{"id":650,"date":"2007-08-05T17:11:41","date_gmt":"2007-08-06T00:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=650"},"modified":"2008-02-09T09:11:16","modified_gmt":"2008-02-09T16:11:16","slug":"logged-dive-245-veterans-park-redondo-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=650","title":{"rendered":"Logged Dive #245 – Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran’s Park
\nRedondo Beach, CA<\/p>\n

Dove With Nick<\/p>\n

In With: 2700 psi
\nOut With: 1100 psi
\nMax depth: 79 feet
\nWaves: 1 foot slow swells, basically flat as a lake
\nVisibility: 8-10 feet
\nWater Temperature: About 55 degrees
\nTotal Bottom Time: about 35 minutes<\/p>\n

It’s time to do some time underwater.<\/p>\n

Ed and Nick were supposed to come with me, but neither answered my call at 7 AM.<\/p>\n

My girlfriend Jane and I made it down to Redondo Beach about 8:45 AM; Nick was there; I didn’t here any word from Ed.<\/p>\n

About 15 divers were gearing up in the parking lot; reports were that conditions were “as flat as a lake” and that visibility “had been pretty good in the last few days.”<\/p>\n

Nick and I geared up and walked down to the water’s edge.<\/p>\n

Nick just walked in; so my debate whether to do a “figure four” on his shoulder or just walk in and put my fins on was already decided.<\/p>\n

I defogged my mask with spit and ocean water and walked in to waist deep water where I fumbled with my fins to put them on.<\/p>\n

The latches on my fins get stuck and it makes them difficult to just put them on.<\/p>\n

We swam out and submerged in 20 feet of water and went West.<\/p>\n

The agreed upon dive plan was to go no deeper than 80 feet and head back up the shelf when the first person reached 1500 psi.<\/p>\n

At 30 feet we felt the cold lick of the thermalcline, then there it was…<\/p>\n

…the darkness over the shelf that tells every diver, “Hey, this darkness means that you’re about to go over the shelf.”<\/p>\n

We slowly proceeded down the shelf, the cold shooting through my old wetsuit; too bad I couldn’t pee.<\/p>\n

We slowly went to 79 feet, Nick called a “hold here” – my gauge said we had a few more feet to go.<\/p>\n

We went North slowly, looking at the small Halibut, occasional starfish and various trash that litter the almost barren Redondo shelf landscape.<\/p>\n

We turned around and started heading South.<\/p>\n

We came across a fish – Nick thought it was a Moray Eel – that had buried itself up to its neck in sand.<\/p>\n

I had never seen that before and thought that it may be a grunion laying eggs?<\/p>\n

There’s supposed to be an artificial reef that local divers have been building one cinder block at a time, but we couldn’t find it.<\/p>\n

We went up the shelf and I dead reckoned where the hell to go to wind up at the stairs.<\/p>\n

We stayed at 30 feet or so to out-gas and do our safety stop.<\/p>\n

I started digging in the sand to see what I could find – a muscle shell.<\/p>\n

We continued East, back to shore.<\/p>\n

We surfaced at 15 feet, swam a little and took our fins off to walk ashore.<\/p>\n

There’s a really sandy ledge before you get to shore that most divers trip on.<\/p>\n

\"Me<\/p>\n

We cracked a few beers and packed in the parking lot.<\/p>\n

I asked Nick if he was interested in deep diving the Palawan next weekend.<\/p>\n

He said that without the proper training he doesn’t feel comfortable going that deep and he’s afraid of getting narced.<\/p>\n

I asked, “You’ve never been narced?”<\/p>\n

“No.”<\/p>\n

“I was narced on our first night dive when I started going the wrong way.”<\/p>\n

“Thanks for telling me that now; I thought you were just confused,” Nick said.<\/p>\n

Ed called me and said that he got a little too preoccupied yesterday taking care of some bar business, but he would meet us down at Quality Seafood.<\/p>\n

\"Me<\/p>\n

\"Jane<\/p>\n

Beer, crabs, muscles and sea snails later, we left via Palos Verdes.<\/p>\n

We stopped by Long Point to checkout the scene.<\/p>\n

Dive Bum Don and Drysuit Greg were there enjoying the afternoon with a few beers.<\/p>\n

There’s suppose to be a barbecue party here next weekend; I plan to be here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran’s Park Redondo Beach, CA Dove With Nick In With: 2700 psi Out With: 1100 psi Max depth: 79 feet Waves: 1 foot slow swells, basically flat as a lake Visibility: 8-10 feet Water Temperature: About 55 degrees Total Bottom Time: about 35 minutes It’s time to do some time underwater. Ed and Nick were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650"}],"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=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}