Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach, CA

I dove as a safety diver with Instructor John’s Open Water class of five and returning students, Bonnie and Clyde, who were there for “more experience.”*

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 2100 psi
Max depth: 20 feet
Waves: 1-3 feet
Visibility: 10 feet
Water Temperature: Warm
Total Bottom Time: 15 minutes
Notable Event: This was the dive that gave the the idea for my nickname, “Psycho Solo Diver.”
*The names of students have been changed, probably because I don’t remember them to begin with.

We did the traditional skin dive and what not.

The students:

Pedro – An older man who is taking diving because he desires to go dredging for Gold.

Lurch – A huge guy that Bonnie and Clyde seem to know.

Green Horn – Young guy, skinny and fit.

Leeza – An older woman who desires to dive, but had a friend drowned in the ocean when she was younger.

Young Hottie – A young and petite girl who probably weighs 100 pounds and, like all the other students, is required to carry the 60 pounds worth of SCUBA gear.

We did our traditional “feel the bottom” dive; the students dawned their weight belts and BCD for the buoyancy check.

As we were floating around outside of the surf zone, Pedro mentioned to me, “I think I lost my weight belt.”

I asked, “You think? Did you drop it?”

“I must have.”

John turned Leeza back as she was too nervous.

After John and the rest joined us, it was decided that I would go back to shore, gear up and look for Pedro’s weight belt.

We did not have a spare belt.

I was putting my gear on; Leeza asked what I was doing and said I was going diving to look for a weight belt.

She warned me about diving alone.

I explained that I was just going to be out in the surf zone in shallow water.

Leeza retorted, “Man, you’re psycho.”

I thought, “Psycho solo diver, huh?”

I went out and did a zigzag pattern along the bottom where we entered the surf.

I couldn’t find Pedro’s weight belt.

This whole dive was looking for Pedro’s weight belt.

I surfaced and asked Pedro, “Are you sure you brought your weight belt with you?”

“Uh, I think so,” he responded.

“Do you think you might have left up by your car?”

“I could have.”

Everyone went back on shore.

John and Pedro went to the parking lot to look; I decided to go out one last time where we entered… and tripped over Pedro’s weight belt in two feet of water!

Bonnie and Clyde waited on shore for their turn to dive.

The Rookery
Santa Barbara Island, CA off of the Sundiver Boat

Dove with Nick

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 1000 psi
Max depth: 25 feet
Waves: Insignificant and not much current here
Visibility: 30 feet
Water Temperature: Cold
Total Bottom Time: 60 minutes
Notable Event: Annoyed by hundreds of Sea Lions

From what I understand, this is usually reserved for the last dive since it’s so shallow.

There’s a lot more kelp than the last dive and literally tons of sea lions.

Basically, all we did was screw around with the sea lions – I believe sea lions have ears and seals don’t.

This was a relatively shallow dive – 25 feet at the most.

We were constantly bombarded with sea lions.

They swam right toward us and then turned away at the last second.

Nick almost gets hit by a sea lion.

Sea Lions swap spit.

Reconnaissance scouts the attack target.

Nick is dive bombed by vicious sea lions.

A nearby diver is almost dealt a fatal blow by a dive bombing sea lion.

We surfaced to try and swim back to the boat and escape…

…but the sea lions blocked our surface exit.

The Sea Lions continued to attack…

Nick found that by giving a few blasts of air on his BCD jacket, the noise would scare them away.

We barely escaped death!

The sea lions are pretty much fearless.

I swear they were actually posing for some of the pictures.

Nick had trouble equalizing toward the end.

Going back to the boat, I noticed that most of the divers were very close to the boat still – basically entertaining themselves with the sea lions.

This apparently is a marine preserve.

According to the captain, “you can’t even take sand here.”