{"id":1546,"date":"2009-02-28T23:27:35","date_gmt":"2009-03-01T06:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1546"},"modified":"2009-03-01T08:38:21","modified_gmt":"2009-03-01T15:38:21","slug":"lobster-hunt-getting-close-to-the-end-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1546","title":{"rendered":"Lobster Hunt! Getting Close To The End Of The Season!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Logged SCUBA Dive #333<\/p>\n

Secret Location: 4a 75 73 74 20 74 6f 20 74 68 65 20 53 6f 75 74 68 20 6f 66 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 74 65 0d 0a 20 6f 66 20 4d 61 72 2e, Palos Verdes, CA<\/p>\n

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

In With: 3000 psi
\nOut With: 1500 psi
\nMax depth: 50 feet
\nWaves: Flat on the water, but choppy towards shore
\nVisibility: 10 to 20 feet
\nTemperature: 56 degrees
\nTotal Bottom Time: About 40 minutes<\/p>\n

Instructor John and I took the mighty Zodiac to one of our secret lobster spots.<\/p>\n

Weaving through the dozen or so hoop nets that we came across, we anchored in 50 feet of water off of Palos Verdes.<\/p>\n

We only had time for one dive, and I was determined to take my seven lobsters for the night.<\/p>\n

I submerged and checked the anchor – yeah, it was there, but no bugs.<\/p>\n

I had a good feeling about this dive.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes in, I pinned a lobster in 40 feet of water, measured it, remeasured it and measured it again; it was legal!<\/p>\n

I knew that I wasn’t going to get skunked tonight!<\/p>\n

When I got to 35 feet, a lot of shorts were out foraging for food; these poor bugs had obviously had their share of being assaulted by divers – some only had one antenna, others were missing legs.<\/p>\n

I didn’t even bother grabbing for them.<\/p>\n

I came across my second bug, pinned and bagged it!<\/p>\n

The good news is, all the ones that I did try and pin, I caught; the bad news is, all the rest were short.<\/p>\n

Even the “monster bugs” fell short of my gauge; it’s amazing how big small lobsters look when you haven’t seen many legal ones.<\/p>\n

I managed to surface, with two surface peaks, pretty close to the boat.<\/p>\n

Instructor John was coming back, but overshot the boat and had to bitch crawl over the kelp on the way in.<\/p>\n

John caught one, I had two – neither of us got skunked.<\/p>\n

OK, now it’s time to start the engine and go home…<\/p>\n

\"Trying<\/p>\n

But the engine won’t start… it cranks, it’s getting gas… but the F’ing thing won’t start and the battery was growing weak.<\/p>\n

We took the oars out and paddled out of the kelp, hoping that if<\/strong> the engine started, at least it wouldn’t seize on seaweed.<\/p>\n

John has “Sea Tow,” but they come from Marina Del Rey and waiting for them would take several hours.<\/p>\n

It was time to make a sacrifice, and hope the lobster gods would help us.<\/p>\n

I grabbed the bigger of my two bugs out of my game bag, held it above the water and said out loud, “Lobster gods, I give back to the ocean this bug before I fart… so please let our engine start…”<\/p>\n

I released the lobster unharmed, back into the ocean.<\/p>\n

John tried to start the engine again… and it started!<\/p>\n

Man, that was close!<\/p>\n

It cost me a tasty tail, but it was better than waiting several hours for a tow, assuming they could find us to begin with.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

My catch for the night.<\/p>\n

We traveled back to King Harbor and tried restarting the engine once docked.<\/p>\n

It started and restarted with no problem!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logged SCUBA Dive #333 Secret Location: 4a 75 73 74 20 74 6f 20 74 68 65 20 53 6f 75 74 68 20 6f 66 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 74 65 0d 0a 20 6f 66 20 4d 61 72 2e, Palos Verdes, CA Solo Diving\/SoCal Buddy Diving In With: 3000 […]<\/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\/1546"}],"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=1546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}