I cheated myself out of a dive last weekend by relying on the online swell map and staying home, only to find out conditions were divable.

Dive reports from Thanksgiving were reported as being good.

The swell maps this morning didn’t make diving look too promising, but I had to find out for myself.

I arrived at Terranea Resort at 8:10 AM.

A storm was approaching.

I walked down to check out conditions and found the rest of the regular crowd.

Chipper was absent, so I was hoping for good conditions.

Pictures really don’t do justice here – conditions sucked.

The Cove was choppy with constant waves.

“Maybe the Point is divable,” I sort of jokingly asked.

“No, it’s pretty bad; we already looked,” someone said.

Conditions towards The Point.

There was talk about checking out Honeymoon Cove, but we figured the chop was going to be everywhere.

After some conversation of diving day’s past and brief reports from this lobster season, we were all off in separate directions.

At 11 AM it started to rain hard in the Long Beach ghetto.

We will try again next week.

I woke up this morning to a dismal swell map…

However, sometimes the swell map is not so accurate.

I’ve called dives after seeing similar maps, only to be told afterwards that conditions and visibility were great.

I drove to Palos Verdes for a look, and hopefully a dive.

I arrived at 8:03 AM; three other divers known as the “Set Builders” were gearing up.

Apparently, they had checked the other places in Palos Verdes, and this was the least worst.

I walked down to see the conditions for myself.

There was no way in hell anyone was going off the Point.

I met Reverend Al, Randy and Eric as I was checking out the Point; Dash showed up later.

Someone remarked, “I hear Redondo Beach is good, if you like looking at sand.”

“I think I might go home and just do some push ups,” Reverend Al said.

We studied the conditions at the Cove.

The cove was divable, but the visibility was questionable – the foam on top and the fact that it had been pounded for the last day or so gave us doubts.

After a rouge wave crashed against the Cove, we called it.

We wished the Set Builders a good dive and watched them enter in a very unique way – they sat on a rock, put their fins on and crawled out, into the water.

That’s actually the way I was originally taught to enter, but I quickly learned the stand up way after a wave threw me against a boulder.

We went our separate ways.

Driving home, I realized how dumb some of the laws in California are – they state Nazis have banned plastic bags and incandescent lights, and as of last month, a driver must give three feet of space when passing a bicyclist.

Don’t get me wrong, as I am an avid bicyclist…

File Photo.

But in Palos Verdes, it is impossible, and the law can easily turn into a money grab for the Police.

Bicyclist rarely ride on the right side of the bike path, but mostly on or close to the line.

The car lane is 9 feet wide, my truck is 6 feet wide, which doesn’t give me much leeway when I pass a bicyclist who is going 15 miles an hour, as I’m going 45.

Which is the cheaper ticket – passing a bicyclist closer than three feet, or crossing the double yellow line?

Sometimes it’s just a curb on the other side… slow traffic down to a bicyclist’s pace until there’s a way to pass?

I don’t really think there’s a way to enforce this law, and if my radio worked, I probably wouldn’t have even been thinking about this.

The Underwater Pumpkin Carving Contest will be at Veterans Park this coming Saturday – stay tuned!