{"id":1031,"date":"2008-02-06T23:17:04","date_gmt":"2008-02-07T06:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2008-02-17T00:13:19","modified_gmt":"2008-02-17T07:13:19","slug":"logged-dive-275-the-dive-that-sucked-veterans-park-redondo-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1031","title":{"rendered":"Logged Dive #275 – The Dive That Sucked – Veterans Park, Redondo Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veterans Park
\nRedondo Beach, CA<\/p>\n

Solo Diving<\/p>\n

In With: 3000 psi
\nOut With: 1000 psi
\nMax depth: 60 feet
\nWaves: Some large sets of swells up to five feet.
\nVisibility: 10 feet or so at best
\nWater Temperature: 55 degrees
\nTotal Bottom Time: 35 minutes or so<\/p>\n

Well this was a really stupid dive!<\/p>\n

I arrived and geared up around 5 PM; Mirek was coming back from diving and didn’t say anything to me about the sucky conditions.<\/p>\n

The rest of the Divevets were slowly showing up.<\/p>\n

I asked Shanon, “What does it look like?”<\/p>\n

“It looks like the ocean,” she said.<\/p>\n

I geared up and started walking towards the stairs; out of the corner of my eye, this skinny homeless looking guy was approaching me.<\/p>\n

I looked over and it’s one of my coworkers!<\/p>\n

Yes, I have a “real” job to keep from being homeless.<\/p>\n

My coworker’s mouth dropped open and he said, “I always thought of you as a cubicle jockey, fat, beer swirling non-macho kind of a guy.<\/p>\n

“I never would have imagined that you went SCUBA diving.”<\/p>\n

I swore him to secrecy and continued down to the beach.<\/p>\n

The swells were fairly large; I would have canceled any classes – if I was an instructor and if I was teaching.<\/p>\n

I made it through the surf zone, swam out and submerged in 20 feet of water.<\/p>\n

Mirek had reported seeing two lobsters at the end of the line that went North; I followed the line to some sort of anchor.<\/p>\n

Some crabs were sleeping…<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

…others were ready to attack…<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Continuing West, it suddenly became really dark; I looked up and was under a huge school of mackerel.<\/p>\n

I continued on, but noticed that it wasn’t getting any lighter.<\/p>\n

I then realized that the sun was probably close to setting and I did not bring a light!<\/p>\n

I went South along the bottom of the shelf at 60 feet trying to find the “Monument,” but couldn’t.<\/p>\n

I went back up the shelf; it was getting darker…<\/p>\n

\"Dumb<\/p>\n

Crap, I should have brought my light!<\/p>\n

I swam along the bottom slowly making my way back and surfaced in 15 feet of water in pretty large swells.<\/p>\n

I took my time getting ashore, breathing off my regulator as I let the swells push me back to the sand.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t figure out if it was just dark because of the evening sunset, or if the visibility really sucked.<\/p>\n

Mirek told me, “The vis is only 5 feet in the canyon.”<\/p>\n

Well, as I said, I should have brought a light.<\/p>\n

I gave Dennis G. a report that the conditions were OK; I didn’t realize that vis sucked that bad.<\/p>\n

We did our traditional debriefing in the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Some new divers showed up and introduced themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veterans Park Redondo Beach, CA Solo Diving In With: 3000 psi Out With: 1000 psi Max depth: 60 feet Waves: Some large sets of swells up to five feet. Visibility: 10 feet or so at best Water Temperature: 55 degrees Total Bottom Time: 35 minutes or so Well this was a really stupid dive! I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}