Great Pinnacle - Blue Fish Cove

Great Pinnacle, Point Lobos

(Notice nearby Marcos' Pinnacle named after the diver who was attacked by a Great White Shark 10 years ago)

Today was Chuck's annual "Diving Singles Point Lobos Dive", an event which we've attended for the past 3 years.

This dive day was remarkable in that our dive buddies were Chuck Tribolet, himself, along with his partner, Linda.

Everyone in the dive community knows Chuck for his erudition, as well as his strong opinions on diving. He and Linda both have 1000+ dives under their belt. So I felt a little self-conscious diving with him and Linda due to my relative lack of experience. Paul and Gary rounded up our group.

This was also our first time diving the Great Pinnacle in Blue Fish Cove, too. Blue Fish Cove is one of the best dive areas in Monterey County, but is almost impossible to access without a boat. Furthermore, boats are forbidden from accessing it, unless armed with a reservation with the Point Lobos State Park. Therefore, diving Blue Fish Cove is a rarity. We once tried to swim to Blue Fish Cove, but ended up doing some white water diving between the wash rocks. This event had left me traumatized enough to stop diving for 9 months.

Despite the good luck of diving with Chuck, and diving the Great Pinnacle, what proceeded was one of the more miserable dives I've had in a long time. Immediately upon descent, Mark's weight pouch fell out of his BCD. While the both of us hung out in midwater at 90 feet (the bottom was at 150), without any bottom in sight, I pushed his integrated weight pouch back together.

I recognized my first Olive Rockfish (Yay Fish Count!)

What's more, I had absolutely no control over my buoyancy. My depth ranged from 40 feet to 70 feet throughout the dive. Thank goodness Chuck and Linda didn't notice, they were too busy shooting pictures of nudibranchs and fish at their favorite dive site. Later on, I found out that my BCD had a significant volume of air in it, and that this had exacerbated my buoyancy control issues. (When diving with a drysuit, you are only supposed to use your drysuit when controlling your buoyancy. The excess air in my BCD caused wild fluctuations with depth changes, due to the air's compression and expansion. This is what makes cold water diving soooo interesting and so challenging.)

Regardless of the problems at the onset of this dive, I recognized the site as being one of the most gorgeous I had ever seen. There was 40-50 ft visibility, which is common for this area. The place reminded me of Cozumel's Devil's Throat in topography, except scarier. This underwater mountain range was covered with garish colors, and the harsh steepness of the pinnacles struck me as cruel-looking. In summary, this place gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I struggled between wanting to maximize my dive time, with my instinct to "RETURN TO THE BOAT".

After I finished my safety stop, I popped my head out to find we were far far away from the boat, as I had feared. I signaled "up" to Mark, but he indicated that he was still finishing his safety stop. My fear went on override, and I honked like crazy at him and gave him more "up" signs. I soon lost sight of Mark, and I feared he had drowned, such was my state of mind.

On the surface, I shed a few tears, which I haven't done after diving since my divemaster candidacy. Both Mark and I were both miserable over our lack of dive planning and lack of communication. It took a lot for me to convince him to do a second dive but I am glad that we did. By the second dive, I had worked out my gear issues, and I was a much better buddy to Mark. Mark still has to work out his drysuit problems and weighting problems, however.

Dive #163: Great Pinnacle, Blue Fish Cove, Point Lobos State Reserve
Max Depth: 91 feet
Time: 0:40 hour
Buddies: Mark, Chuck Tribolet, Linda R., Paul Quinn, Gary Gold
Temperature: 47 deg F Oceanic -- 53 deg F
Visibility: 50 feet
Weight worn: 22 lbs (10 in BCD, 12 on weight belt)

Observations:

• Victor the resident "alpha" sheephead
• male kelp greenling
• Schools of blue rockfish
• Olive rockfish - first that I recognized as one, anyway

Recognized my first Vermilion Rockfish (Yay Fish Count!)

Dive #164: Middle Reef, Whaler's Cove, Point Lobos State Reserve

Max Depth: 30+ feet
Time: 0:40 hour
Buddy: Mark
Temperature: ??
Visibility: 15+ feet
Weight worn: 22 lbs (10 in BCD, 14 on weight belt)

Observations:

• Vermilion rockfish
• Huge Lingcod

Wedding Band Rant

Tungsten Carbide Wedding Band

Our goals for our wedding bands was to have them fabricated out of really cool engineering materials, the more exotic the better, and preferably custom machined. After searching for a few hours at the mall, I got Mark this incredibly cool tungsten-carbide ring with a brushed metal center stripe, similar to the one pictured above. I, however, was not so lucky. There are no interesting metal choices available for women. Apparently, women are not interested in functional metal alloys, but are more attracted to shiny things. The only options available to me were gold, or platinum, hopefully with diamonds inlaid.

First, a discussion of why tungsten-carbide is so cool. It is really, really hard (75-80 Rockwell C) and is therefore, for all intensive purposes, unscratchable. It's strength and hardness make it ideal for use as end-mills for machining other metals.

Tungsten Carbide End Mills

It was really important for me to have something other than gold or platinum as a wedding ring. I have an extreme metal sensitivity. My platinum engagement ring has been giving me blisters. Even my watch's stainless steel band has been giving me a rash. I also want a ring made from a functional metal alloy, because it states something about who I am: a somewhat iconoclastic person, and also a female with a desire for function and technical detail.

Finally, after visiting jewelry store after store, I began to realize there was a bias against providing women functional metal choices. Jewelers don't think women are interested in having tungsten carbide, or titanium rings. Jewelers think women are interested in buying the rarest metals possible. That all we care about is what prestige we will earn amongst our friends. At the Bailey Banks and Biddles jewelry store, the saleswoman literally sneered when I asked her if she had titanium rings. She said, "We don't carry that stuff, only gold and platinum."

I got this titanium alloy wedding band

When I came home, however, I searched online and found myself an aircraft grade titanium alloy wedding band sized for women's fingers. The exact model of what I bought can be seen above. The cost? $65. The mechanical properties for the aircraft grade Titanium 6Al 4V alloy comprising this ring can be seen in the table below. It's hardness and strength properties make it very similar to half hard 302 stainless steel. In the real world, I believe this makes it comparable to 18-8 or 18-10 stainless steel cutlery (I heard that 18-8,18-10 is an antiquated term for 300 series stainless steel). However, the titanium is far lighter than steel, which makes it a very desirable property to have for making aircraft components, or for manufacturing bicycles.

This Litespeed bike frame is made entirely of titanium

Still, I think I would have preferred to custom machine my own wedding band. My immediate choice would have been to machine it out of annealed 420 SS and then harden it to 55 Rockwell C. This particular brand of stainless steel is so hard, it is used to make surgical scalpels and other surgical tools. As you can see from the table above, it is not quite as hard as tungsten carbide, but edges over the tungsten-carbide in terms of ultimate tensile strength. It would have made a nice complement to Mark's ring. But I am not complaining. My titanium ring is a whole lot more hypoallergenic.

Katee & Joshua -- Two of My Favorite "So You Think You Can Dance" Performers

It's coming down to the final four performers on the Dance Competition, "So You Think You Can Dance", which airs nightly on FOX TV on Wednesdays. Two of the four finalists are two of my favorite dancers on the show, Katee and Joshua. I've included a couple of my favorite routines from these two for you to enjoy.

Below, Katee and Joshua perform a hip-hop routine together. Katee, who is Asian, performs superbly in this hip-hop routine. She is a contemporary dancer by training, but almost steals the show from Joshua, who is in fact a hip-hop dancer at heart. Together, Katee and Joshua perform a heart-felt dance about one who has been called to duty in Iraq, and the girl who must watch him leave. I could watch this video clip over and over again.

Don't forget to hit the volume button on each of the videos.

In the below number, Katee and Joshua perform a Bollywood number. Katee, as usual is technically superb, and captures the style of the dance to a "t".

Joshua and Katee dance the Pasodoble in the final number below. I think that Joshua fills the stage with his incredible strength and presence. His steps, and his line are precise beyond parallel. And it's even more incredible coming from a dancer with relatively little formal training, as he has, or with such a bulky physique.

I hope you all will watch the final four perform this coming week.