My life is slowly starting to come back to normal; I looked at the swell maps this morning and it was all dark blue around Palos Verdes.

There was no way I could talk my way out of a dive, so I arrived promptly at 8:00 AM at Terranea Resort.

I’m still trying to get used to my order of operation with my new car and the fact that I can’t get my key wet.

I need to take all my diving gear out, and then lock my car before putting my keys into a waterproof case and then into my pocket.

I forgot my mask, so I had to un-wetsuit (that is a word, right?) and fetch my mask from the car.

Well, when I realized I left my hood in the car, I said, “Fuck it, I’m macho and going anyway.”

Chipper, Nice Bob and Joe R. were in attendance, along with about two dozen other divers from various clubs and groups.

I forgot how pleasant the walk to the beach is from the parking lot.

After tripping on some rocks and making the most ungraceful entrance into the water ever, I dawned my fins and headed towards the finger outside of Pigeon Shit Cave.

Logged SCUBA Dive #510

Solo Diving

Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 1500 psi
Max depth: 40 feet
Waves: Flat as a lake, pretty much
Visibility: 15-20 feet depending on where you were.
Water Temperature: 61 degrees at depth
Air Temperature: 74 degrees
Total Bottom Time: 36 minutes

I submerged and headed towards 120 reef.

My camera lens fogged over with condensation – I should have put a “do not eat” in it; My pictures were fucked.

I reached 120 reef; vis was 15 to 20 feet, but a bit silty.

I looked up, and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw another diver.

It was a great white shark!

Well, I think.

It was probably three or four feet in length and looked just like Jaws, except for an incredibly big, disproportional back fin.

I honestly, don’t know what else it could be, but what a shitty time for my camera to be screwed up.

I made an easy, slow tour around 120 reef.

I saw a lot of small fish and the Sheephead are definitely coming back.

I have extreme guilt for shooting all the sheephead that I did back when I started to hunt.

Yeah, their meat is really good, but there is no sport in the hunt – shooting a Sheephead is like shooting your own dog.

After a little over a half an hour, I headed back in to a sort of macho exit.

Debriefing consisted of Budweiser – the King of beers, some Russian beer, someone’s homemade ginger ale and some chips and dip.

There was a bottle of Russian “non-alcoholic beer” that was given to me.

I politely declined, but was later told, “It’s Russian beer, of course it has alcohol in it, it’s just made for non-alcoholics.”

It’s great to be back!

More diving soon!

July 4, 2019

I took four days off from my regular job to do a fireworks show and get some diving in.

This is my 12th year that I helped to set up a fireworks show at Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach.

I decided many years ago to turn my teenage lust for M80’s and pipe bombs into something more productive, and legal.

This is show business, and anything really could go wrong; in previous shows, we’ve had many ground explosions, the show wasn’t wired correctly and the grand finale went off in the middle of the show, and a couple of years ago, we had started a small brush fire that the fire department quickly put out.

Now, the Fire Department has a map of all the addresses that surround the canyon, there are high pressure fire hoses marked with glow sticks surrounding the golf course and now they made us move further down range because of an unforgivable incident that happened last year.

Last year, unbeknownst to us at the time, a cataclysmic incident happened.

Apparently, a piece of mortar fell onto a homeowner’s imported Italian Marble patio and made a mark.

We had to move the mortars further down the fairway, more towards the middle of the golf course, where there is more distance between the mortars and the houses.

We also had to condense the show into three smaller rows and the grand finale; the cake displays were placed closer to the audience, which meant we needed two firing boards.

We were checking the wiring right up until 20 minutes before the show; the board has a “test” mode that verifies the connection, but doesn’t put enough juice through to set off the charge.

I was expecting the worse, considering the new set up, but the show fired almost perfectly.

Out of 600 plus rounds, we had three mortars that didn’t go off – that is a lot better than we ever expected.

The new Fire Marshall was happy, too; we may get some complaints of debris due to some shifts in wind, but no fires.

Here is the Fireworks Show from my GoPro on the firing board.

July 7, 2019

Now it was time to get back into the water.

I woke up early and headed down to Terranea Resort, arriving about 7 am.

Terranea Resort is 10 years old now; it hasn’t been easy, but they have embraced the divers over the years, with only a few misunderstandings.

I called the dive, the water pretty much looked like shit.

Maybe the recent earthquakes stirred up the ocean floor?

Thanks to President Trump, America just keeps winning.

More next week, I hope.