Diving The Palawan Wreck, Redondo Beach, CA
I was invited to go dive the Palawan wreck with a bunch of technical divers.
I was the last person to show up at the dock, 20 minutes before the boat was scheduled to
leave.
Even though I didn’t hold the boat up much, I was still given shit for “being the last to show up.”
When I told Dry Suit Greg that I was on the boat, he was relieved that he didn’t have to take his doubles – he would dive with me, following recreational dive limits.
I’ve often thought about becoming a technical diver – however, some consider solo diving “Technical” – but I’ve been told constantly, why spend $10,000 dollars to go from 130 feet to 300+?
Regardless, aside from Greg and I, everyone else was going to do a 30 or so minute dive and decompress gradually come up – not to be confused with non-decompression recreational diving, which simply requires a “safety stop.”
Hey, my budget is a constraint, but more power to the techies!
I bought a new underwater camera, and decided to go balls out – a Fujifilm 3D digital still and video camera.
This was it’s test run; I was scared shitless that the casing would leak.
As Greg and I were were doing recreational limits, for us to do two dives at 120 feet, we would require almost an hour on the surface between dives.
I was planning to do my first dive with just the case, to test for leaks.
However, with our long surface interval, the tech divers would be back before our second dive began – so, a second dive was in question.
I greased the seals of the case and said, “Fuck it!”
I was the first one off the boat, Dry Suit Greg followed.
Logged SCUBA Dive #394
Dove with Dry Suit Greg
The Palawan Wreck, Redondo Beach, CA
In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 1200 psi
Max depth: 120 feet
Waves: Choppy
Visibility: 30 to 40 feet
Water Temperature: 53 degrees
Air Temperature: 72 degrees
Total Bottom Time: 14 minutes bottom time, 35 minutes total
We descended down the anchor line and went North to the Palawan.
My automatic inflator on my BCD doesn’t work, so my “trim” wasn’t at it’s best.
Dry Suit Greg later remarked, “Man, I wondered who I was diving with.”
Yeah, my buoyancy wasn’t that great with no air in my BCD at 100 or so feet, however, I didn’t feel the need to orally inflate it.
We had rain and some pretty tall waves last night, and I was surprised the visibility was absolutely spectacular.
And, wearing my core warmer, I didn’t feel that cold, which probably kept me from getting narced.
The Palawan is a wreck that I doubt I will ever get bored of – it is encrusted with sea life, there’s many swim throughs, with easy outs, if need be.
Lots of fish and lots to see – wait for the video which should be on the next post.
I followed Greg, took some test video with my new camera, and followed him back up the anchor line to a good safety stop.
My camera casing did not leak.
The tech divers were still down.
Will we do another dive?
Stay tuned.
