There were thunder storms earlier Friday; it seemed that might have driven people away from “Opening Night” as there were not that many people on the water.

I write “Opening Night” because technically, it’s Opening Morning.

There was no moon – which is good.

We took Instructor John’s mighty 14 foot Zodiac – loaded with himself, Jim, Crazy Ivan, me, eight tanks and our gear – to one of our secret lobster locations.

There wasn’t much room.

The boat rode low in the water and riding over the swells made the non-macho sea sick.

We jumped in the water at midnight.

I had a nightmare earlier in the week that I had gotten skunked on opening night; I was about to find out if that dream was a premonition.

Logged SCUBA Dive #390

Southern California Buddy Diving/Solo Diving

Secret Location: 4e 65 61 72 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 74 65 73 20 6f 66 20 4d 61 72 2c 20 74 68 65 72 65 20 69 73 20 61 20 68 6f 75 73 65 20 77 69 74 68 20 66 6f 75 72 20 6f 72 20 6d 6f 72 65 20 63 68 69 6d 6e 65 79 73 2e, Palos Verdes, CA

In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 800 psi
Max depth: 35 feet
Waves: 3 – 5 foot chop
Visibility: 15 feet plus
Water Temperature: 67 degrees
Total Bottom Time: 48 minutes

The boat was anchored in 30 feet of water; I submerged to check the anchor line – SCORE!

My first bug, with no problems!

I swam shallower, but the visibility started to suck at 15 feet, I turned around, went over a reef and saw more lobsters a few feet apart.

I pinned the bigger one, measured it, bagged it and looked over…

“Holy shit! That other bug is still there,” I thought.

I moved in and missed a secure grip, it wiggled out of my hand and hit me in the face while fleeing.

I surfaced to get a return heading, submerged, and came across my next two fairly easy.

Yeah, there were a lot of short lobsters, but I didn’t even bother going after bugs that “look like they might be legal size.”

I made a short return trip to the boat, swimming under the thick kelp.

I need to start cage fighting again, as I am so out of shape, I had a hard time climbing back in to the boat.

Jim caught three, two were monsters.

And so the season starts – my first four bugs for the 2011 season.

Instructor John limited (7) on this dive and Crazy Ivan caught one.

We moved to a different location for our second dive.

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.