Annual Beach Clean Up
Veteran’s Park
Redondo Beach, CA

Solo Diving

In With: 2500 psi
Out With: 400 psi
Max depth: 70 feet
Waves: 1-3 foot swells
Visibility: 15 feet
Water Temperature: Mid 50’s F
Total Bottom Time: About 45 minutes

This is the annual Beach clean up, where a bunch of community service oriented goodie-goodies do their token bit to clean up beach trash for one morning a year.

I couldn’t resist the chance to dive under the pier, so I went.

Meeting Roland and Dan in the large parking area by Vet’s Park, I was told, “You don’t get a T-Shirt this year for signing in, so we’re just going to enter here and swim to the pier.”

That sounded like a good idea.

I geared up and was walking through the parking lot when my auxiliary second stage started free flowing.

I banged on it, but finally got it to stop when I washed the rig out with fresh water down by the showers.

About 400 psi had leaked out.

Only one diver bagged on me about my malfunctioning equipment.

I entered the water around 8:30 AM with no problems and started to swim towards the pier before going under for the trip.

I surfaced 40 yards South of the pier and noticed that my underwater watch was no longer working and that people were fishing off the pier.

Instead of waiting, I figured there was probably an abundance of trash around the pier and over the shelf.

I submerged and searched at 30 feet for garbage, but couldn’t find any.

I went South and down the shelf to about 60 to 70 feet and found the mother load – plastic bags, bottles, shoes, a pair of sunglasses, a plastic purse, a packet of Catsup, socks, a piece of canvas.

I was careful to make sure I didn’t pick up anything’s home.

Some of the trash I left behind because things were living in them – so I no longer considered the items trash.

I was having so much fun, actually diving Redondo with a purpose, that I started getting concerned about my air.

I headed up the shelf with 1000 psi and started towards shore slowly.

I surfaced with 400 psi in 10 feet of water and noticed that I was missing my snorkel.

Crap! Another piece of lost equipment!

The beach was covered with volunteers picking up even the minutest pieces of trash.

I walked ashore without incident and no fanfare.

While washing off at the showers, I looked down at my bag and saw a couple of small octopi trying to escape through my mess bag.

I was pissed at myself, because I thought that I had checked the trash pretty thoroughly.

I walked back to the shore and threw three baby octopi back in to the water.

I degeared and looked through the trash that I had picked up.

No wallets, no money, no treasure maps.

Dan and Roland soon followed.

I picked some fishing hooks out of Roland’s wetsuit and stabbed myself in the process.

Roland mentioned to me that Dan, “found two snorkels.”

I asked, “Was one blue?”

“Yes,” he responded.

Sure enough, Dan saved and returned my snorkel!

I took our bags of trash to “the trash pile” by the pier.

The ROK Marines performed maneuvers off Redondo today.

Mirek scored a fishing hoop net, Drysuit Greg a chair; other items included a walking cane and other oddities.

As I was emptying Dan’s bag, two octopi crawled out looking for water.

Shanon threw them back in the ocean.

At least I wasn’t the only one who was accidentally harvesting octopus.

The Divevets had a great barbecue afterwards.

A new member named Marty introduced himself to us.

Even though I tend to dive alone, I’m glad I don’t have to drink alone during the debriefing.

I later found out from Marty that due to the clean up effort, parking was free until noon.

I had been pumping quarters in the parking meter all morning long!

Dove With Nick

In With: 3000 psi
Out With: 1100 psi
Max depth: 70 feet
Waves: 2-3 foot mild swells
Visibility: 8 feet or so, silty
Water Temperature: Cold at depth
Total Bottom Time: 40 minutes

I am getting a reputation for diving with old and malfunctioning equipment.

It took some time to convince Nick it is safe to dive with me.

Here is the actual predive email thread between Nick and I; it was so funny that I posted it on Divevets.

***********************
Me: Care to dive Wednesday evening at Redondo?

Nick: Did you buy a new BC yet?

Me: I’m patching the old one.

Nick: I will extend an interest free line of credit up to $1200 to you, repayable over 12 months, for you to buy new diving gear.

A new BC, wetsuit, and depth gauge are required as part of this offer.

This offer is being extended in part for my safety, as well as yours.

Also, I am embarrassed to go diving with someone who used a length of rope to secure his BC, and who has more patches than actual neoprene in his wetsuit.

I’m not really embarrassed to be seen with you in your wetsuit, but I am concerned about your BC and the console that you have to bang (at 80 feet) to get an accurate reading…

Yes, I am paranoid, you got a problem with that?
************************

We met around 5:20 PM at Vet’s Park.

As we were gearing up, Mirek walked over and asked, “Hey Psycho, so who is the guy who is afraid to dive with you?”

I pointed to Nick.

Mirek turned to Nick and said, “Don’t worry, man.

“Just tell Psycho to keep his hands off of your equipment when you are underwater.”

Roland from the Divevets was nice enough to give me an old wetsuit that has less holes in it than mine

These guys are great diving company.

Roland also assured me that it had never been peed in.

We entered the water and walked through the fairly calm surf zone.

We made a short descent before I had to surface again and refit the purge valve on my mask.

We submerged again and went West to the edge of the canyon; I looked back at Nick.

He was adjusting his mask and gesturing, “Wait.”

I looked for any signs of panic or stress and even gave him the option to surface.

Nick gave the “OK” sign and we continued down the shelf, enjoying the 55 degree thermalcline.

At 65 feet, we headed South to “the pinnacle” – a collection of cinder blocks and miscellaneous trash where small fish hang out.

We continued South and turned around when we were at 2000 psi.

Up the shelf we went to warm up and trolled the ledge at 40 feet.

We found more trash, some markers for navigation classes and an empty ammunition box.

I looked over at Nick; there was a big rock crab with it’s pitchers out aimed at Nick.

I thought to myself, “Nick doesn’t see this.”

So I tapped Nick and pointed.

He looked over and was obviously startled.

We headed for shore to an uneventful exit.

Divers were all over the parking lot, either gearing up or debriefing.

Nick and I stayed in the lot and had a few beers while socializing with the Divevets.

Nick took off fairly early; I stayed for the night dive crowd to emerge.

Mirek found a stash of sunglasses at 50 feet and some guy’s ID card

I pointed out that “at least you didn’t find a body with them.”

Roland and another diver shot a halibut – one was huge!

A couple called their dive after entering the surf zone because the woman was afraid to dive at night.

It was getting late by the time Dan and Roland hauled out the Barbecue, so I had to say sayonara.

I donated the rest of my party cups for their own “safety.”