Trying to keep a personal promise of diving at least once a week while psycho bitch packs her stuff – at least I’m waiting for her to start packing – I made it down to the beautiful Terranea Resort for a Sunday Services dive.

Small turnout for such a great day – it was just me, Reverend Al and Nice Bob; a few other divers were there, but we didn’t know them.

Logged SCUBA Dive #375

Off The Point At Terranea Resort
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
Dove with Reverend Al and Nice Bob

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 400 psi
Max depth: 60 feet
Waves: Pretty mellow with a few surprises
Visibility: 10-15 feet
Water Temperature: 55 degrees
Total Bottom Time: About 50 minutes

My reserve second stage free flowed; I was sure it just needed to get wet, so I kept the air off until I entered the water.

The tide was low, so we entered in a different spot than usual.

The spot had a big rock that kept us sheltered from the big waves – fins on, wait for a wave, and ride it out.

The thought of making an entrance at The Point usually scares the shit out of me, because I have seen divers get hurt here – some divers call The Point “wounded knee.”

It worked great and none of us had issues getting out.

Nice Bob turned my air on and my regulator didn’t leak.

Nice Bob was going to lead the way, Reverend Al and I would follow.

Since all three of us were experienced divers here, it was decided that if we separated, it would be “every man for himself” – meaning, there would be no attempt to find one another.

We looked for lobsters – not even seeing any under the rocks.

I sort of followed blindly, hoping Bob knew where he was going.

Visibility was sort of silty; on a great day like this I would have expected better.

Lots of fish and the colorful reefs always make this an enjoyable dive…

A lingcod pets a starfish.

A starfish practices yoga.

I forgot what these are called, but they look cool.

I dive with a smaller tank than the other two, plus I’m an air hog, so I surfaced about 50 minutes into the dive with 400 psi left in my tank; Reverend Al and Nice Bob continued on.

I made a surface swim of about 100 yards to the rocky cove.

I took my fins off too soon, but was patient enough to get pushed ashore to a perfect exit.

However, I tripped over my game bag and I fell in full gear on the rocky beach; luckily, my shin cushioned the landing by getting smashed against a rock.

It really didn’t hurt – probably because my years of training to become a cage fighter has rendered me immune to pain – but when I got to the parking lot, I noticed it was sort of swelling up.

That is my shin, not my knee cap.

Small scale debriefing took place with the King Of Beers and the Rev’s beverage assortment, all flavored with home grown lemon.

Later on, my shin really started to swell up; I’ll try ice and DMSO to bring it down.

It’s once again time for underwater pumpkin carving and world class debriefing!

The Divevets have to, once again, defend their title against ECO Dive Center as the best underwater pumpkin carvers.

This whole event sort of reminds me of Roller Derby from the 1970s.

Roller Derby came on after wrestling and featured the Los Angeles Thunderbirds; they would play other teams from around the country, but if you looked closely, you would notice the only thing that changed was the color of the opposing teams uniform – the opposing players were the same every week.

And guess what?

The Los Angeles Thunderbirds would win every single time; seriously, they NEVER lost!

Well, I sort of felt sorry for anyone on ECO’s dive team as they never had a chance to win the grand prize which was billed as “a trip to Belize or a beach towel, I forget which.”

It had rained for a bit the night before and earlier there was a question whether it would be too rough to enter as the waves were up.

Someone had the brilliant idea that if we couldn’t dive, we could carve our pumpkins under the running water of the beach showers.

Luckily, conditions calmed down enough to dive.

I dove with Donna The Hot Biker Chick, as she just wouldn’t feel safe diving with anyone else.

Logged Dive #374

Veterans’ Park, Redondo Beach, CA
Dove with Donna The Hot Biker Chick

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 1500 psi
Max depth: 30 feet
Waves: Some annoying chop in the surf zone, a few big waves
Visibility: 4-10 feet
Water Temperature: 64 degrees
Total Bottom Time: About 30 minutes

It was an easy entry through the surf.

I had a small pumpkin and my camera.

Donna and I ascended and started to carve our pumpkins in 15 feet of water – We should have gone deeper as I had buoyancy problems at that depth.

I basically just cut my pumpkin in half so I could fill it with candy and money to bribe the judges.

I waited for Donna to finish her masterpiece; I even had to rescue it once, when it started to float away.

After that, we surfaced to look for bubbles of other carvers; I was trying to get video for PDP’s spectacular epic.

We found a couple more groups and I did my best to document the action – visibility sort of sucked.

Donna and I exited the water with no problems.

Debriefing followed with hamburgers, hotdogs and – since this is a public park – “apple juice in blue cups.”

I had no idea that Anheuser Busch made “apple juice.”

My scheme paid off – I won third prize for my “pumpkin candy bowl.”

The prize was a DAN first Aide kit.

Anyway, enough of the narrative because Professional Debriefer Paul has once again done an excellent job of documenting the event…

To view this video on YouTube, click here.