degrees, but 59 degrees at 95 ft.  Before we went in, a  diver told me the vis was pretty bad, but it cleared up spectacularly below 60 ft.  So on our first dive we headed straight out from the stairs and West towards deeper water, but the vis actually got worse as we descended.  I would say it was 5-10ft at best.  Probably the worst vis I’ve seen here at Casino Point.  I saw a bat ray swim right past me at 90ft, but I’m sure none of the others saw it.  Giving up, we headed for shallower reefs and towards West, and wouldn’t you know it, it started to clear up nicely (and much warmer to boot).  We casually swam through the yellowish green kelp.  As usual,  Calico bass and sheephead followed, looking for stirred up particles to eat.  Garibaldi, blacksmith, and rockwarsse, darted about while schools of smelt swam above us.  I even found a 7” abalone clinging to a rock, which was really nice to see.

On our second dive we headed west from the stairs and stayed relatively shallow.  We found vis of about 35ft. and some beautiful and lush kelp beds.  Several octopus were sighted, and Glenn and Cecile  even saw one swimming out in the open. Several lobsters were hiding between the rocks, and Greg and I found a lone flat fish camouflaged in the sand.  We ended the dive when Greg signaled to me our time was running out…not because of our air supply, or nitrogen intake, but because it was getting close to our boat departure time.  We quickly got out, packed up our gear, and made it on the 3:45 p.m. boat back to Long Beach.  It turned out to be a very nice Sunday diving with some good people on a beautiful island.

Kaz