Since the underwater Chistmas Tree decorating is getting old, the Divevets came up with a holiday scavenger hunt.

Twenty numbered and weighted tennis balls were dropped in the ocean off of the stairs in 30 to 60 feet of water.

You were allowed to find only one ball.

At random, a beginning number would be picked; the person holding that numbered ball would start by picking a present and opening it.

The next number would then have the chance to pick another prize, or steal the first prize.

It would continue on, with each diver either stealing another’s prize or opening a gift; if your prize was stolen, you picked and opened another gift, which was also subject to being stolen.

Prizes could only be stolen twice; after that, it was safe.

That’s the way it was suppose to work and conditions were excellent.

Logged SCUBA Dive #365

Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach, CA

Dove with Airborne (This is not a misprint)

In With: 2900 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 60 feet
Waves: Flat, with ankle breakers in the surf zone
Visibility: 15-20 feet
Water Temperature: About 58 degrees
Total Bottom Time: About 35 minutes

Airborne, my arch Divevets rival, asked if he could dive with me – probably because of my lobster hunting abilities.

We submerged and went South, along the edge of the canyon.

I am still a little congested from being sick, but was able to get down fairly easily.

Now, the tennis balls were green and grey, tied with white sting and weighted with a cement block.

How easy do you think these things were to find in the ocean, even in ideal circumstances?

I found one, Airborne two; Airborne was nice enough to give one to Professional Debriefer Paul.

Ascending, I had reverse blockage – Ouch!

Pretty much, out of twenty tennis balls, only six were found.

The rules changed and everyone was just given a number by lot.

After a masive feast of hamburgers, hotdogs, Korean food and chicken, the prize festivities started.

Rather than a narrative here, I will wait for the video to come out.

All I can say is, I got burned!

I stole a boat trip, which was stolen from me.

Then I got a cool dive knife, which was stolen from me.

Then I picked a gift and low and behold it was a reel, which I blindly traded for a smaller reel!

One of the women flashed Dan so she could exchange her lame prize for a diving knife.

My camera was used for some underwater footage for Professional Debriefer Paul’s spectacular video of this event, which is scheduled for release Sunday evening.

Photos from the event can be found here, on the Divevet’s Flickr page.

On the way to Terranea Resort, the water looked flat and dark – a good sign for great diving.

About six divers went off the Point; we had an extremely easy entrance today.

Professional Debriefer Paul still had my camera to download the underwater video from yesterday’s underwater pumpkin carving event, so I was camera-less on this dive.

I buddied up with the famous Melvin Pasley.

Logged Dive #360
Terranea Resort
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Dove with Melvin Pasley, founder of the Disabled Veterans SCUBA Project.

In With: 2900 psi
Out With: 300 psi
Max depth: 60 feet
Waves: Pretty flat
Visibility: 25 feet
Water Temperature: About 56 degrees, I think
Total Bottom Time: About 55 minutes

The water felt colder than yesterday.

Our group swam out to where Reverend Al believed the statue to be and submerged.

We hung around that area for about 10 minutes; I didn’t think we found the statue, but Al told me later, “We were right on it, you must have seen it.”

Well, I didn’t.

All throughout my dive, my mask kept leaking and I kept clearing it – sort of annoying.

I’m not bad on air, but nobody would classify me as a fish; Melvin was diving with 20 more cubic feet of air than I had, so I worried about cutting his time short.

We started to head for the cove when I had 2500 psi left.

Visibility was really good – 25 feet, maybe more in some areas.

We traveled through the kelp at a zero heading to 35 feet, then took a 30 degree heading to the cove.

We came across a huge bat ray, large sun stars and a few potentially legal lobsters that were hiding in a reef, out of reach.

After peaking once, to reaffirm my bearings home, I surface just outside the Cove with 300 psi; Melvin had over 1200 psi left.

I probably should have been paired up with someone who had an 80 cubic foot tank.

Professional Debriefer Paul was on shore to document our easy exit.

The debriefing was interesting with Melvin, Military Bob and Not New Chris – all of whom were either active or retired military.

Melvin got back from a tour in Iraq, maybe a year ago or so, and said, “If you are one of the ones that go out on patrol, it isn’t if you are going to get blown up, but when.”

“I saw a suicide bomber and a cement truck blow up… the guy that replaced me when I went home was killed two weeks later… some soldiers were blown up six times, all to get sent back on patrol.”

“A lot of soldiers can’t drive from here to Las Vegas because once you get past Barstow, the terrain looks just like Iraq and brings back memories…”

Veteran’s Day is coming and word has it that Not So New Chris will be deploying soon.

Not to cheat anyone out of a visual for today, here is a video that Not So New Chris made of today’s dive…

To watch the video on YouTube, click here.