{"id":3281,"date":"2014-09-27T11:38:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T18:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=3281"},"modified":"2014-09-27T11:44:15","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T18:44:15","slug":"opening-night-of-lobster-season-dive-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=3281","title":{"rendered":"Opening Night Of Lobster Season! Dive #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a tradition – Opening Night of California Lobster Season.<\/p>\n

This is the night where most first time lobster divers, and even experienced lobster divers, all meet to try and get their one night a year fill of bug catching.<\/p>\n

I had a spot on the same boat as I did in a couple of previous years…<\/p>\n

\"The
\nThe Asante – a 40 foot 12 pack diving boat out of Ports O’ Call in San Pedro.<\/em><\/p>\n

The boat had nine experienced divers on board – Yours Truly, Tim, Eric F., Donna The Hot Biker Chick, Reverend Al, Chris I, Chris II, Nice Bob and Chipper. <\/p>\n

Like all previous Opening Nights, this was a “You better know what the fuck you’re doing, because there’s going to be nobody around to help you” type of dive – unless you can manage to make it to the surface on your own.<\/p>\n

You could feel the machismo in the air.<\/p>\n

\"Donna
\nDonna finds out that I am on the boat.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Captain gave a briefing – the problem was, the swells were up.<\/p>\n

He would try and make it to Catalina, but if it was too rough, he would turn back and we would dive Palos Verdes.<\/p>\n

With the massive swells that have rearranged the rocky coast of Palos Verdes, I doubted that the lobsters would be shallow at the beginning of this season and I couldn’t see us getting that deep there.<\/p>\n

I was prepared to get skunked – I had already packed my Harakiri sword.<\/p>\n

We set off a little after nine o’clock in the evening.<\/p>\n

\"Rough
\nIt was a rough ride after leaving the harbor, but we kept going.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The
\nWe didn’t get soaking wet like previous years, but the ride made us hang on for dear life – we kept going all the way to the island.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shortly after midnight, the Asante anchored in a secret location in 45 feet of water.<\/p>\n

I was the first one off the boat – I think.<\/p>\n

I swam to the anchor line and submerged.<\/p>\n

Logged SCUBA Dive #474<\/p>\n

Solo Diving<\/p>\n

Secret Location: 54 68 65 72 65 20 69 73 20 61 20 63 6f 76 65 20 74 68 61 74 20 62 65 6c 6f 6e 67 73 20 74 6f 20 57 68 69 74 65 79 2e – Catalina Island<\/p>\n

In With: 3000 psi
\nOut With: 200 psi
\nMax depth: 102 feet
\nWaves: Pretty flat once we were there
\nVisibility: 10 to 15 feet
\nWater Temperature: 68 degrees with a thermocline at 80 feet
\nAir Temperature: 70 degrees
\nTotal Bottom Time: 26 minutes<\/p>\n

I decided to swim towards the island and check bug population.<\/p>\n

That was a big mistake- sand, more sand and a few lobsters the size of shrimp.<\/p>\n

I went deeper, to 60 feet and found some sea grass.<\/p>\n

I looked and looked – nothing.<\/p>\n

I continued on, and at 80 feet I felt the water temperature drop about 10 degrees and came upon a piece of wreckage.<\/p>\n

I have no idea what the wreckage was, I just cared that there were bugs on it.<\/p>\n

I spotted three terrorist lobsters and went to pin the biggest one – BAM!<\/p>\n

Got it!<\/p>\n

Finally, I am not going to get skunked!<\/p>\n

I could barely fit my hand around the carapace, so there was no need to measure; I dropped my light that was in my other hand to open my bag, and the terrorist lobster began flapping its tail and flew out of my hand!<\/p>\n

FUCK! REALLY?<\/p>\n

I went deeper and started to see a lot of shorts around some giant kelp.<\/p>\n

I spotted two nice sized lobsters at 90 feet, but they were hiding under some debris.<\/p>\n

Hmmm… I examined the debris and noticed it was just some sort of thin metal sheet. <\/p>\n

Using my white belt Jiu Jitsu skills, I lifted the metal sheet up to the amazement of the stunned bugs.<\/p>\n

Before they could react, I pinned the biggest one and bagged it.<\/p>\n

I looked for the other one, but it did not stick around.<\/p>\n

By this time, I had 600 psi left and was at 100 feet – I was not into deco, so I headed towards the surface aiming for the direction of the boat – slowly, but with no safety stop.<\/p>\n

I was pretty close to the boat and made a short swim back.<\/p>\n

When the Captain went to refill my tank, he mentioned, “You know how close you came to running out of air?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, that’s why I came back,” I said.<\/p>\n

Most got skunked – out of nine divers, three had a total of six lobsters.<\/p>\n

\"My
\nMy first bug of the season!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Donna
\nReverend Al comforted Donna when she started to get sea sick.<\/p>\n

Details of Dives two and three will be posted after I get some sleep – STAY TUNED!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a tradition – Opening Night of California Lobster Season. This is the night where most first time lobster divers, and even experienced lobster divers, all meet to try and get their one night a year fill of bug catching. I had a spot on the same boat as I did in a couple of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14,19,8,7,9,3,27,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281"}],"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=3281"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3300,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281\/revisions\/3300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}