Ted's SCUBA Blog

Drysuit Certification Dive

2009-02-04T21:13:00.000-08:00

Dive Site: Big Geiger Catalina

Dive Date: 2009-01-24

Dive Number: 90

Start Time: 12:47

Dive Buddy: Julia (Instructor)

Bottom Time: :42

Max Depth: 62 ft

Water Temperature: 57 F

Water Visibility: 20-25 ft

Dive Type: Boat-Express Divers

Difficulty Level: Easy

This was my third dive of the day after my two drysuit certification dives. It was much nicer diving a drysuit than diving a wetsuit since the water was very cold. The first two dives, my buoyancy wasn't that great since I was learning how to control it in a drysuit. This dive was a lot better than the first two. I kept my feet low so I did not get any air in my feet and I was able to correct with the exaust valve which was tricky at first.

During the dive, we saw a school of Blacksmith and two birds swooping down as deep as 30 feet to catch some of them. I didn't know they could go that deep. At first I was thinking, what kind of fish looks like a bird? We also saw sheephead, typical girabaldi, and opali.

Near the end of the dive, I was starting to get cold since my insulation wasn't that great and I was wearing cotton sweats which were ok for no more than two instructional dives in 25 feet of water for 25 minutes not for 3 dives in 40-60 feet of water for 40 minutes each. We did our safty stop and ascended. There was a lot of kelp separating us and the boat. It was a little difficult swimming back to the boat.

The boat that we went on to Catalina was the Sun Diver Express in Long Beach. The boat left to go to Catalina at 7am. We did 3 Dives and returned at around 3pm, which is much better than going on the slower boats.

Mala Pier Lahaina Maui

2009-01-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

Back in 2006 I went on a 7 day cruise around the Islands of Hawaii. I dove in Kauai, Kona, and Lahaina on Maui. One of my favorite sites on the trip was Mala Pier, which is an old sugar cane peir which collapsed in a hurricaine 50 years ago. It was a beautiful dive as we swam through the wreckage. We saw tons of sea turtles about 6 feet in length. I regret not bringing my camera with me on those dives in Lahaina since I missed a lot of good pictures. Here are some videos that I found off of Youtube of the dive site. I thank the owners of those videos for uploading for me to share with you what my dive was like.

Catalina 1-17-2009

2009-01-18T20:30:00.001-08:00

Dive Site: Land's End Catalina Island
Dive Date: 2009-01-17
Dive Number: 85
Start Time: 10:35
Dive Buddy: Alberto
Bottom Time: :35
Max Depth: 70 ft
Water Temperature: 55 F
Water Visibility: 15-20 ft
Dive Type: Boat
Difficulty Level: Advanced

Our first dive of the day was on the west end of Catalina Island. There was a slight current so we headed towards the front of the boat to descend to around 70 Feet and went in that direction. The water was cold for me at that dept since I had a 7 mil wetsuit. Alberto was wearing a drysuit so he was more comfortable. I will be getting my drysuit cert next week and am looking forward to it. It got warmer as we ascended to a shallower dept. I took several pictures while diving. Alberto spotted a 6 foot Blue Shark, but when he gave me the signal, it was already long gone. Here is what a Blue Shark looks like.

There was also a lot of surge when we did our 15 foot 3 min safty stop that we could not stay at 15 feet. The surge rolled me over to the other side of a rock so I swam to the other side and grabbed hold to some kelp maintain my dept. We ascended near bow side of the boat and swam back to the ladder. A lot of divers on the boat ascended behind the boat because of the current. Towards the end of the dive my camera did not seem to be functioning correctly. When I got on the boat, I discovered that the housing had water in it and the camera was not working properly. I was able to upload them to my computer when I got home and the camera seemed to be working fine then.

Treasure Island 12-13-2008

2008-12-24T15:17:00.001-08:00

Dive Site: Laguna Beach-Treasure Island

Dive Date: 2008-12-13

Dive Number: 84

Start Time: 08:03

Dive Buddy: Tony and Randy

Bottom Time: :52

Max Depth: 31 ft

Water Temperature: 59 F

Water Visibility: 25-30 ft

Dive Type: Shore

This was a great dive. However, it was a long walk since we decided to park in the Aliso Beach Parking lot instead of the Treasure Island parking lot since we knew there was plenty of parking there. We did find out later about ample parking that was closer to our dive site. The dive site was easy to enter once we finally got there. There were hardly any waves to fight, but the water was a little choppy. We only swam a short distance to a wall outside of Treasure Cove. I then ascended with Tony and Randy to about 25 feet. The dive site was very shallow. I went no deeper than 30 feet. We swam around for a long time and saw some girabaldi and some lobster in cages. Toward the end of the dive we headed in the North East Direction and swam parallel to the beach no deeper than 15 feet so that we would not have to walk as far back to our cars. We managed to get about half way down the coast until one of us was low on air and exited the water. We then headed to a local restaurant for breakfast since we were hungry from all that walking and swimming.Next time we will park in the parking lot that is closer to Treasure Island and dive in the area that is to the right of the site which we dove.

Dead Mans Reef 11/22/2008

2008-11-23T21:34:00.000-08:00

Dive # 82

Time In-8:07

Time Out-8:53

Buddies-Matt, Steve, John

Dept-65

Time-46 Min

Water Temperature-61

Visibility 20-25

This was a great dive, even thought we had to kick out 300 yards to get to Dead Mans Reef. On the way out to the site, we saw a sea lion and it stayed with us for a while. I took some pictures of it swimming.

For those of you who are wondering where this site is, you start out at North Crescent and swim about 300 yards out. In the picture below, you will see two rocks sticking out of the water and a house with a blue roof directly behind it. You need to line up the rocks with the house with the blue roof and you will be around the reef.

We then descended to the dive site below us. The vis was 20-25 feet, which is very good for Laguna Beach. We stayed down for about 46 minutes. I was using a steel tank that I just bought the week before. I enjoyed not having to fight staying down towards the end of the dive and having to carry less weight. I did have to dive with an aluminum on the next dive. I plan on getting another steel tank eventually. Here are some pictures that I took during this dive. I forgot to check the batteries to see if they were good for the whole dive and the camera kept on shutting off after I took every picture.

Dive #: 83

Time in-10:08

Time Out-10:54

Buddy-John

Depth-47 Feet

Bottom Time-46

Water Temp-61

Visibility-20-25ft

This time we started out at North Crescent and headed south towards Dead Man's Reef. I did not bring my camera on this dive because the batteries were dead. John did bring his sphere gun on this dive and caught some good looking fish. However, one which he caught before got away in the process of catching another fish. He made up for it later by catching a huge Sea Bass. When one of us was getting low on air, we were at Deadmans and we did our 15 foot safety stop for 3 minutes. We had a long kick back to shore, but we were going with the swell which made it easier to come back to land than to go out towards sea.

Dry Suit Diving

2008-11-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

I have been diving for almost five years now. Most of my dives take place in cold water below 60F. I have always dove in a 7 mil wetsuit with hood when diving in water that cold. I enjoy going to the tropics where there is 80F Water, but I find that to be really expensive and I do not dive there as often as I do in California. Towards the end of the dive, I find myself cold and trying to work to stay warm which uses up more air and when I do multiple dives on a dive boat, I get colder on every dive.

This is why I have decided that it is time for me to get a dry suit. I am planning on doing the specialty course sometime in December. I hope to find it to be a good experience. I am pretty sure I will have a better time diving dry than diving wet. Since dry suits are more expensive than wetsuits, I have put off diving in a dry suit. However, there are many places in the world to go diving other than the tropics which I am missing out on since they require a dry suit. This includes diving in water near freezing. I have always wanted to dive in colder water, but I know I will need to invest between $1,500 and $2,000 in a dry suit. The nice thing about them is that they last long and I am very sure that I will want to go diving more often and will extend my dives.

Stay tuned for more posts in the future.

Dead Mans Reef 11/15/2008

2008-11-20T15:51:00.000-08:00

Dive #: 80

Start Time: 8:21am

End Time: 8:47am

Dive Time- 26 Min

Water Temperature- 59 F

Max Dept- 47 feet

Buddies- Matt, Steve, Jason, John, Walid

After Gearing up and getting down to the beach, we had to swim 300 yards to the reef. After a hard workout, we looked for the reef using Steve's Dept gauge. It took a while to find it. Once we found it, we ascended to between 30 and 40 feet. I rented steel 70 tank at the dive shop, but it only had 2000 pounds of air, so my dive was going to be short as well as my buddy's. We paired into buddy groups of two. I paired up with Jason. We were able to find the reef while the other groups struggled to find it. There was an abundance of marine life around the reef and the visibility was decent at around 15 feet for that area. When we were ready to turn around and go back to the beach, we both separated from one another. I looked for a couple of minutes and went to 15 feet to do a 3 minute safety stop and get to the surface. When I got to the surface, It took a couple of minutes to find my dive buddy. We swam back to the beach and waited for the others and got ready for the 2nd dive. Note to self, dive with at least an 80 tank.

Dive #:81

Start Time: 10:36am

End Time: 11:13am

Dive Time: 47 minutes

Buddies: Walid and John

This time we Started the dive at North Crescent. John was going to do some sphere fishing. Me and Walid just followed him. We headed in the South West Direction towards Dead mans and Seal Rock. Visibility was great for those locations away from the coast(Between 15-20). John caught one fish during the dive. I do not remeber what kind (need to take fish identification to learn more about the sea life). The dive lasted for 47 minutes. After we made our safety stop and ascended to the surface, we swam back to shore. I could not believe how much we got to see on one dive. This was a much better dive compared to the other dive where I started at 2000 psi. Jason let me borrow his aluminum 80, which had 3,000 psi. I ended the dive with around 300 psi.

Monterey CA Dive 11/8/2008

2008-11-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

I was up in Monterey last weekend with my mother since she was going to run the Monterey Half Marathon on Sunday. I decided to give diving in Monterey a try. I have heard a lot about the nice diving Monterey had to offer. So I booked a Trip through Glenn's Aquarius II Dive Shop to do a boat dive on the Monterey Express. I brought most of my gear up in the car with me except my wetsuit, weights (rented at the dive shop) and Tank (provided on the boat).

During the boat dive, the dive crew was wonderful and the captain had a good sense of humor. There were plenty of donuts muffins and coffee provided on the boat. I got to meet several new divers. I dove in a threesome, which I don't recommend for diving and you will find out later. One of the divers was in the military stationed in San Diego and the other was a college professor at Stanford University. The boat was supposed to go to Carmel, but since they had engine problems, we just stayed in the bay, which was okay for me since I had not been diving in a while.

The first dive (dive # 78) was to around 60 feet. The Water Felt cold at first. It was around 55 degrees. The wetsuit that I rented at the dive shop did not fit me as well as the one I usually wear. It took me a little longer to get down than my buddies. My dive buddies started to swim thinking I was with them, but it was actually some other diver on the boat. I just dove with another diver on the boat. It was pretty boring since he taking lots of pictures and was moving very slowly around the pinnacle. We stayed down for around 30 minutes and made our 15 ft 3min safety stop holding onto a line that was connected to another boat 50 yards away from the Monterey Express.

I did bring my underwater camera with me, but the o ring had some issues so I did not take any pictures on my dives. Monterey bay has some nice kelp forests which you can see in the picture below.

The second dive (Dive # 79) was to around 50 feet and we all three stayed together for 30 minutes. The water was getting cold near the end of the dive. I took care of it by peeing in the wetsuit that I rented. I hope that they did not find out about this. During the dive, we saw several Decorator Crabs and that look like the one in the picture below. One of my buddies had a drysuit that was leaking and needed to go up after 30 minutes of the dive. Not much of a drysuit when it doesn't keep you dry. I was ready to go back up as well since it was so cold. I did my 3 minute safety stop and returned to the boat.

The dives were great and I did see a lot of new things that I have not seen before. Visibility was great at around 30-40 feet. However, the water was very cold. I have been thinking about getting a drysuit once I come up with the money. They are not cheap, but worth it when all you buddies diving in wetsuits are freezing.

Catalina Island Diving

2008-08-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

Catalina Island has a lot to offer for divers of all skill levels. It is located about 20 miles off the coast of Southern California and includes 100s of great dive sites to explore with many kelp forests. I have done a majority of my 80 dives around this island since I have been certified.

The front side, which is the leeward side of the island, is great for new divers and photographers. It is also good for divers who want to hunt for lobster and scallops during season. There are a variety of dive sites that are perfect for open water or advance training as well as sites suited for night dive training. My favorite dive site on the front side is Ship Rock which is a small rock just off the island. This dive sight is perfect for both beginning and advanced divers and can go as deep as 300 feet at some spots so make sure you can see the bottom before descending and watch your dept gauge. This site also has Angel Sharks which can grow up to 6' in length.

The back side of the island offers diving for the more advanced diver. The most popular dive site on the backside is Farnsworth Banks which has a pinnacle system that averages 100 feet deep and is home to Allopora Californica or Purple Hydro coral which is very rare in cold waters. When diving, please look at but do not touch the coral since it is protected. It is a great site for taking pictures as well as deep diver training.

Dive boats from both Catalina and the mainland offer both 1-day and multi-day/Island dive trips. If you are looking for dive boats from the Island, then King Neptune and Scuba Cat would be your two choices. There are also dive boats from the mainland including the Magician , Great Escape, Bottom Scratcher, and Sand Dollar which are the ones I would recommend.

For those who want to beach dive around Catalina, the best beach diving is done at Casino Point in Avalon. Casino Point is named after the big round building in Avalon which used to be a casino. You can get to Avalon from the mainland by taking the Catalina Express from Long Beach or San Pedro. At casino point everything is very diver friendly since there is an Air Fill Truck next to the Casino which is open on most weekends. There are also restrooms and lockers there as well. Access to the dive site is very easy since there are stairs that take you to the water. The surf is usually calm with visibility ranging between 15-100 Feet. Sea life is very abundant and there are a few wrecks around the bottom of the dive site. You should bring your camera since there are many pictures to be taken.

Diving Catalina Island is a must for divers visiting Southern California.