It’s just 11 days until the close of Lobster Season.

Chipper mentioned to me, “At the beginning of the season, all the hunters are so happy, but towards the end of the season, everyone is glad to soon be able to start enjoying day time diving again.”

Yeah, true, even though I haven’t been out much this season.

The Island Diver has been bought by Dive N Surf, but still docks at Rocky Point in Redondo Beach.

This was an $80, light pack lobster boat consisting of Chipper, Nice Bob, the other Jeff and me – with Dive Master Tony and Captain Toros as crew.

Since the Dive N Surf acquisition, the Dive Master no longer does guided underwater tours and actually stays on the boat; everyone gets a buddy to jump off the boat with, too.

The ride out was rough, and besides one tug boat, no other ocean craft were seen outside the break wall.

Some people, who never get sick, got sea sick; luckily, with me being macho, I was not one of them.

We anchored in a secret spot, and we jumped in.

Wanting first grabs, I was the first to submerge, but I had to take my time getting down to the anchor at 85 feet, and someone beat me to the floor.

Logged SCUBA Dive #464

Same Ocean Diving With Chipper, Nice Bob and the other Jeff

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

In With: 2900 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 86 feet
Waves: A lot of surface chop, some surge below
Visibility: 10 feet, a lot of silt
Water Temperature: 64 degrees
Air Temperature: 68 degrees
Total Bottom Time: 26 minutes

I didn’t want to go too deep – you can get to more than 140 feet if you aren’t careful – so I went East.

That was a bad mistake.

I ran across some structure and pinned my first lobster on top of the sand.

I didn’t even bother measuring it; it was short, and released unharmed.

At 1600 psi, I turned around, went past the anchor and ran in to one of the main parts of the artificial reef.

I caught three bugs, two were short, the other was just barely legal – I kept the legal one.

There are lobsters, I just went the wrong way on this dive, and now I was almost about to go into decompression mode with 600 psi left.

Fuck it – I headed to the surface, slowly.

I was afraid of being carried by a current, and didn’t know where the anchor line was, so I skipped my safety stop – I don’t like doing that.

When I broke the surface, but before swimming to the boat, I remeasured my lobster – it had shrunk at the surface.

I took the lobster, pointed to the direction of home, and released it, unharmed – but it was probably a little psychologically damaged.

Chipper ended up with one bug, Nice Bob with another – a total of two bugs and four divers on this dive.

Details on our second dive will follow shortly.

February 2, 2014*

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and I have the same opportunity as I did last year – Go on the Pacific Star for two SCUBA dives under the oil rigs and be back by the game.

This was suppose to be a divevets function, but I only knew a handful of people.

Either I’m losing touch with the group, or there are a lot of new members recently.

Just like last year, we had to go through an extensive background security check to be anywhere close to the oil rigs.

The first dive I planned to collect some scallops for a Super Bowl party and test my camera housing for leaks – I replaced the gasket and re-greased the housing.

I did take the housing on a test dive, but only to 40 feet – this is the ultimate test.

We got a short briefing on the dives and dive procedures, including a bit about scallop gathering – “We are going to ask you to cut the meat out of the shell, don’t bring the whole thing up – you’ll have 50 unneeded pounds of shell with you.”

The San Pedro Light House.

The Eureka Oil Rig.

After the short ride out, it was time to dive.

The rigs are in 600 feet of water, so the boat has to drop and pickup without anchoring.

I jumped over and swam underneath the rig before submerging.

Logged SCUBA Dive #460

Solo Diving/SoCal Buddy Diving

Eureka Oil Rig
Between Catalina and San Pedro, CA, USA

In With: 2900 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 101 feet
Waves: Slightly choppy
Visibility: 40 to 60 feet!
Water Temperature: 59 degrees
Air Temperature: 67 degrees
Total Bottom Time: 24 minutes

The water was choppy, but as soon as I went under, it calmed down – visibility was excellent!

I would say 50 to 60 feet of visibility – perfect for spotting scallops, that are literally all over the columns under the rig.

I found a big ass scallop at 60 feet, took my knife out and jabbed it into the scallop to dig the meat out.

The scallop closed, I twisted it, and my knife broke in half!

Well shit!

They asked me to cut the meat out before coming back to the boat – that’s like when the cops ask you if they can search your car.

It’s not mandatory.

OK, I might be a little heavy, but what they hell, I started prying the scallops off, whole, and putting them in my lobster bag.

After 20 minutes, I had a heavy bag full of scallops.

I reached the surface and gave the OK sign about 20 times to the Dive Master who was waving a hard hat at me – I found out later he was trying to return a hard hat that one of the workmen on the rig had dropped.

The boat picked me up, and the Dive Master was not very happy to see whole scallops coming up on the boat – he sort of bitched me out.

The King of Scallops

My broken dive knife.

I checked my camera housing – and it didn’t leak!

Stay tuned for the second dive post, with underwater pictures of the Ellen Oil Rig.

*Posting has been delayed due to the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl Party and the needed recovery from the events.