{"id":656,"date":"2007-09-15T10:39:57","date_gmt":"2007-09-15T17:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=656"},"modified":"2008-02-11T18:14:18","modified_gmt":"2008-02-12T01:14:18","slug":"logged-dive-250-vets-park-annual-beach-clean-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=656","title":{"rendered":"Logged Dive #250 – Vet’s Park Annual Beach Clean Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Annual Beach Clean Up
\nVeteran’s Park
\nRedondo Beach, CA<\/p>\n

Solo Diving<\/p>\n

In With: 2500 psi
\nOut With: 400 psi
\nMax depth: 70 feet
\nWaves: 1-3 foot swells
\nVisibility: 15 feet
\nWater Temperature: Mid 50’s F
\nTotal Bottom Time: About 45 minutes<\/p>\n

\"Volunteers<\/p>\n

This is the annual Beach clean up, where a bunch of community service oriented goodie-goodies do their token bit to clean up beach trash for one morning a year.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t resist the chance to dive under the pier, so I went.<\/p>\n

Meeting Roland and Dan in the large parking area by Vet’s Park, I was told, “You don’t get a T-Shirt this year for signing in, so we’re just going to enter here and swim to the pier.”<\/p>\n

That sounded like a good idea.<\/p>\n

I geared up and was walking through the parking lot when my auxiliary second stage started free flowing.<\/p>\n

I banged on it, but finally got it to stop when I washed the rig out with fresh water down by the showers.<\/p>\n

About 400 psi had leaked out.<\/p>\n

Only one diver bagged on me about my malfunctioning equipment.<\/p>\n

I entered the water around 8:30 AM with no problems and started to swim towards the pier before going under for the trip.<\/p>\n

I surfaced 40 yards South of the pier and noticed that my underwater watch was no longer working and that people were fishing off the pier.<\/p>\n

Instead of waiting, I figured there was probably an abundance of trash around the pier and over the shelf.<\/p>\n

I submerged and searched at 30 feet for garbage, but couldn’t find any.<\/p>\n

I went South and down the shelf to about 60 to 70 feet and found the mother load – plastic bags, bottles, shoes, a pair of sunglasses, a plastic purse, a packet of Catsup, socks, a piece of canvas.<\/p>\n

I was careful to make sure I didn’t pick up anything’s home.<\/p>\n

Some of the trash I left behind because things were living in them – so I no longer considered the items trash.<\/p>\n

I was having so much fun, actually diving Redondo with a purpose, that I started getting concerned about my air.<\/p>\n

I headed up the shelf with 1000 psi and started towards shore slowly.<\/p>\n

I surfaced with 400 psi in 10 feet of water and noticed that I was missing my snorkel.<\/p>\n

Crap! Another piece of lost equipment!<\/p>\n

The beach was covered with volunteers picking up even the minutest pieces of trash.<\/p>\n

I walked ashore without incident and no fanfare.<\/p>\n

While washing off at the showers, I looked down at my bag and saw a couple of small octopi trying to escape through my mess bag.<\/p>\n

I was pissed at myself, because I thought that I had checked the trash pretty thoroughly.<\/p>\n

I walked back to the shore and threw three baby octopi back in to the water.<\/p>\n

I degeared and looked through the trash that I had picked up.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

No wallets, no money, no treasure maps.<\/p>\n

Dan and Roland soon followed.<\/p>\n

I picked some fishing hooks out of Roland’s wetsuit and stabbed myself in the process.<\/p>\n

Roland mentioned to me that Dan, “found two snorkels.”<\/p>\n

I asked, “Was one blue?”<\/p>\n

“Yes,” he responded.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, Dan saved and returned my snorkel!<\/p>\n

I took our bags of trash to “the trash pile” by the pier.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The ROK Marines performed maneuvers off Redondo today.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mirek scored a fishing hoop net, Drysuit Greg a chair; other items included a walking cane and other oddities.<\/p>\n

As I was emptying Dan’s bag, two octopi crawled out looking for water.<\/p>\n

\"Shanon<\/p>\n

Shanon threw them back in the ocean.<\/p>\n

At least I wasn’t the only one who was accidentally harvesting octopus.<\/p>\n

\"Dan,<\/p>\n

The Divevets had a great barbecue afterwards.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A new member named Marty introduced himself to us.<\/p>\n

Even though I tend to dive alone, I’m glad I don’t have to drink alone during the debriefing.<\/p>\n

I later found out from Marty that due to the clean up effort, parking was free until noon.<\/p>\n

I had been pumping quarters in the parking meter all morning long!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annual Beach Clean Up Veteran’s Park Redondo Beach, CA Solo Diving In With: 2500 psi Out With: 400 psi Max depth: 70 feet Waves: 1-3 foot swells Visibility: 15 feet Water Temperature: Mid 50’s F Total Bottom Time: About 45 minutes This is the annual Beach clean up, where a bunch of community service oriented […]<\/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\/656"}],"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=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}