Secret Location: 4f 66 66 20 74 68 65 20 53 70 61 6e 69 73 68 20 52 65 64 20 42 65 61 63 68 20 69 73 20 61 20 66 61 72 6d 20 77 68 65 72 65 20 6f 6e 6c 79 20 70 69 70 65 73 20 61 72 65 20 67 72 6f 77 6e 2e

Night Diving, Solo Diving, Lobster Hunting – So Cal Buddy Diving with the Divevets off of the Island Diver boat

In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 90 feet or so
Waves: Pretty Flat
Visibility: 15 feet, but dive bombing sea lions stirred the bottom
Water Temperature: Cold
Total Bottom Time: 20 minutes
Lobsters caught: 3

The boat a couple weeks ago was canceled due to conditions; but another boat that went out a few days before came back full of lobsters.

We pulled out of the deck a little after 7 PM.

While slowly moving through the wake free zone of the harbor, the Captain spotted a HUGE fish floating on the surface.

He turned around and his deck hand gaffed it and dragged it aboard.

It was a 110 pound Grupper.

I asked the deckhand, “What are you going to do with it?”

“It’s still breathing, so we’re going to fillet it,” he said.

“Isn’t that like eating road kill?” I responded.

“No, he’s still alive, a boat probably just hit him,” he responded.

The divers were wondering if we should throw it overboard to attract lobsters during our surface interval; but we were just joking.

I was the first one off and cried as the 54 degree water ran into my wetsuit.

I slowly went down the anchor line and went South; I stayed mostly in 80 feet of water.

After five minutes I had caught two lobsters and thought I wouldn’t have a problem limiting on this dive.

At 10 minutes I turned around and went back over the barren sand and pipes and caught my third one of the night.

I surfaced slowly, making a three minute safety stop at 20 feet.

When I broke surface, I could not see the boat, but I soon realized that a current had taken me further South when I was surfacing and the boat lights blended with the city lights on shore.

I had a nice 80 yard surface swim back to the boat.

A group of sea lions circled and bombed the divers.

The rest of the divers followed in with a moderate amount of small, but legal lobsters.

Long Point, CA
(aka The Old Marineland)

Solo Diving

In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 1000 psi
Max depth: 40 feet
Waves: Easy 1-2 foot swells
Visibility: 15 feet plus
Water Temperature: Cold, 54 degrees at the surface
Total Bottom Time: 45 minutes

My first dive of the New Year!

There’s suppose to be a storm coming in later in the week, so I headed out to dive and party with the Divevets crew.

The wind was blowing pretty hard from over the hill, but the sea remained fairly calm to everyone’s surprise.

Most of the group watched the conditions for probably close to a half an hour; I didn’t wait.

I entered off the cove and went to the right to find the old pier pilings and anything else that might be interesting.

The water was so cold I had an “ice cream” headache for the first ten minutes of the dive.

Most of the time, the dive resembled the barren sands of Vet’s park, but I did come by a few sparse and shallow reefs.

Urchins live on parts of the old pier pilings.

A field Of Sea Feathers.

A starfish lays on top of his feast.

I also ran across a strange creature that I could not identify in the slightest…

I made it back in over the rocks with no problem.

The walk back up was uneventful, but the ensuing party to celebrate New Years was true to the Divevets’ spirit.

Juan Twenty collected fishing weights on his dive.

An hour or so of diving, followed by three hours of “debriefing”…

Happy New Year everyone!

A new chick named Ana was the center of attention at this gathering; it was pretty funny watching two of the divers compete for her attention.