Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach, CA

Dove With Angelshark

In With: 2900 psi
Out With: 700 psi
Max depth: 85 feet
Waves: Mild swells
Visibility: 20 feet
Water Temperature: Comfortably cool, but chilly at depth
Total Bottom Time: 45 minutes

This was some sort of unofficial bay “clean up dive” where divers bring ashore a bag of trash and then party in the park to celebrate.

I took Angelshark up on the offer to buddy up with her; we met in the crowded Vet’s Park parking lot a little after 7:40 AM.

She and other chick divers admired the Duster; it’s hard not to.

This was Angelshark’s first ocean dive in a dry suit – that sort of made me nervous, as I have no experience with them.

She briefly explained how they work; it’s just like operating a BC jacket, except the suit is one big air jacket.

Angelshark has been diving for three years and has over 600 logged dives!

“I go diving four times a week, sometimes two or three times a day,” she said.

We walked out, put our fins on and swam about 50 yards out before submerging.

Me and Angelshark prepare to submerge.

We descended in 25 feet of water; I followed her over the shelf.

I wasn’t sure where we were headed, just down to pick up trash.

I kept accidentally bumping into her, not knowing where exactly we were going.

We picked up trash at 85 feet, I was getting a little narced.

A crab hides in a fox hole.

We went up the shelf; this is what Angelshark looks like underwater.

There’s still plenty of trash above the shelf.

I followed her back down the shelf to 80 feet.

We both had 80 cubic feet tanks, but she has smaller lungs.

I pointed out that I had 1200 psi and we were at 80 feet; I started heading in and she followed.

Up the shelf and after a nice slow swim and safety stop in, we were in shallow water.

Angelshark took a fin off before she could touch bottom.

“I take one fin off first so I can just worry about the other one when I can feel the bottom,” she said.

I tried that approach and did not like the lack of control while being in the surf zone.

I again, as always, tripped over the one foot sand step.

Angelshark helped me up and on my next step tripped over my trash bag.

A non-macho exit in front of a hot chick is hard to live down.

Angelshark accidentally caught an octopus, which crawled out of a piece of trash; she had to argue with a Korean woman about why she was “throwing food” back into the ocean.

“It was so small, why would she want to eat it?” Angelshark asked.

My bag of trash; Vet’s Park is a lot cleaner now than in previous years.

Wrinkles from the Old Marineland site greeted me; I had brain fade because I didn’t place the face outside of that spot.

I apologized and said that I must be getting Alzheimer’s.

Scubaboard.com was having some kind of “Beach Crab” event.

Wrinkles and I walked over and checked the scene out.

Wrinkles is quite popular in the local diving community; she has a dive named after her – the “Wrinkles Dive” every second Saturday of the month, I think.

“The ‘Wrinkles Dive’ used to be whenever I wanted to go diving, I would just post and people would show up.

“Now, it’s commercialized to the point I can’t even make my own dives,” Wrinkles said.

Another great day of diving with a great buddy!