{"id":1565,"date":"2009-03-18T23:56:44","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T06:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1565"},"modified":"2009-03-19T01:15:31","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T08:15:31","slug":"closing-night-lobster-dive-for-the-2008-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1565","title":{"rendered":"Closing Night Lobster Dive For The 2008 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Logged SCUBA Dive #337<\/p>\n

Secret Location: 50 61 73 74 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 74 65 73 20 6f 66 20 6d 61 72 20 6e 65 61 72 20 74 68 65 20 44 6f 6d 69 6e 61 74 6f 72 20 77 72 65 63 6b 2e, Palos Verdes<\/p>\n

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

In With: 3000 psi
\nOut With: 300 psi
\nMax depth: 40 feet
\nWaves: Flat on the surface, lots of surge on the bottom
\nVisibility: 5 to 12 feet
\nTemperature: 59 degrees
\nTotal Bottom Time: About 42 minutes<\/p>\n

The ocean was extremely flat tonight; so flat that Instructor John and I took the mighty zodiac a little further than our normal anchoring spot to scout hopefully virgin lobster territory.<\/p>\n

I submerged in 35 feet of water; the bottom had some interesting reef structure and tons of low lying kelp and eel grass.<\/p>\n

The surge was strong; the kelp and I involuntarily moved back and forth about two or three feet.<\/p>\n

Visibility wasn’t all that great, and with the surge I had to move slow to look under the kelp and grass.<\/p>\n

I pinned a few monster bugs, until I measured them – all were short.<\/p>\n

At 1500 psi and at 35 feet, I grabbed for a huge bug, but the surge made me miss the pin and the lobster sprung up and hit me it the face before swimming backwards into a hole.<\/p>\n

I thought I was probably going to get skunked; even the larger lobsters were obviously spooked.<\/p>\n

Heading back to the boat I caught a legal bug with no drama; I think it knew its time had come when it crawled out of its hole tonight.<\/p>\n

At 800 psi, I saw a monster bug wedged between a jagged reef; I turned the light away, reached for it, the surge slammed me against the reef so I kicked away.<\/p>\n

Then the muscles in the back of my left leg painfully balled up – CRAMP!<\/p>\n

FUCK!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was wedged between the reef and as I came up, my regulator hose got caught on part of the reef and pulled my regulator out of my mouth.<\/p>\n

Solo diving, with a leg cramp and now no regulator to breath off of!<\/p>\n

Was I going to die?<\/p>\n

Obviously not, as I am writing this – I put the regulator back in my mouth and hit the purge button.<\/p>\n

Friends, dive training does pay off!<\/p>\n

Being extremely macho and calm in dangerous situations also helps.<\/p>\n

I headed back to the boat after a very short surface swim over light kelp.<\/p>\n

Instructor John had gotten skunked and came back early after getting quickly discouraged.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

I pose with my last liberated lobster of the season.<\/p>\n

The zodiac started without a problem and we began heading back to King Harbor.<\/p>\n

In the distance, a boat started flashing a white signal light at us.<\/p>\n

“That must be a dive boat, keep an eye out for divers in the water,” John yelled.<\/p>\n

The boat in the distance sped up and got closer, still flashing their signal light.<\/p>\n

“John, I think those are pirates!<\/p>\n

“Full speed ahead and keep going!” I yelled.<\/p>\n

John hit the throttle, but the boat caught up to us and cut us off.<\/p>\n

The boat had running lights, but the cabin was blacked out – I could make out two figures on board.<\/p>\n

“Gentlemen, California Department of Fish and Game, how are you doing tonight?” a stern voice yelled from the cabin.<\/p>\n

“Oh, fine,” I said, as I took my last gulp of beer.<\/p>\n

We told them that we had only one lobster and I admitted it was mine.<\/p>\n

I handed them my game bag, my fishing license and lobster report card.<\/p>\n

“Any more lobsters or fish on board?” the agent asked, as he peered over our many bags of dive equipment and emergency engine repair supplies.<\/p>\n

“No,” John said.<\/p>\n

“The bug is good,” a voice said on the boat.<\/p>\n

I was handed my papers and lobster back and we were given a farewell, “Gentlemen, have a good night.”<\/p>\n

Finally, paying for the licenses and report card have paid off!<\/p>\n

The rest of the voyage was routine.<\/p>\n

I will post a lobster season recap within the next few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logged SCUBA Dive #337 Secret Location: 50 61 73 74 20 74 68 65 20 67 61 74 65 73 20 6f 66 20 6d 61 72 20 6e 65 61 72 20 74 68 65 20 44 6f 6d 69 6e 61 74 6f 72 20 77 72 65 63 6b 2e, Palos Verdes […]<\/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\/1565"}],"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=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}