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11/19/2013 E3 aboard Escapade by Gary Banta -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava, Gary Banta

Visibility: Time: 11:00 AM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: 150FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:22 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double HP100 Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
Tuesday I completed the T1 “experience dive”. This was a week after Jon and Teresa completed theirs. Last week I was totally exhausted after 7 days of diving it 8 days. For the experience dive I buddied up with Susan and we set off on the Escapade for E3 – just outside of Point Lobos. The seas were dead flat, no wind and the sun was peeking through broken clouds. Stunning. We dropped into truly blue water and descended to find the twin pinnacles of E3 in full view. Vis was over 100 feet. E3 is “Elephant Ear Edge” and it certainly is. Spaced about 4 feet from each other are EE sponges, literally everywhere. Between them are gorgonians and corynactus, etc. I was blown away. There is nothing like this in the recreational range. We circled the NW pinnacle at 150. Beto found a beautiful snail on a gorgonian. Up close was amazing but conditions drew the eye to the visas. Looking up above the pinnacles was clouds of rockfish and as we rounded the NW end a Mola cruised by checking us out. We moved up and over to the top of the second pinnacle, thumbed the dive and headed up. Deco was easy and totally relaxing enabling us to look around and take in the occasional life in the water column. Then at 30 feet, four to six good sized Molas showed up and did the ballet for several minutes. Magic! On the surface and to home with several stops to attempt swimming with the Rizzos. They were everywhere!
I felt -- “ We are not in Kansas anymore”

1/12/2013 E3 aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Doug Simmons, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 100' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 48F - 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 150FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:25 Total Time: 0:50

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Yesterday I was thinking about content for next weekend presentation about
BAUE and mapping at Point Lobos. I was looking for the first image that the Sea Floor Mapping Lab shared with us which I think it's about 10hr old by now. That was the first time we saw all the pinnacles in the north-west of Point Lobos, and soon after we dove E3 (Elephant Ear Extravaganza was the original name an so the E^^3 name) for the first time. I got tired of looking for the image and turned on the TV.

Interesting coincidence today during the tech-charter we headed out with some large swells, and strong south wing. The Captain decided to look for protection on the north side of Lobos and suddenly we're descending on E3 with about 100ft of visibility :-)

The downline was at about 130ft near the shallow peak of the pinnacle. There were tons of rock-fish at the top and several large ling-cods resting on the white sponges. We swam across the main valley that splits the reef in two, and I searched for the first encrusted yellow gorgonia we noticed in that area. It looked yellow from far away but as you got closer it became evident it was covered with yellow zonthaid. I still remember Sami's picture of it :-).

Image 1

Image 2

I could not find it :-(

Doug point it to me the peak of the sister pinnacle and we headed there for a little spin before ascending on the main structure and deploying out SMB.

Nice flash back down to memory lane ;-)

1/16/2010 E3 aboard Escapade by Clinton Bauder -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Clinton Bauder, Jim Capwell, Joakim Linde

Visibility: 50' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 56F Surge: 6'

Max Depth: 155FSW Avg Depth: 135FSW

Bottom Time: 0:35 Total Time: 1:20

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
Deep Stops
5,3,3,3,3
17, 6 up.
For once I thought I was ahead of the game getting ready for a weekend of diving. I had all my gear including the camera ready to go on Thu PM since I was giving a talk at the Santa Clara Koi Club on Friday and knew I wouldn't have time that night. By Saturday morning though the best laid plans were starting to go awry. First Matt, emailed and said he was sick and couldn't make it. Then John arrived at the dock and realized he didn't have his drysuit! 2 to 0 dive buddies in about 6 hours. Fortunately Jim and Joakim were OK with adding me to their team.

The weather was better than forecast so we started by looking at Naia's wall. Unfortunately there looked to be a ripping current there so we "settled" for E3. Dropping down the vis was nice and blue and there was no current. Sadly only one of my strobes turned on. The batteries are getting old and I think they now self-discharge fairly quickly so my planning ahead backfired.

Arriving on the bottom it was clear it wasn't going to matter much anyway. While visibility was great it was plenty surgy enough to make macro photographer dodgy. I tried anyway and got a few mediocre slug shots before the other strobe died too.

E3 Slug Pictures

Despite the camera troubles we had a very nice dive enjoying a big school of blue rockfish on the pinnacle and sea lions and sea nettles during the uneventful deco. Slightly putting a damper on things was the discovery back on the boat that my trusty UK Remora dive knife had gone missing. Probably has done 1400 dives with me though I think I only used it once or twice in anger (to cut fishing line).

For dive 2 we headed over to Ballbuster to meet the new Giant Pacific Octopus that has apparently moved in there. For some reason we never had the conversation about where the anchor might be if it wasn't exactly on top of the pinnacle. Naturally we found ourselves at 100 feet with no pinnacle in sight. We tried East, South, and then West with no success. Fortunately North was the correct answer and as it happened the pinnacle was only barely out of our visibility from where the anchor was. We quickly found the octopus and introduced ourselves before we ran out of time and headed back.

Lunch followed at Baldemiro's which current evidence suggests was a mistake, though it was delicious.

9/19/2008 E3 aboard Escapade by Dionna House -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Harry Babicka, Mark Lloyd, Dionna House

Visibility: 50' - 70' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 52F - 54F Surge:

Max Depth: 165FSW Avg Depth: 155FSW

Bottom Time: 0:25 Total Time: 1:00

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: 50/25,O2

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
As some of you know Mark Lloyd, Harry Babicka and I have been working towards getting our GUE Tech 2 rating. GUE Tech 2 instructor, Gideon Liew came out from Singapore, on his way to Mexico to check us off. Our first site was E3. Jim Capwell motored us out and dropped the anchor. We geared up and did our GUE EDGE as Gideon Liew observed, then jumped in. There was a little bit of a current running while going down. I had some ear issues that delayed our descent a bit. Once we got down, I navigated North East to get to 160fsw. We stayed there for about 25minutes, enjoying some of the big Elephant Ear sponges, We also followed a big male sheephead. Saw some lingcods and many gorgonians. We could have stayed down longer, but, I got confused with all the different discussed plans.. I thought after were done with the bottom stage we come up. Oh Well...I was getting ready for tomorrows deeper dive. There is always another time. Unfortunately I think Gideon wanted to enjoy the bottom a little longer. Thats what you get when you put a student in charge!! Mark Lloyd took over as deco captain and Harry Babicka shot the bag.
Deco went well. We discussed our dive and what we needed to get better over lunch. Gideon saw what he needed to see for our next day experience dive into deeper depths.

5/23/2008 E3 aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]

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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.

4/28/2008 E3 aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Kevin Dow, Allison Lee, Robert Lee

Visibility: 20' - 40' Time: 10:21 AM

Temp: 50F Surge: 1'

Max Depth: 154FSW Avg Depth: 86FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double HP100 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
4,4,1,1,2,8,5
Team Kitty invited David out with us for the dive. This was his last dive before he leaves for 4 months. The conditions weren't too bad, but it was mostly wind driven waves. Phil didn't recommend going around the point as he felt the conditions would build throughout the day, so we decided on going to E3 and insisting that Phil take us there this time. :)

Conditions shallow were somewhat like what we saw at the Breakwater the previous day. Lots of particulate in the water shallow, but still decent enough viz. Deeper the particulates cleared out to a respectable 30'-40' viz. Several people said it their gauges were reading 46 or so, but I sure didn't feel cold the whole dive. At the start at the dive, we saw an absolutely huge 'dorid' type nudibranch. It had to have been at least a 10" long. Toward the end of the dive, I found two larger Albus' mating. David got some really nice footage of this with his camera. Deco was uneventful, but a bit boring. We ended up doing 130' for 35 minutes w/ 25 minutes of deco.

At the 10 foot stop we could really feel the waves pushing us about and the surface had gotten a quite a bit more sporty. We ditched our gear and got out of there. Lunch was at Siamese Bay.

Pictures here .

9/3/2005 E3 aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Support Team: Mark Weitz

Visibility: 20' - 30' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: 190FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:20 Total Time: 1:20

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
On saturday Sue and I were on the Escapede for the BAUE chartered trip. They initial plan was to dive at Mt. Chamberlin , the south wall and then Step2. However, as we approached the Yankee Point area the swell and winds were big enough that we had to abort and head for some protection in the E3 area.

We were part of the first two teams that got in the water. Susan and I, and Clinton and Gina C. We scootered down the anchor line and got to the top of the pinnacle after a couple of min. Once at the top of the pinnacle I remembered why this place was called E3. There were many Elephant Ear sponges of all sizes and shapes. Together with red gorgonias it made for a amazing scene.

Susan and I scootered around the pinnacles while looking at all the vermillion and big lingcods. We saw several gorgonias with simnias on them.

The gorgonias seen to have more invertebrates living on them that what I recall. Although I haven't been here in 6 to 8 months. We saw a couple of small brittle stars on the gorgonias.

Vis was 20-30ft but it was a bit dark. I was trying to look for some old cement blocks I saw in there a while ago but could not locate them. I'm wondering how they got there???

Once our 20min were over we heading for the top of pinnacle and locate the anchor line, and we could see Clinton and Gina on their way to us.

The deco part of the dive was a lot of fun as there were many E. Y jellies in the area, and a lot of them have small pilot fish on them. We saw one with 6 to 8 little fish :-). Susan and I stayed close to the anchor line using the scooters to stay in position. I would have like to scooter btw of the jellies but vis was not that great and i didn't want to get separate from the boat.

Second dive was Ball Buster as the ocean was rough and we needed to be back by 3:30. While looking for a fin that Gina lost we ran into a nice pinnacle south-east of BB which had a lot of rock-fish. It almost like the fish know to stay away from BB. Smart fish ;-).

Nice day of diving.

4/1/2005 E3 aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 20' - 50' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 46F - 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 200FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:30 Total Time: 1:40

Bottom Gases: 18/55 Deco Gases: 50/25,O2

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Sue and I took the day off to go diving before the onset of the big swells forecasted for the weekend. We went out with Capt Phil on his RIB, from Lobos. The original plan was to dive the south wall of Mt Chamberlin, but the winds were already picking up so we decided to stay close to home and do a traverse from E3 to Bluefish cove.
We dropped with our scooters at the top of E3 in about 120ft of water. The water was a very cold 46 degrees with scooter chill factor making it seem even colder, but the visibility was great!! maybe 50ft... We started our dive on the southwest side and looped around the base while enjoying the gorgonians and the big elephant ear sponges. From there we headed north torwards Deep E3, and at about 200ft we started seeing several vase sponges. Some had decorator crabs sitting on them, as well as small fishes living inside. On a rockface we found a small basket star entwined in a gorgonian. After spending 10min in this area we headed east towards the Needle and enjoyed a 10min scooter run following the outer wall of the area. There were huge China rockfish along the wall, and some big vermilion.
Once we got to the Needle we looped around once, taking in the beauty of the vertical walls covered with corynactus and zoanthids. This is an amazing pinnacle! Usually we circle the pinnacle many times, each time at a shallower depth, according to our deco plan. However this time we headed into shallower water at a 120 degree heading, to see what was there and if we could make it to Bluefish.
We scootered for a couple of minutes and found a long, narrow ridge full of multi-colored hyrdrocorals, where we did most of our 100-80ft stops. From there we headed south looking for shallow water, where we encountered a nice pinnacle that went from 70ft to 30ft, perfect for our 50% deco stops. The pinnacle was covered with huge hydrocorals and was home to a massive school of blue rockfish on the east side. Big swells and surge were already hitting the area so we took shelter with the rockfish for the remainder of the dive.
Once we got to 30ft, we shot our bag and moved away from the pinnacle. By this time we had scootered for about 70min, dove at least 5 different sites, and needless to say we really enjoyed the dive day. We slowly drifted among strands of kelp for our 20min of deco to complete the dive.
Top side conditions were not as bad as predicted, and it was a gorgeous, sunny day.
Here is the route we followed.

2/11/2005 E3 aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 20' - 40' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 50F - 54F Surge:

Max Depth: 192FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: O2

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Susan and I went diving at Point Lobos this past
Friday. We dove one of the Pinnacles on the E3 area. Phil said he has dove it before as E3, so
maybe "The other E3" but I'm not 100%.

There were a lot of rock fish of all color & sizes
and the usual deep water invertebrates. Vis was 25 ft at depth and 50 at the top. Water was 50 to 54.

I was brave enought to take my video camera on the
dive (first deep video dive :-0), so here are some
video frames. My kudus to the guys that do deep video in cold/dark water..... it's difficult.... and you want a lot of He ;-), at least the next gas down the list

Video frames

1/16/2005 E3 aboard Escapade by Susan Bird -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 20' - 40' Time: 2:00 PM

Temp: 54F - 55F Surge:

Scooter: Gavin Short Burn Time:

Max Depth: 187FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:43

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
Fantastic day on the Escapade w/the BAUE gang. After a gorgeous run south including numerous grey whale sightings, surface conditions dictated that we abort our original plan of going to Yankee Point, so Capt Eric headed towards the more protected area near Lobos.
To accomodate our mixed boat of rec/tek divers, captains dropped Sue & Beto and our scooters at E3 and proceeeded to the Needle, where we would meet the rest of the divers underwater.
Our scooter run past the familiar canyons and crevices was fun and included fly-bys of the usual marine life for that depth range-- gorgonians, elephant ears, schools of various rockfish, sheep heads, and territorial ling cod. I kept looking for the tell-tale suckers of Giant Pacific Octopus in every crack and crevice we passed, without success.
Once we arrived at the Needle, we saw pairs of lights from the teams of our boat buddies, and enjoyed a colorful ascent and deco profile circling the pinnacle. At our 70 ft stop, Beto found what would have made a perfect octopus-condo in a crack along a wall. Sure enough, there was a nice GPO, with a crab leg attached to its suckers. Fortunately Clinton and Dionna were in the vicinty to verify the sighting!
Great day-- second dive at Aumentos was sweet, and hopefully Clinton will post a report with the scientific name of the really cool red fish we saw. (It was a Red Brotula; Brosmophycis marginata)

Pictures here.

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