|
|
BAUE Trip Reports
7/19/2008 Pt Lobos by Dionna House -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Dionna House, Ian Puleston |
| Visibility: |
3' - 50' |
Time: | 10:30 AM |
| Temp: |
48F - 50F |
Surge: |
2' |
| Max Depth: |
102FSW |
Avg Depth: |
90FSW |
| Bottom Time: |
|
Total Time: |
1:17 |
| Bottom Gases: |
EAN32 | Deco Gases: | EAN50 |
| Backgas Config: |
LP80 | Deco Tanks: | AL40 |
| Deco Profile: |
|
| |
I met up with Ian Puleston for a dive at Pt Lobos. Thanks to Suzanne for giving us her reservation. Due to her car break down, she was not able to attend. Ian I planned to go out to Beto's Reef and visit all the Sisters. We surfaced kicked past Hole in the Wall. I was leading and thought I would try to hit Sea Mount by going slightly NW. I ended up at the Lone Metridium... All good.. the visibility was good enough to take a North Heading and go out to Beto's Reef. We swam and found the Beto's Reef. I have been wanting to swim around that area to get to know it better. Lots and Lots of little strands of kelp to avoid getting tangled in. I probably gave some kelp stalks a haircut. ;-). After a short visit to Beto's Reef, we went West to the Sisters. We visited all of them. At the deeper Sisters we were mostly on top of the pinnacles. Ian spotted an unusual jelly. Comb shaped with 4 orange colored tentacles. Back to the Lone Metridium for a gas switch and a nice gentle swim into the cove. I was able to watch a rockfish attack little juvenile rockfish (tough world they live in), also saw an anemome eating a moon jelly, lots of little krill in the shallows. The vis took a big decline to about 3ft and we surfaced right near the parking lot.
We decided to sit out the second dive... too much kicking!!! |
7/13/2008 Pt Lobos by Dionna House -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Greg Dunn, Dionna House |
| Visibility: |
20' - 25' |
Time: | 10:00 AM |
| Temp: |
52F - 55F |
Surge: |
|
| Scooter: |
Gavin Short |
Burn Time: |
|
| Max Depth: |
128FSW |
Avg Depth: |
100FSW |
| Bottom Time: |
|
Total Time: |
|
| Bottom Gases: |
21/35 | Deco Gases: | EAN50 |
| Backgas Config: |
Double HP100 | Deco Tanks: | AL40 |
| Deco Profile: |
|
| |
Greg Dunn and I met up at Pt Lobos for a leisurely tech 1 dive. The Cove was really flat and the tides were perfect for lugging gear in and out of the water.. Thanks to Doc Wong we were able to get in on his reservation.
The orginal plan was to go out to The Road and Shortcut Reef, but, I heard that the vis was questionable and it was really dark. Greg and I both decided to stay a little closer and explore the area around the deeper part of Beto's Reef and some parts out near the deeper Sister. It was really nice to find several large colorful Hermissendas and a Triopha Catalinae. We also saw a Tritonia Festiva eating off the trunk of a Gorgonian. We headed back in for a relaxing deco on the shallow reefs and in the kelp.
After a 2 hour Surface Interval we toured an out of town guest from Hollywood Divers. He had a rather large video that didn't seem to work as well as he wanted... Nevertheless, He got to see the area near the Lone Metridium.. It was like a night dive at times. Vis was around 20-25. Water temps are warm.
|
7/2/2008 Naia Wall aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Susan Bird, Alberto Nava |
| Visibility: |
100' - 120' |
Time: | 10:10 AM |
| Temp: |
46F - 50F |
Surge: |
2' |
| Scooter: |
Gavin Short |
Burn Time: |
0:40 |
| Max Depth: |
214FSW |
Avg Depth: |
190FSW |
| Bottom Time: |
0:35 |
Total Time: |
1:30 |
| Bottom Gases: |
15/55 | Deco Gases: | 50/25,O2 |
| Backgas Config: |
Double HP120 | Deco Tanks: | AL80 |
| Deco Profile: |
|
| |
Yesterday we took the day off to celebrate Susan's birthday with a little dive. As it was her day we decided to dive Naia's wall which is located just outside the west boundary of the Point Lobos Park.
This is an amazing wall. It starts at about 50ft (deep) and it runs NW to a depth of about 220ft. There are a series of canyons that cut diagonally through the wall which make the whole structure even more dramatic.
Capt. Phil anchored the boat at the top of the pinnacle, we did our gear checks, dropped in the water and headed down. The water was tropical blue (at least 100ft vis) and the only thing reminding us about the real location of the dive was the 48F degrees temp. Susan noticed a 'distinct lack of current' which was a nice b-day gift from the ocean gods.
As we reached the top of the pinnacle there was a single strand of bull-kelp with the main ball sitting at 40ft. I was amused by the fact that there was so much life shallower as often times the area is pounded with very strong swells. We followed the wall as we freely flowed down to 100ft, then to 150ft until we started to see the ocean floor.
The visibility was astounding... we could see straight down the sheer cliffs all the way to the bottom. We could hear each other giggling through our regulators as we descended.
From there we followed one of the canyons that was perpendicular to the wall. Vis was over 100ft and you could see all the various structures that make up this reef. We didn't see as many red fish as expected, but the topography was spectacular. We saw several Vermillions and some Canneries. We found some vase sponges of various shapes and sizes at about 210', and eventually headed back after running along the larger canyon for about 10min.
There were several large decorator crabs doing yoga stretches on various parts of the structure... often reaching between the walls to show off their 'claw spans'.
Once back at the wall we followed the Naia Wall proper. We followed the edge of the wall out which was very interesing. It was vertical on one side going to 220ft with a wide flat area running along the top at about 180ft. We reached a shallower peak on the wall which looked like it was as shallow as 140ft. We thought about using this area for our ascent but very quickly decided to get back to the 50ft spot to reduce the amount of deco time spent diving in middle water.
On the way back we ventured inside the structure and found a nice flat sandy area in the middle of the wall, about half the size of a baseball diamond. This looked like a nice place to explore but we were already on the shallow phase on the dive so we looked at it from the top.
A little bit latter we found some massively large white dorids. Some of them were at least 12 inches long and we found a couple of them mating. There was also a nice slope from 150 to 100ft covered with yellow finger sponges which made for an incredible view. At about 100ft we found a nice overhang that has some metridiums on it, and the roof was covered with unusually long bodied zoanthias. Pretty cool!
We headed back to the shallow peak and looped it several times. The southeast wall was a sheer drop off and extremely colorful. A medium sized school of blue rockfish liked to hang out there because they were protected from the current.
We left the pinnacle at about 40ft and finished the rest of the deco while drifting North.
The fabulous visibility and the most excellent dive site made for the best b-day dive imaginable!
Good way to celebrate Naia's birthday ;-)
|
6/29/2008 Pt Lobos by Harry Wong -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Susan Bird, Harry Wong |
| Visibility: |
20' - 30' |
Time: | 12:00 AM |
| Temp: |
52F |
Surge: |
|
| Max Depth: |
49FSW |
Avg Depth: |
|
| Bottom Time: |
|
Total Time: |
75:00 |
| Bottom Gases: |
EAN32 | Deco Gases: | |
| Backgas Config: |
LP80 | Deco Tanks: | |
| Deco Profile: |
slow up |
| |
This was one of those dives that I can only describe as "Pure Joy."
It wasn't deep, it wasn't even rough and the viz clear. Effortlessly gliding thru water, at one with our marine environment.
I hope this video exemplifies the experience. This is why I dive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iko6VezsHrw
This was during the BAUE Pt Lobos dive day! Great to see so many new BAUE members and fun diving with new people too.
Susan Bird and I descended to about 30 feet and swam east with Suzanne and her buddy following. We made quick work of crossing Middle Reef and over some sand to the other side of Whaler's Cove and before long we were at Coal Chute Caverns via a nice swim-thru. Susan waited at the entrance for me and motioned me to go in first. "after you doc" What manners! Cool, so I did some video in the cavern.
Suzzane and her buddy came in next. Not long after that, Suzanne, motioned to Susan that they were leaving as they had reached their turnaound pressure. Susan and I contuned and followed Middle Reef, staying on the reef while heading back to the ramp. Midway there, my video lights ran out, so I was shooting without lights. I was under Susan shooting her silhouette, when she signaled me with her light and there I saw what she wanted me to see, she was in the middle of a huge school of krill that had deceded to circle her. Cool. I gradually ascended to her depth moving as little as possible, and I too found myself encircled in the school.
Site: Whaler's Cove, Middle Reef, Coal Chute Caverns
Dive Safe, Dive Well, |
6/28/2008 Midway Pinnacle aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Susan Bird, Alberto Nava |
| Visibility: |
30' - 60' |
Time: | 11:00 AM |
| Temp: |
50F - 52F |
Surge: |
2' |
| Scooter: |
Gavin Short |
Burn Time: |
|
| Max Depth: |
200FSW |
Avg Depth: |
|
| Bottom Time: |
0:35 |
Total Time: |
1:30 |
| Bottom Gases: |
15/55 | Deco Gases: | 50/25,O2 |
| Backgas Config: |
HP120 | Deco Tanks: | AL80 |
| Deco Profile: |
6,4s
18
|
| |
Saturday was a good diving day. After a couple of years of talking about diving Midway pinnacle I finally had a chance to dive the site. Several other BAUE members dove it a few months ago but I happened to be in Mexico at the time.
Mid-Way pinnacle is located between the BigSur light-house and BigSur Banks. That's why we decided to call it "Mid-way Pinnacle". It looked pretty attractive on the sonar data scan with the top at 120ft sloping to about 200ft at the bottom on the sand. Most of the other sites at the banks are more in the 130-160' range so they do not have the dramatic drop that Midway has.
We had great weather. It was a calm sea with minimal tidal current due to the moon phase, very little wind, and insignificant swells. The air was smoky from the big fires so we were a little worried about the surface visibility but as we approached the site it had cleared enough that we could see shore two miles away. Good enough to go diving :-)
We deployed our newly designed (well it's actually a few months old) grapple hook and it stuck pretty well to the pinnacle. All divers (Nick, Harry, Dionna, Mark Susan and myself) got ready with all out gear attached to us, and the boat dropped us upstream from the float. There was not much surface current so we all congregated at the float and started our dive.
Susan and I decided to get a head start with the scooters so see if the hook was on the pinnacle. We descended to about 150' following the line and it got a little darker down there. I think the smoke covered enough of the ambient light so that not much was left at depth. At about 160ft I was starting to get worried but the angle on the line was at about 45 degrees so it was surely attached to something as we'd only put out 200ft of line. After a few seconds we saw the shallow portion of the pinnacle and followed the line down to about 180ft to see where it was connected. The hook came down from the top of the pinacle and landed on the SW side. The line was wrapped around a rock which was going to be a problem for the boat to remove later. I looked back to see where the other two teams were and there were half-way down the line. So we decided to start our dive and come back later to fix the hook and make sure every body was down at the pinnacle.
Susan and I headed south through a small canyon that separates the main pinnacle from another small rock. As we crossed the canyon we started noticing a lot of big red fish. One very large fish came directly towards us as if saying 'what the heck are you?' and as the fish turned I could see it was a very large yellow eye rock fish. He was so big that he looked like he had strong muscles on the side of his body. He swam off and we followed a little bit away from the pinnacle. He guided us to a small ledge at about 200ft which was full of more red fish. At one point I counted at least 7 yellow eye in my field of vision. I have never so many together and they were of all different sizes. We could have stay looking at the 'yellow eye rockfish hideout' for the entire dive.
After a few minutes of enjoying the fish hideout we headed back to relocate the hook away from the pinnacle so it would not get stuck when the boat pulled it. We then circled the structure in several passes. We did one at 190ft and another one 170ft. As we headed shallower an abundant garden of very large hydro-coral started to appear at the south east side of the pinnacle.. A massive school of rockfish hovered over and around the large colorful congregation of hydrocoral. It was a busy intersection!
After about 30min of amazing diving we all swam towards the shallow 120ft spot, deployed our SMB's and headed up for our deco while looking at moon jellies, egg yolk jellies, and were met at the surface by a a cute, curious seal lion.
A pod of 300+ Risso dolphins and other cetacean friends escorted our boat back to the dock.
That's was sure a nice day out!. Can we do this again soon?
Here are some sonar images.
|
6/28/2008 Midway Pinnacle aboard Escapade by Dionna House -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Mark Lloyd, Dionna House |
| Visibility: |
40' - 50' |
Time: | 10:00 AM |
| Temp: |
52F |
Surge: |
1' |
| Max Depth: |
170FSW |
Avg Depth: |
145FSW |
| Bottom Time: |
|
Total Time: |
|
| Bottom Gases: |
18/45 | Deco Gases: | EAN50 |
| Backgas Config: |
Double HP100 | Deco Tanks: | AL40 |
| Deco Profile: |
|
| |
After months of hard studying in Nursing school, I was able to celebrate my hard work with diving with some good friends and people. BAUE trip was advertised and not many of the Tech 1 divers responded. Susan decided to make it a Tech 2 boat with 6 divers. Perfect set up!!! Since the ocean looked really flat with minimum wind, we traveled a little further south and tossed the anchor in at Midway Pinnacle. Beto mentioned the bottom being at 200ft. We geared up and jumped in with very very minimal current. Went down the shot line and found the pinnacle at about 150ft(ish). We leveled off at 170ft as planned. We spotted some huge Yellow Eye Rock Fish, which I found out later thats what they were. Next time I will make sure and look into the eyes and the two stipes down the body for better identification. Mark and I saw a cool looking bell medusa jelly pulsating its way up from the depths and also spotted many Hermisendas and Hiltons. There were lots and lots of blue rockfish hanging out on top of the reef. We also admiring the gardens of Hydrocoral. On the deco we were followed by moon jellies. I started humming that song by Cat Stevens, "Moon Shadow".
At our twenty foot stop I noticed it got darker and felt like something big was above us.... I thought...WHALE??? It turned out to be the Escapade Whale... It was kinda weird looking up to see that. We slowing made our ascent up to the surface. On the way in we were visited by a big pod of Risso dolphins. They put on a great show for us. Spectacular breaching with frolics off the bow of the boat. Thanks to the Escapade Crew... Greg,Julia and Mike...Jim.. These guys did great... They were AWESOME!!! Special thanks to Susan, Beto, Nick, Harry and Mark... You guys Rock!!!
Let us go back??? |
6/28/2008 Castle Rock aboard Cypress Sea by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Kevin Dow, Jonathan Derosier |
| Visibility: |
50' - 60' |
Time: | 8:16 AM |
| Temp: |
50F - 50F |
Surge: |
|
| Scooter: |
X-scooter |
Burn Time: |
|
| Max Depth: |
141FSW |
Avg Depth: |
73FSW |
| Bottom Time: |
|
Total Time: |
|
| Bottom Gases: |
| Deco Gases: | O2 |
| Backgas Config: |
Double HP100 | Deco Tanks: | AL40 |
| Deco Profile: |
2's up to 20 and 10 on the bottle |
| |
The wave conditions were perfect today for a run down to Big Sur on the Cypress Sea. Perfect that is except for the smoke from the fires along the big sur coast reducing the air quality to something on the south side of unpleasant.
It wasn't too long of a ride before we passed the Bixby bridge and pulled up to our first dive spot of the day. Jonathan and I suited up and jumped in the water. There was a bit of a current on the surface but nothing too bad and we quickly started scootering down the anchor line.
Once we arrive at the wall we briefly stopped to watch the other half of team kitty mess with a bit of gear before giving them an okay and heading out.
Viz at depth was at least 60 feet though a bit dark. We headed out southish along hte wall and dropped down to around 120 for a bit of a cruze. The wall itself has numerous overhangs that start around this depth, with some of them large enough for someone to scooter under. After a short while we jumped a small gap in the wall and came to a crazy beautiful mini pinnacle that was covered in pink and purple hydrocoral.
After circling the pinacle for a bit and exploring some of the cracks that jut off from it we circled back and jumped to the other side of our wall for the ride back. Along this side, the structure was covered in walking kelp and formed more of a shelf for the wall on west side. After running back for a bit, we jumped back onto the west side to find our anchor and worked out way up to 70' before calling it a dive and heading up to deco.
Truly a spectacular site, and I hope to visit again on future Big Sur trips.
|
6/22/2008 Mating Amtracks by Robert Lee -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Robert Lee, Allison Lee, Jonathan Derosier |
| Visibility: |
10' - 40' |
Time: | 8:00 AM |
| Temp: |
50F |
Surge: |
|
| Scooter: |
X-scooter |
Burn Time: |
0:40 |
| Max Depth: |
75FSW |
Avg Depth: |
75FSW |
| Bottom Time: |
1:20 |
Total Time: |
|
| Bottom Gases: |
EAN32 | Deco Gases: | |
| Backgas Config: |
Double HP100 | Deco Tanks: | AL80 |
| Deco Profile: |
1's, 3 3 up |
| |
Allison, Jonathan and I decided to seize on the weekend's flat conditions to go do a dive that we'd be kicking around for some time. The plan was to go out from Lovers Pt. in search of the Mating Amtracks. While this is typically a boat-dive site, we had been looking at the maps and confident that the distance from shore was manageable, so we set off to Lover's Pt. to begin the quest at about half-past the crack of dawn.
The Amtracks are located about a half-mile off of the point, but without any discernable structure near-by. In fact (as we later confirmed), there is almost nothing but sand for at least a thousand feet leading up to it. We rolled into the parking lot at Lovers 3 and found that all of the signs are for 2hr parking?! Is that a new development? As if the parking situation wasn't enough to dissuade me from diving at Lovers, the base of the stairs in cove 3 have been washed away so that the last 5-10 vertical feet almost require a climbing harness. Oy; barely civilized. After making several trips up and down to schlep the doubles, stages and scooters down, I was almost ready for Turtle Bay. But alas, there is exploring to be done :) Right before we got in, I noticed that the meter-people had chalked my tire (oh yeah, 2hr parking?!). A little spit took care of that (hey, stupid system) one, so take that Pacific Grove.
We hobbled in the water (no camera today for me) and headed out on the surface a little bit. The plan was to take a roughly 30° magnetic heading until we hit the 75'-80' contour, then turn SSE and spread out in a search pattern. We had allocated 10 minutes to searching after hitting the contour before giving up and trying to find something else out there of interest. The trip out was really uneventful, seeing as there's almost nothing there. I kept futilely scanning the sand for bat rays, but I suspect that was mostly out of wishful boredom. Soon enough, we hit the contour and started in on our first search pattern.
The viz which was pretty milky and gross on the surface cleared up pretty nicely below about 30FSW or so to about 40' horizontal, which was good because it allowed us to spread out quite a bit and cover a large swath while scootering in parallel. Allison was anchoring the search in the middle, with Jonathan and I flanking her around the limit of visibility. About 4 or 5 minutes into the first leg of the pattern, Allison started signalling me, so I turned in. I fully expected it to be to regroup and start in on the second leg (since it was approaching the agreed-upon time), but instead I was motioned towards Jonathan's side so we headed over there. Turns out Jonathan's track planted him almost smack into the Amtracks (again, there's *nothing* else out there so these things really stick out like a sore thumb.)
Woohoo (or "w00t" even)! After exchanging a scooter-by high-five, we settled in to examining the Amtracks. Being the first time I've ever been there, I was pretty impressed by the amount of life on them. I suppose this is to be expected to some extent as the surrounding area is pretty barren. There were literally hundreds of Hermissenda, and maybe half-as-many F. trilineata. There were also an impressive amount of rockfish (including many juveniles) settled into various nooks and crannies, as well as a juvie Cabezon and (what I believe was) a juvenile sculpin of some sort.
We spent about 40 minutes on the wreck until our stage bottles ran out. After switching off the bottles, we decided to turn the dive and head for home. We followed pretty much the same path back, heading WNW for a few minutes before turning towards about 210° magnetic. We had agreed to surface from about 30FSW to get our bearings and to avoid getting run into the rocks, so we put a bag up and headed up. I had heard a boat motor by shortly before we put our back up, and surely enough, we surfaced about 100' aft of the BeachHopper. It turned out that we were right on track as we surfaced about 50' or so from where we had dropped, so we surface-scooted the rest of the way back to Cove 3 (though I had half a mind to scooter over the BeachHopper and attempt to "re-board" :) 77', 80minutes, 50F
All in all, it was a great dive, and pretty satisfying that we had found the Amtracks. Having now been there, I'd love to go back, but this time with a camera and a macro lens. I'm sure that there was a fair amount of luck involved in finding the spot so fast the first time out, so I'm not sure how dependable a scooter dive it really is. Probably better to try to bum a ride from some of the local boat crowd...
After rinsing all the gear out from a long dive weekend, we headed to the Chowder House for dive 2, into a bowl of chowder and a crab sandwich.
|
5/26/2008 Stillwater Cove aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Susan Bird, Alberto Nava |
| Visibility: |
40' |
Time: | 10:30 AM |
| Temp: |
50F |
Surge: |
|
| Max Depth: |
40FSW |
Avg Depth: |
|
| Bottom Time: |
1:30 |
Total Time: |
|
| Bottom Gases: |
EAN32 | Deco Gases: | |
| Backgas Config: |
Double | Deco Tanks: | |
| Deco Profile: |
|
| |
Today we had a very different trainning day. We did the first part of Fundamental class at Stillwater Cove :-). We normally dive at the breakwater for the Fundamentals but vis has being so bad in there that we decided to dive in Carmel looking for nice clear water. We were lucky one of the students in the class owns a pretty nice/fast boat ;-) so there we went looking for the clear water.
We anchored way inside the cove and found a nice flat/clear area to work on the skills. Vis was super 30-40 ft which made the drills so much easier to observe :-). We had a couple of cute harbour seals playing with the divers, the reel
and SMB setup.....
Here is a photo of the team at work, and the boat .
After the class we went whale watching in the bay :-)
Stillwater Cove/Escapade trainning rocks!
|
5/23/2008 E3 aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]
Discuss this report in the BAUE Forum
| Bottom Team: |
Kevin Dow, Robert Lee, Allison Lee |
| Visibility: |
80' |
Time: | 10:16 AM |
| Temp: |
48F |
Surge: |
6' |
| Max Depth: |
168FSW |
Avg Depth: |
|
| Bottom Time: |
|
Total Time: |
|
| Bottom Gases: |
18/45 | Deco Gases: | EAN50 |
| Backgas Config: |
Double HP100 | Deco Tanks: | AL80 |
| Deco Profile: |
4 and 3's, 10,5 |
| |
Team Kitty with special guest kitty Jonathan had scheduled a dive off of Phils RIB on Friday but early reports were suggesting that conditions were not going to be good for diving with large swells and high winds.
Passing by Monastery seemed to somewhat bear out the early reports with several large sets of swells rolling down on the beach, but there was very little wind!
After a brief conferring session with Phil we decided to go for it and head over to Deep E3 for a dive. The cove itself was full of the flotsam and jetsam from earlier in the week and was a ugly shade of brown. As we left the cove the water turned a very nice shade of blue. As it turned out the ride out to the site wasn’t too bad and we quickly gearing up and splashed into the water to start our dive.
As it turns out while we ended up on the top of E3. We quickly slid over to the side of the wall and dropped down to our target depth. As expected for a site named E3, there were tons of Elephant Ear Sponges as well as large gorgonians in evidence. Continuing around the wall we came upon a couple of beautiful China Rockfish hanging out in cracks in the wall. All too soon out time was up and we headed up the wall to do deco.
Deco was largely uneventful, with the sole exception of Allison indicating that the she-p had been deployed effectively in its second sea trial.
Pictures from the dive here.
|
Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Next
|
