{"id":2931,"date":"2013-12-15T08:40:12","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T15:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=2931"},"modified":"2013-12-15T12:53:38","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T19:53:38","slug":"dive-n-surf-underwater-christmas-tree-and-toy-drive-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=2931","title":{"rendered":"Dive N Surf Underwater Christmas Tree And Toy Drive Event"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 14, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have had a really bad cold for the last couple of weeks; just as I think I’m shaking it, the congestion comes back.<\/p>\n

I didn’t want to miss such a unique event as the Dive N Surf Underwater Christmas Tree Dive and Toy Drive, so I had a hearty breakfast of water, coffee and a handful of Sudafeds. <\/p>\n

I arrived promptly at 8 AM to a parking lot full of divers – Dive N Surf<\/a>, Divevets<\/a> and Pacific Wilderness<\/a> were all represented, but with seemingly separate agendas.<\/p>\n

\"My
\nMy donations to charity.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Dive<\/p>\n

They held the dive briefing a little late; I felt the Sudafed wearing off as I blew snot strands on the pavement.<\/p>\n

\"Me
\nMe with some of the hot babes of Dive N Surf.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Santa
\nSanta enters the water – I wonder if she knows how heavy that suit is going to be when she gets out?<\/em><\/p>\n

I made an easy entrance, and swam to 20 feet of water before submerging.<\/p>\n

I pinched my nose as the water pressure squeezed my eardrums. <\/p>\n

Logged SCUBA Dive #458<\/p>\n

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

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

In With: 2800 psi
\nOut With: 2100 psi
\nMax depth: 60 feet
\nWaves: Pretty damn flat
\nVisibility: 15-20 feet
\nWater Temperature: 61 degrees
\nAir Temperature: 64 degrees
\nTotal Bottom Time: 20 minutes, if that<\/p>\n

I rested in 20 feet as my ears slowly equalized.<\/p>\n

\"Underwater
\nThe underwater Christmas tree that was placed earlier in the morning.<\/em><\/p>\n

Basically, divers decorate the tree with fruit strung with hemp string before they have their picture taken with Santa Claus. <\/p>\n

I wanted to make a quick dash down the canyon before they were ready to start taking pictures.<\/p>\n

I went to the shelf and down… FUCK MY EARS HURT LIKE HELL!<\/p>\n

As I was equalizing, I wondered which was going to pop first – my ears, or my eyes out of the sockets?<\/p>\n

After a few minutes I was fine; I looked up the canyon wall and took this picture…<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

I noticed a drop of water pass by my view finder.<\/p>\n

“Wow, I’m getting a lot of condensation for such warm water,” I thought.<\/p>\n

I tilted my camera case and noticed about 1\/8th of an inch of water in the case.<\/p>\n

My camera case is leaking!<\/p>\n

FUCK!<\/p>\n

I shut the camera off and started up the canyon, to find out that I now got to enjoy the dizzying affects of reverse blockage.<\/p>\n

I swam past the Christmas tree – I now had 1\/4 inch of water in my case.<\/p>\n

I surfaced and swam in, tripping on the sand step as I got out.<\/p>\n

I handed my camera to a Divemaster, who opened the case and emptied the water.<\/p>\n

“Sorry dude, I think your camera is screwed,” a spectator said.<\/p>\n

Jimmy The Bagman was nice enough to run home and get some rubbing alcohol and a bag of rice.<\/p>\n

My camera went into Emergency Dry Mode, or more commonly known as E.D.M.<\/p>\n

Dominic, a famous ex-Divemaster made a parking lot appearance. <\/p>\n

He hasn’t dove in 18 months and has been told to never dive again.<\/p>\n

Dominic was run over on the freeway while helping a downed motorcyclist; he went into a comma for six weeks while a section of his skull was removed to let his brain swelling go down.<\/p>\n

After hearing all that, I was not going to complain about my camera housing leaking.<\/p>\n

After an hour and a half of letting my camera bake in a bag of rice on my truck’s dashboard, I attempted to power it on.<\/p>\n

It still works!<\/p>\n

Holy crap! My camera,<\/a> is like the “AK-47” of cameras – it has been dropped several times, got rained on constantly in Poland and has now survived a partial camera housing flood!<\/p>\n

\"The
\nThe toys pile up.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The
\nThe Fire Department arrives to pick up the toys.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The
\nThey scored this year – last year, I heard was pretty lame.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Another
\nA group shot of basically everyone in the parking lot.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mirek
\nMirek gets all the chicks.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Really
\nOh man, I will dive anywhere this beautiful woman wants me to!<\/em><\/p>\n

And so comes an end to another Southern California diving event!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 14, 2013 I have had a really bad cold for the last couple of weeks; just as I think I’m shaking it, the congestion comes back. I didn’t want to miss such a unique event as the Dive N Surf Underwater Christmas Tree Dive and Toy Drive, so I had a hearty breakfast of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,9,3,27,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2931"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2950,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931\/revisions\/2950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}