{"id":1500,"date":"2009-01-09T22:41:51","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T05:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1500"},"modified":"2009-01-10T00:41:07","modified_gmt":"2009-01-10T07:41:07","slug":"operation-lobster-liberation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1500","title":{"rendered":"Operation: Lobster Liberation!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Logged SCUBA Dive #327<\/p>\n

Secret Location: 4e 6f 72 74 68 20 6f 66 20 74 68 65 20 74 68 72 65 65 20 6c 6f 6c 6c 69 70 6f 70 20 74 72 65 65 73 20 6e 65 61 72 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 74 65 73 20 6f 66 20 4d 61 72 2e
\nPalos Verdes, CA<\/p>\n

Solo Diving\/SoCal Buddy Diving<\/p>\n

In With: 2700 psi
\nOut With: 300 psi
\nMax depth: 60 feet
\nWaves: Minor swell chop
\nVisibility: 15 feet+
\nTemperature: 52 degrees
\nTotal Bottom Time: About 25 minutes<\/p>\n

After a jinxed attempt at lobster hunting last Tuesday, Instructor John and I tried it again – this time in a different location!<\/p>\n

The ride out in the zodiac was fairly flat; a DFG boat had pulled over a private boat entering the harbor as we were leaving.<\/p>\n

We anchored in 60 feet of water and both of us descended around 7:45 PM.<\/p>\n

I headed towards shore, hoping to liberate some lobsters in shallower waters.<\/p>\n

Micro lobsters covered the rocks along with some shorts.<\/p>\n

Visibility was pretty damn good – 15 feet or more and very clear; there was a slight underwater surge.<\/p>\n

My secondary light went out, but I continued with my primary light.<\/p>\n

About 10 minutes into the dive I was at 45 feet and wondered if I was going to get skunked – I hadn’t seen any lobsters worth grabbing for, and even the small ones were sparse.<\/p>\n

My light waved passed a large bug, I moved my light to the side and my frozen hand of liberation made the pounce!<\/p>\n

The lobster shot backwards and I ended up tearing off one of its antennas; I chased it, and in the process, I came across an even bigger lobster that I pinned against the ocean floor and bagged.<\/p>\n

It was like grabbing a can of motor oil – no need to measure that one!<\/p>\n

Five feet away, I spotted the original lobster – or at least another lobster that only had one antennae.<\/p>\n

That lobster had no fight left in it and practically crawled into my bag.<\/p>\n

Both these monsters were caught in 45 feet of water.<\/p>\n

At 1500 psi, I turned around and headed back towards the zodiac.<\/p>\n

In 50 feet of water, I pinned three more lobsters, but only one was legal, and just by a few millimeters.<\/p>\n

I slowly surfaced with 500 psi of air, fairly close to the boat before submerging again to swim at 10 feet under the kelp to reach the faithful zodiac.<\/p>\n

Instructor John followed a few minutes later.<\/p>\n

\"John\u2019s<\/p>\n

John’s catch of the night was three lobsters; he went deep at first, to 70 feet, but didn’t see any so he went shallow and caught his stash at 45 to 50 feet.<\/p>\n

\"Me<\/p>\n

Do I look macho holding my lobsters, or what?<\/p>\n

My share of the gas was $15, so $5 per bug sure the hell beats the retail market price that would probably be close to $100.<\/p>\n

The ride back was cold and choppy as the wind was picking up.<\/p>\n

With a little more than two months to go in the season, I’m going to try and get out at least once a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logged SCUBA Dive #327 Secret Location: 4e 6f 72 74 68 20 6f 66 20 74 68 65 20 74 68 72 65 65 20 6c 6f 6c 6c 69 70 6f 70 20 74 72 65 65 73 20 6e 65 61 72 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 74 65 73 20 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,7,9,3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500"}],"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=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}