The Redondo Beach City council is determined to make city parks nothing more than glorified public lawns with their new “Fun and safety rules.”

No barbecues, no shade tents, no dogs, no skateboarding, no smoking, etc., etc.

No barbecues in a park?

What fascist city council ass wipe came up with that one?

The world is now so perfect, that politicians are going after barbecuing, trying to condition us to the tyranny of a totalitarian state.

The Divevets tried to get a permit, but the request was denied.

The ironic thing is, there were two shade tents up for an event called “Boarding for Breast Cancer” and the parking lot was full of skateboarders, who were – yes – skateboarding around the parking lot, dodging cars.

Someone must have gotten their palm greased somewhere in the city.

Anyway, the diving event:

Conditions were spectacular!

The barren seascape of Veterans Park was visible up to 30 feet!

It’s been years since conditions were this good.

Logged SCUBA Dive #393

Solo Diving
Veterans Park, Redondo Beach, CA

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 1200 psi
Max depth: 84 feet
Waves: Flat
Visibility: 20 to 30 feet – no joke!
Water Temperature: 53 degrees
Air Temperature: 72 degrees
Total Bottom Time: About 35 minutes

I had a small pumpkin and carved it in 25 feet of water – I did a quick carve job of a pirate, using the store’s label as the eye patch.

This “Pumpkin Carving Contest” is so rigged, I figured I will just enter a token pumpkin and stay for the beer and dive company.

I continued on, down the shelf.

The visibility was the best I’ve seen in a long time; I wish there was just more to see other than blocks, sand, crabs and other divers.

Still no camera yet – so there’s no pictures.

The pictures that you see on this post are actually from a cheap disposable Kodak film camera – how 20th Century.

The “Ass Grab” Pumpkin.

Underwater Carved Pumpkins.

The winners line up!

The Whole group.

Dan was not their to interfere with the Judging, which meant that ECO Dive Center kicked the Divevets asses.

As always, Professional Debriefer Paul has captured the moment:

To View this video on YouTube, click here.

Here again is my once a year opportunity to dive underneath the Redondo Beach Pier and collect what people have dropped over the side for the last 12 months.

For a few hours, they prohibit fishing off the pier and let SCUBA divers clean the “garbage” underneath.

I arrived a little late, so my dive buddy TwinDuct and I were one of the last divers to enter the water and head for the pier.

Upon entry, a wave knocked me flat on my ass, and to make things worse, I couldn’t get up – a wave would hit me, and I would try and get up, or at least try and float out to waist level water, but I ended up flailing in the surf zone until TwinDuct and my arch Divevets rival Airborne helped me to my feet.

Thank God there were no witnesses or pictures, as I did not look very macho.

We swam out and headed for the pier.

We descended and went towards the pier.

Logged SCUBA Dive #389

Dove with TwinDuct
Off of and Under Redondo Pier, Redondo Beach, CA

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 800 psi
Max depth: 70 feet
Waves: Big in the surf zone, calm once out
Visibility: 15 feet at best
Water Temperature: 62 degrees, colder at depth
Total Bottom Time: About 40 minutes

We passed over a community of sand dollars; I’ve always wondered, where the hell do sand dollars come from and what is their purpose in the ecology, anyway?

It looked like all the good stuff was already picked up – in previous years, guns, hoop nets, a skull and a variety of weird stuff has been found.

All around the pier, the remains of dead sea creatures litter the ocean floor.

We headed South and then down the canyon – there’s usually trash there.

We came across a baby electric ray.

TwinDuct found a cool snorkel; I found a fishing knife and nice diving mask.

I thought I was narced or something, but TwinDuct confirmed what I saw – a duck, swimming around our area at 70 feet underwater.

I couldn’t turn my camera on quick enough to catch a picture of the duck.

We went back up the canyon and did one last pass under the pier before heading in.

I made a perfect exit, except for tripping on my bag in six inches of water.

After being told to crawl by a DM, I just got up and walked ashore – now that is macho.

TwinDuct and I display our bags of trash.

Less trash was collected than ever before, and nothing super cool was pulled up either.

What amazed me, was what was given to the people who cleaned the surface of the beach…

Everyone got a plastic bag to put trash in – the liberals hate plastic bags so much, they’ve pretty much banned them all over the South Bay and Long Beach area – but they give the clean up crew evil plastic bags?

Amazing! What a double standard!

My thanks goes to Heal and Bay and Dive N Surf for this event.