After more than a year off, I decided to take the plunge and go diving, and it was great! It makes me wonder what took me so long. Oh yeah, I remember -- bad storm conditions, new and stressful job, home repair and refinancing...
It turns out, these dives were especially useful for shaking out equipment issues. These were my first dives with my brand new Dive Rite BCD instead of my usual Zeagle Ranger. This change would cause all sorts of panic for for me. But more on that later.
I also got reaquainted with the people from Blue Water Dive Club. There were the usual suspects: Randy, the Blue Water Aquatics shop owner, Kevin, the instructor, and some club members whose faces I also recognized. Despite a year away from these guys, there were some things that never change.
Kevin's boat was much improved from the ramshackle boat we dove with him last. However, true to Kevin, he still got in trouble anyhow. First of all, the Point Lobos State Park ranger pulled over to ask how the diving was going. One of the divers naively responded that he and Kevin had "played catch with a sea slug". First of all, Poing Lobos is a marine sanctuary, and you are not supposed to harass the wild life. The ranger let them off, but not before warning them not to bother the marine life again.
The second thing happened while we were trying to get the boats out of the water. That day, there were a lot of hikers, and they were all oohing and aahing over the harbor seals, and otters that were hanging out in the cove. Also, there is a rule against boats going faster than 5 mph while in Whaler's cove. Well, Kevin was doing donuts at ~15 mph in the cove, while anxiously waiting for his chance to get out of the water. The hikers were anxious and frightened that the otters would be harmed. One of them even told me that they "wished I stayed underwater". When the ranger drove by again, and saw Kevin ripping the kelp life up with his boat, he was infuriated. He screamed with fury at Kevin to stop. Everyone was silent and embarrassed.
This is why I enjoy diving with Blue Water Aquatics so much. Everytime I go out with Kevin and the gang, there is always something stimulating, even provocative, to remember the diving by.
Dive Notes
Dive #167: Blue Fin Cove, Point Lobos State Reserve, Carmel, CA
Date: Sunday, Mar. 14th, 2010
Max Depth: 50 feet
Time: ~40 minutes
Buddies: Ignati (Blue Water Aquatics Dive Club)
Temperature: 50 deg F
Visibility: 20+ feet
Weight worn: 23 lbs (20lbs on weight belt, 1 lb on feet, 2 lbs in BCD)
Gear notes:
I was totally unacquainted with my new BCD, which has a lot less air capacity than my old BCD. As a result, I was extremely overweighted. What was worse, I had no integrated weight pockets in my new BCD, so I had to wear all the weight on my weight belt. This almost made me panic. While donning my BCD in the water off of Randy's zodiac, I began to struggle. I could barely keep my face above water with so much weight on my weight belt. And having my snorkel dipping into the choppy water didn't help. Lastly, I was completely unfamiliar with the straps on the BCD. Randy had to grab me from the boat and pull me above the water surface and help with my gear donning. Lesson learned: I need to wear less weight, say 18 lbs total (2 lb on feet, 10 on weight belt, 6 in BCD) instead of the 24 lbs I was wearing.
Dive Observations:
-Mature sea lion
-Large live abalone in a crack, which I have never seen in the Monterey area
-Large vermilion rock fish that had no fear. It kept trying to nibble my buddy's octopus, which interfered with my buddy's attempts to take a picture of the vermilion rockfish. The situation made me.
Dive #168: Mouth of Whaler's Cove, Point Lobos State Reserve, Carmel, CA
Date: Sunday, Mar. 14th, 2010
Max Depth: 50 feet
Time: ~40 minutes
Buddies: Ignati (Blue Water Aquatics Dive Club)
Temperature: 50 deg F
Visibility: 20+ feet
Weight worn: 21 lbs (20lbs on weight belt, 1 lb on feet)
Dive observations:
-Olive rockfish
-2-3 foot ling cod
-painted greenlings
-kelp greenlings
-juvenile blue rockfish
