Veteran’s Park
Redondo Beach, CA

Dove with Ed

This was my first time in a month diving; Ed is buying a bar, so he’s been busy.

It was a hot day; about 80 degrees before 10 AM.

I started with 3400 psi of air; Ed had 3000 psi.

We entered the water, it was really rough, 10-12 foot waves.

But, no surfers!

Maybe because there were a lot of SCUBA divers.

We descended to 40 feet and followed the shelf down to 90 feet.

My gauge said 80 feet.

Instructor Ed had two gauges, one said 85 feet, the other (his newly bought one) read 90 feet.

Ed said that he knows what 90 feet feels like, so I’ll go with that.

We swam around at 90 feet for a few minutes.

Ed was acting a little strange and signalled he was going up.

I tried to follow him.

80 feet up is a REALLY long way.

I got to 40 feet and was really tired; I couldn’t see Ed.

At 40 feet I decided to swim toward the beach; I looked at my compass and started swimming West for five minutes.

I don’t know if I was disoriented or just stupid, but I soon realized that I was going the wrong way!

I turned around and went East, DUH!

It was really strange; there were particles in the water that just flew by; I can’t really describe it.

It was like I was floating through a thin soup with glitter.

I eventually ran into the shelf and followed it back up.

I was swimming along the bottom, looked up and saw a spider crab on its hind legs — pinchers out — ready to attack (or, more realistically, defend itself).

It startled me and I swam away.

I thought that if I had my fishing license, I’d go back and get it – Oh, well!

I made it back to shore, but had to crawl up on the beach.

I was in a good position to go up standing, but the waves were too high.