After news of giant squid attacking divers down in San Diego and being seen as far North as Orange County, I decided to dive off of the Redondo Canyon to hunt down and kill as many giant squid as possible.

Ok, actually it was really hot today in the ghetto of Long Beach and I just wanted to cool off and stay away from home; I haven’t been to a Wednesday evening dive in a while.

The parking lot was crowded, but I was lucky enough to find a spot.

I geared up and was in the water by 5:30 PM; I brought my light just incase, but I really didn’t need it in retrospect.

Veteran’s Park

Solo Diving

In With: 3100 psi
Out With: 600 psi
Max depth: 83 feet
Waves: Manageable two to three foot swells at the shoreline
Visibility: 5 to 10 feet at best
Water Temperature: 66 degrees at the surface, 54 at depth
Total Bottom Time: 30 minutes

The beach during the Summer can get pretty crowded.

Once submerged, I had to adjust my equipment; when everything was situated, I grabbed for my camera strap that was roped around my wrist… and it was gone!

Fuck!

Where’s my camera?

It floats, so I (carefully) bolted to the surface from 20 feet of water and looked.

I always meant to put a little note in my camera case that stated, “If found please return to…”

But, of course, how would I ever lose my camera?

I floated on the surface thinking about all the recent pictures – diving, the fourth of July and homemade porno – that will now fall into some stranger’s hands.

I looked over where I thought the current was moving, and I spotted it!

Phew!

My dive continued…

The water on the surface was warm and the vis close to shore sucked.

I headed down the canyon…

Muscle shells; maybe the victim of an octopus.

Humans have punching bags, crabs have clawing spools.

I tried to find “The Monument” or “Blocks” but they have apparently moved to 70 feet and are now more covered in sand.

Sort of an uneventful, plain old Redondo Canyon exercise dive – of course I say that now, since I recovered my camera.

Photo by Rolando

The Divevets welcomed me back by peeing on my car.

Dan fires up the outdoor stove for a Summer evening barbecue as we were treated to the Village People’s hit, “Macho Man” from another diver’s stereo.

The sun sets at Redondo Beach.

Debriefing continued into the night; we talked about many off beat topics including how the group can get more single women and whether or not we should buy a foreign kid “for adoption and exploitation.”

All in fun, but they have a tendency to corrupt new divers.

High surf is expected this weekend, so I’ll have to see what this weekend brings.

Logged SCUBA Dive #344

Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

It’s time to get wet again, but this time Terranea Resort was open to the public – no more slipping the guard a beer for beach access.

Conditions from yesterday were reported as “green with poor visibility.”

Dove with Instructor Ron & Nick

In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 1500 psi
Max depth: 34 feet
Waves: Annoying surge at shore
Visibility: 0 to 10 feet
Temperature: 58 degrees
Total Bottom Time: Exactly 20 minutes

It was low tide and with the promise of pretty crappy conditions, we decided to go off the cove.

Max Bottomtime had reported that he had lost a camera light between the Cove and The Point, replacing it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We decided to search for it.

For some reason, I have an uncanny ability to predict the future, hence my luck at the race track.

With my excellent navigational skills and our perfect search pattern, Nick found the camera lighting…

Congratulations to Nick for scoring us all some beer!

Neither Ron nor Nick were macho enough to carry the camera lighting (it weighed 20 plus pounds), so I put it in my game bag and lugged it around the entire dive.

Vis sucked, so I’ll spare you the pictures.

After 20 minutes went by, diving over the sand just to record this dive, we exited the cove.

Instructor Ron helped carry the extremely heavy camera lighting to shore.

Nick returns the camera housing to Max Bottomtime, our recovery team was rewarded with a case of Budweiser!

Debriefing continued, but this time with safety cups and the glare of the public.

Hopefully conditions will improve and maybe, one day, I’ll have something to write about besides diving here.