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!