The only thing not perfect with this day, is that there was really thick fog blanketing 90% of the South Bay; the air was warm, and the sea was calm – I mean flat as a lake.

Dive N Surf was there, with their club’s monthly beach dive along with the regular Divevets crew.

I paired up with Air Force Chris (formerly know as Not New Chris) and Dennis G.

Logged SCUBA Dive #392

Dove with Air Force Chris and Dennis G.
Off the Cove and to the right, Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 42 feet
Waves: Flat
Visibility: 15 to 20 feet
Water Temperature: 56 degrees
Air Temperature: 69 degrees
Total Bottom Time: About 59 minutes

The entrance was too easy; we swam to the right.

I pulled out my camera and took a picture of Chris, with the Terranea Hotel in the background.

After a little more surface time, a duck landed next to me; I pulled out my camera to take a picture.

Why won’t my camera turn on?

Upon close inspection, I concluded that the root cause of my camera not turning on is a direct result of my camera case being half filled with seawater.

Yep, my camera case flooded – after many faithful, and sometimes unpredictable years of service – SCUBA Diving, River rafting, camping, Gold Prospecting – the macho-cam was dead.

Calling the dive because of this tragedy would be fruitless, so I continued.

We descended.

What a crappy time to have my camera flood!

The visibility was great – up to 20 feet in most areas.

Luckily, Air Force Chris was able to document highlights of the dive:

You can watch this video on YouTube by clicking here.

The “buddy system” in SCUBA diving makes more sense to me now; if one camera floods, your buddy with his camera can document the dive.

With no camera, obviously I have no pictures to post.

We circled back half way through our air and made an extremely easy and uneventful exit.

One topic of debriefing was with Chris From Detroit – Why is SCUBA diving in the Southern California scene such a sausage fest (a.k.a. male dominated sport)?

I mean, half the students who get certified here are women – so where do they all go once they get a C-card?

Chris From Detroit basically had the hypothesis that women who get certified either do it because they’re going on vacation to dive in warm water, or their boyfriend dives, or they take up diving to meet someone.

The latter reason intrigued me; Chis From Detroit continued, “Once they meet someone diving, their objective has been met and they stop diving.”

So that’s where they all go?

Debriefing continued until a little after noon.

I soaked my camera in 95% denatured alcohol and hung it in front of a fan to dry out.

The prognosis does not look good for my camera – I am searching for a new one.

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.