This is the weekend of “Carmageddon!”

I’ve never seen traffic so light, even in the Long Beach and South Bay area; I think we should have this more often!

This is also the last dive with Military Bob before he moves off to Chicago – he’s been a fixture here for about two years, we’ve also dove Laguna Beach together and rescued a female diver off the rocks at the cove at Terranea.

It will be sad to see him go, but life must move on – especially when he showed me the housing prices in Chicago!

There were about ten SCUBA divers there, some more closely associated with our group than others.

We all decided to go off the Point – the waves were miniscule, but it was low tide and very slimy.

I got beached on a reef before a wave came in and picked me up to swim out.

We swam out to drop in 60 feet of water to what we call “Ted’s Pinnacle.”

We waited for a fellow diver, but he apparently decided to take off on his own – he’s been known to make his own secret dive plans.

We descended.

Logged SCUBA Dive #381

The Point, Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Dove with Not New Chris

In With: 2500 psi
Out With: 300 psi
Max depth: 60 feet
Waves: Pretty damn flat
Visibility: A good 15 to 18 feet
Water Temperature: 57 degrees
Air Temperature: About 70 degrees
Total Bottom Time: About 45 minutes

A sheep crab is fairly rare here – he liked the camera attention.

I had my flash off the avoid scatter back, so some of these pictures seem a little blurry.

The reef:

I had a short fill because the booster at Sea D Sea was not working, so I ran short on air and surfaced alone.

I was facing Terranea Resort, and behind me I heard, “Hey! Are you alright?”

I surfaced about 25 feet from a dive boat.

I gave them the “OK” signal and proceeded to surface swim to a perfect exit.

I thought how wonderful it must be to have a boat… then the realization of having one hit me – HELL NO!

The rest made it to shore within a few minutes.

We wished Military Bob farewell while debriefing with an assortment of sausages, snacks, kimchi and beer.

Here is a group shot of most of the divers – Military Bob is to the far right, I am standing next to him.

I asked Military Bob, “Will you ever come back for a visit and a dive?”

“Yes, but not for a while,” he said.

Bob plans to continue diving in the Great Lakes.

And so, another chapter in history closes.

Promptly showing up at 8:15 AM, I noticed that the free lot was almost full and divers were starting to gear up.

But I didn’t recognize any of the divers; where were the regulars?

I decided to check out the conditions.

Talk about starting immediately?

Three boxes of cheap snorkel gear was by the trash.

A group must have just came from Big 5 and decided to see if their gear fits – I am guessing.

The Cove looked foamy, I met the group of regulars who were walking from The Point.

In Nice Bob’s words, “You would be risking your life entering off the Point, for barely any visibility.”

Conditions at the Cove looked divable from and entry and exit point of view, but the conditions looked crappy.

A few divers dove here and later reports confirmed five to eight feet of visibility.

The group decided to check out Honeymoon Cove; I followed.

There’s some kind of construction going on at Honeymood cove; probably another mansion.

Dive conditions looked good, but the trail still sucks.

I have dove here before and have been here when the group decided to dive.

The trail fucking sucks, and I had a lot of stuff to get accomplished today, so I called the dive – by the way, I didn’t get much done regardless.

Most of the group decided to dive Honeymoon Cove, but I split and ened up in San Pedro at Rebel’s Bar to watch the FIFA officials try and fix the Womens’ World Cup kickball match in favor of Brazil – The USA still won!

Ha! Ha! Screw Brazil!

If I’m going to start whimping out on macho dives, I think I should go back to Wednesday night dives at Veteran’s Park – at least I would get wet.

To get off the subject of diving a little bit, for the past few years I have been helping to set up professional fireworks shows on the 4th of July.

This year, Professional Debriefer Paul was able to document the occassion with two of his award winning videos.

So, this is my one day a year job:

To view this video on YouTube, click here.

To view this video on YouTube, click here.

Next weekend is Military Bob’s last potential dive with us; I think it’s time for another parking lot party to say farewell.