BAUE Trip Reports

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1/12/2003 Hopkin's Deep Reef aboard Escapade by David Chamberlin -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Sami Laine, David Chamberlin

Visibility: 50' Time: 1:31 PM

Temp: 57F Surge: 1'

Scooter: Gavin Short Burn Time: 0:30

Max Depth: 92FSW Avg Depth: 62FSW

Bottom Time: 37:00 Total Time: 44:00

Bottom Gases: 30/30 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: RB80,Double LP80,LP51 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
min deco 
The goal of the dive was to test out deploying, retrieving and using scooters from the Escapade. On The first run, we thought we'd head in towards Hopkin's Shallow, swing back around and head back out to Hopkin's Deep and attempt to find the anchor. We launched the scooter divers last so that all non-scooter divers should be out of the water when the scooter divers were ready to be retrieved (in case the boat had to pick up and retrieve).

We put the divers in before the scooters, then the crew attached the scooters to gear lines and deployed them for us. We retrieved the scooters, headed to the anchor line, did our final checks and descended.

Visibility was excellent and we began our run immediately. We motored in to Hopkin's Shallow, headed west a bit until we ran out of rocky structure, then swung around E/NE, then looped back and headed out deep again. We succesfully located the anchor, then headed out deeper for a bit. Over the sand we found a lot of squid eggs, but not much else. We turned around and worked our way back to the anchor. Ascended along the anchor, had the crew retrieve the scooters and then got out.

Excellent and very successful first run!

1/4/2003 Outer Pinnacles aboard Escapade by Sami Laine -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Sami Laine, Joe Talavera, Delia Milliron

Visibility: 50' - 60' Time: 11:43 AM

Temp: 54F Surge: 6'

Max Depth: 96FSW Avg Depth: 69FSW

Bottom Time: 0:31 Total Time: 0:43

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single,Double LP80,LP95,LP104 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
min deco + 
2 min @ 20'
Practice and sightseeing dive with great scenery. The swell was large, but the site was well protected from it. We had excellent visibility. Delia got some reel skills practice, and lead the team. We were joined by boat captain Jim Capwell during our deco (1, 2).

1/4/2003 Aumentos aboard Escapade by Sami Laine -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Sami Laine, Peter Gelbman, Nick Radov

Visibility: 10' - 25' Time: 9:47 AM

Temp: 55F Surge: 10'

Max Depth: 82FSW Avg Depth: 66FSW

Bottom Time: 0:40 Total Time: 0:52

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single,Double LP104,AL80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
min deco
Goobering around the reef with Nick and Pete, a simple scenery dive. Big surface swell caused considerable surge, that increased during the dive until at 35 min runtime it created a sandstorm obscuring visibility.

We did not locate anchor in limited vis, so we activated plan B and Nick & Pete shot a bag. The boat crew reported that it popped up less than 20ft from the boat, but there was a bit of current that moved us off during the ascent. Still, a short swim back.

1/1/1970 Crinoid Canyon by John Heimann -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Kevin Dow, John Heimann

Visibility: 5' - 40' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 50F - 60F Surge:

Scooter: Halcyon T16 Burn Time: 1:45

Max Depth: 260FSW Avg Depth: 200FSW

Bottom Time: 1:03 Total Time: 2:04

Bottom Gases: 21/35,15/55 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2,21/35

Backgas Config: Double HP120 Deco Tanks: AL40,AL80
Deco Profile:
deep stops
6,6,6,6,6,30,6 up
Kevin and I decided to explore the "Pit" area North of Whaler's cove to see if the reef indicated on the bathymetry was real. We found it to be there, as a steep boulder field on sand. We scootered out to the end of Twin Peaks in marginal visibility and then took a heading due North until we found a steeply sloping canyon. At the

12/31/1969 DZ123 aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Jim Capwell, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 10' - 20' Time: 4:00 PM

Temp: Surge: 4'

Max Depth: 100FSW Avg Depth:

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

Bottom Gases: 30/30 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:

12/31/1969 19SUR aboard Unknown Boat by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Alberto Nava, Joseph (Karl) Haywood, Marc Hall

Visibility: 100' - 100' Time: 4:00 PM

Temp: Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 160FSW Avg Depth: 140FSW

Bottom Time: 0:45 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 21/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:

12/31/1969 19SUR aboard Unknown Boat by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Joseph (Karl) Haywood

Visibility: Time: 4:00 PM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:

12/31/1969 19SUR aboard Unknown Boat by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Devin MacKenzie, Alberto Nava

Visibility: Time: 4:00 PM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Yesterday was a very successfully diving there. BAUE booked the Cypress Sea for some tech diving at Big Sur Banks. It has being quite a long time since he had an all BAUE charter at the banks and we were all looking forward to it. We had 11 divers in the boat spitted in 4 teams and the objective was to do 4 dives (2 per team) at the famous 20SUR and 19SUR pinnacles in the south end of the banks.

At 8:05 we arrived at the banks (5min late ;-) ) and we started to deployed our down-line which consisted on a hook, some line and
a couple of marine red buoys at the end. We watched one of the buoys disappear underwater which was a sign of strong current. We added one more line and a third buoy so the divers had space at the surface to hold while waiting for their team mates. The fog banks was large but it was high on the sky so we decided to try a live drop of the first team and see how they will handle the current.

Allison, Kevin and Robert were in one team and Dionna, Mark and Harry were on the other team. They drifted nicely towards the line and started the descent. We watched for about 10min in case any of them could not make it. However, it looked like they were all diving :-). After 60min they all surfaced, and they reported the hook as moved to deeper water and they had missed the target 20SUR pinnacle :-(.

After getting all the divers back on the boat we relocated the hook while using a bigger/heavy object as a hook as it looked like the
tension of the pulling divers was too much to handle with the little hook. This time Clinton, Nick, Susan, Devin and myself were on the second team. It looked like the current was even stronger as the tide changes so the surface current was pretty fast. It took about 6min to descent to 150ft while using our scooters but we finally made it to 20SUR. We landed on the north side in front of the pinnacle and headed for a loop. We rapidly found the canyon that run through the middle of the pinnacle and let ourself drift with the current from one end to the next. They were tons of purple hydrocoral and several school of small fish. I was a little surprise that we could not see that many big fish. We could not see vermilion nor yellow eye rock fish. We motored to the south and found an nice congregation of blue rockfish. After about 10min we returned to the north to see if we could see the team of Clinton and Nick and the site. We could not see them so we decided to go and check the top of the pinnacle. The moment I looked torwards the top I saw the reason why we didn't see many fish at the pinnacle. There was a large (10-12ft) thresher shark hovering over the shallow peak at 20SUR. There was strong enough current that it did not need to swim in order to get water throught its gills so if just sat there. It was difficult to see if it was hunting or just being clean by the school of little fish at the top. I moved my light to try to signal my buddies and as I did that the animals sense the bean of my HID light and it moved its tail very quickly and look at me. We both looked at each other for about 3 seconds and it then swam away from the pinnacle. I signaled my buddies about the shark and we all waiting to see if it will come back. I know that thresher are not aggressive towards human but there is something about having 20 min of deco to do and seeing a big shark underwater. We waited a few minutes and after that we moved to the top of the pinnacle to enjoyed the purple hydrocorals at the pinnacle. After 25min we called the dive and had a "nervous" drift thinking about our friend.... fish are friends ;-)

After our dive we knew the hook was in the right place so the first set of divers and Clinton/Nick decided to go for a second dive using this confirmed line. Using the ame procedure that the first dive the team were able to drift into the ball and pull themselves down the pinnacle. It was pretty interesting to see 8 divers drift towards the float and swam in an angle in order to hit the target. They had about 90 second to made it to the float or get push past it. This worked much better that the anchoring of the boat we did on the second dive.

For the 4th dive of the day we went to 19SUR. Susan, Devin and myself went for another drop. The moment we saw the pinnacle we realized where all the fish had gone. I think the shark scared the fish from 20SUR and they all congregated at 19SUR. There were school of vermilions, yellow eye, china rockfish of all sizes and colors. We saw a very large yellow eye at about 170ft and we could also recognize the area where we once saw the nice posing GPO. Susan found a couple of nice mola mola and Devin found a free swimming wolf eel at the top of the reef. It was a super dive in an amazing place.

All in all a great everybody did a great job on their planning and execution. I'm looking forward to the next trip in September :-)

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