BAUE Trip Reports

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Diver

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

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava, Joseph (Karl) Haywood

Visibility: 30' Time: 4:00 PM

Temp: 55F Surge: 6'

Max Depth: 151FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:30 Total Time: 1:10

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
Susan, Karl and myself together with the Kitties went out to Thumbs Up for the pre-project dives.

We had a dual objective of checking out the area in front of Thumbs Up and also setting the lines for the project day. We planned on doing the line setup during our deco.

We went out about 300ft from the North end of the pinnacle and found some cool boulders with some nice workfish and several big size lingcods. There were some large/dense clouds of krill about 150ft.

On the way back we were not 100% sure on the starting location for the lines so we decided to abort the second part of the dive and double check the location with the boat.

Second dive we laid the 80ft and 60ft survey lines around the pinnacle. It was a challenging work with the swells and the kelp.

Kitty team took GPS location for the start of the lines and enjoy a couple of nice dives while looking for possible areas for the nudibranch survery the following day.

12/31/1969 Pt Lobos by John Heimann -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: John Heimann, Anibal Mata-Sol

Visibility: 30' - 80' Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 48F - 52F Surge:

Scooter: Gavin Long Burn Time:

Max Depth: 163FSW Avg Depth: 150FSW

Bottom Time: 0:35 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Double LP104,HP100 Deco Tanks: AL40,AL80
Deco Profile:
deep stops
5,5,5,4,3,12, slow ascent
Scootered to Twin Peaks. Vis was already 30'+ in Whaler's but opened up to 80'+ at depth - as clear as I've ever seen it at Lobos, and enough to allow us to scooter 30' above the bottom and see everything from the sand to the top of the Twin Peaks pinnacles with crystalline clarity. My thought as I stopped my scooter to admire the elephant ear sponges, corynactis, and gorgonians was that my trip to Kona next month is going to have nothing to offer except warmer water (the water was also as cold as I've ever felt it at Lobos). On the way back, Joe T., Delia, and Gideon Liew (GUE instructor visiting from Singapore), whom we had met in the parking lot, scootered past us and gave us a barrel-roll salute. We all got out and agreed that we are very, very lucky to be able to dive in such an amazing place.

12/31/1969 Three Sisters by Gary Banta -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Gary Banta, Dionna House

Visibility: 150' Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 55F Surge:

Scooter: Gavin Short Burn Time:

Max Depth: 120FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 30/30 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Dionna and I set out to see how good Lobos could be on a scooter when the viz was excellent. Well it can be REALLY good. We set out on the surface scootering out the sand channel until just before Hole-in-the-wall (HITW). We dropped down in to roughly 50ish vis and followed middle reef until the opening at Hole-in-the-wall and made a left following the wall on our left until the depth was 80 feet. We then turned north across the sand where the viz opened out to 150+! You could see the whole wall and the first Sister off to our right. Amazing viz. We arrived at the Sisters wall near a low cluster of white sponges. Then made a left following the wall to 120 fsw and then turned "in" (right) to follow a ramp that took us on top. From the top the the wall you could see a HUGE area to the south, ahead and the high sand to the north. We followed the wall until we circled Sister 1 and then shortcut back to HITW. There was not much fishlife out and the reef was a blur. It reminded me of all the foreign countries I've experience out the window of the cab to and from the airport.

It felt really good to execute a scooter dive as planned. Dionna did a great job of navigating and helping me learn the landmarks.

GO DIVE!!

12/31/1969 Mt Chamberlin - South Wall aboard Escapade by Harry Wong -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Paul Lee, Harry Wong

Visibility: 60' - 90' Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 46F - 57F Surge: 5'

Scooter: Gavin Short Burn Time:

Max Depth: Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
7,2,2,2,2,15,5
80-90 feet of viz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The diving was incredible!!!

Dive 1 was at a place south of Pt Lobos called Mt Chamberlain. Awesome wall with some very cool valleys and nooks and crannies to get into!!

Paul Lee and I buddied. It was a bit of an ordeal to get into the water with our doubles, then the deco bottle and then the scooter. But once we were on our way, diving was like a hot knife thru butter! No swimming down the anchor line against the current, we just motored down. Once at the anchor line, Jim from the Escapade asked us to check the anchor to make sure it could be easily pulled up, it was fine.

Then Paul and I motored West along the wall, very cool. The bottom was at around 180' (we stayed at 150'-160' and with the viz so incredible, you could see for quite a distance. One thing about scooters, you typically don't see the macro life, you're moving way too fast. Of course we'd stop and check out some things of interest, cracks, big fish, etc. There was this huge Lingcod that definitely looked like it was on the hunt. That was cool!

After a bit, we reversed direction along the wall and passed where the anchor line would be and continued on. Paul was leading and we were to find Team 2 with Dionna and Mark. We didn't find them along the wall and had passed some very cool small valleys. I knew they were in there as it looked pretty interesting. Anyway we get back to the anchor line and start our ascent where Paul shot his big SMB.

Doing our deco with the scooter was pretty straight forward. I ran the deco while Paul worked the spool with the SMB. We stayed pretty close to the anchor line until about 20 feet where we caught a bit of a current. We drifted about 3/4ths of a mile. Doing drift deco was quite luxury as most of my dives involve staying near the anchor line so this was quite a treat!

Getting back on the boat with some "fun" waves was interesting. First handing off the scooter, then the deco bottle, then climbing aboard in doubles. The hardest part of the dive though was schlepping all this gear from the van to the boat and back to the van! :-) Paul had this very cool hand truck with some big fat rubber air inflated balloon tires. I'm getting one as soon as I find one.

12/31/1969 Copper Roof House aboard Escapade by Harry Wong -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Harry Wong, Paul Lee

Visibility: 60' Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 60F Surge: 5'

Scooter: Gavin Short Burn Time:

Max Depth: 87FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
11132
This was at Outer Copper Roof House. This was a nice relaxing recreational dive with the bottom at 80 feet. The viz was a bit less but still spectacular 60 feet or so. This site was full of cool walls, sand channels and coves, and was little confusing to navigate at first. There were so many variances to the topography. But going about in a circular pattern we got to know the area. There were some pretty cool little cracks to scooter thru and with a scooter you cover a lot of ground! Then we found what was tied to a buoy we saw. It was a crab trap, but it was collapsed with nothing in it.

Later on in the dive we came up upon Dionna and Mark. I wanted to harass them a bit, but they were busy doing a bottle switch, so we left them alone. Then after a bit, Paul called the dive and we did our minimum deco.

What an awesome day of diving!

All dives are fun, some are just more "entertaining" ;-)
Live Long and Deco

Harry

12/31/1969 Shale Beds aboard Escapade by Susan Bird -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Kevin Dow, Susan Bird

Visibility: Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 53F Surge:

Max Depth: 62FSW Avg Depth: 48FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:09

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Kevin & I dove together on the Escapade twilight & night dives. The more spectacular of the 2 dives was the night dive on Shale Island.

We descended to Jim's anchor placement, just to the west of the giant Navy anchor which resides on the island. We began our circumnavigation swimming towards the west:

http://www.baue.org/projects/shale/#Project_Data

The water was clean, and there was very little surge, so we were able to focus on the noctural behaviors of the island's residents.

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

Bottom Team: Alberto Nava, Susan Bird

Visibility: 100' Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 50F Surge: 3'

Max Depth: 100FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 1:00 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 30/30 Deco Gases: O2

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
After a long traveling month that started with Mexico, and ended in Florida, I was ready for some local diving with kelp and a lot of invertebrates. Susan and I joined the Cypress Sea for a Big Sur run together with several other members including: Clinton, Rob, Allison, Dionna, Mark, Harry, and Cameron.

There were some strong winds from the NW which make the area north or near Big Sur light house impossible for diving. However, farther south the conditions were a little calmer due to the protection for the land masses up north. We expected weather to get worst as the day progressed so we decided to start diving North and head down south during the day and then hold on for the trip back home.

The first dive on the day was at a shallow structure that sits about 2 miles south of the lighthouse. This is a 1000ft diameter reef which tops at 30ft and get to about 100ft on the
West side. There is a canyon that runs from the center towards the West end. The total length of the canyon is about 400ft long. This was a perfect scooter target for the day.

Visibility was close to 100ft and scooter through the canyon was a very nice experience. In some section it was very narrow and had a lot of invertebrates on the walls. Susan and I found a nice hole 10x5 on the north wall. The hole went about 20-30ft inside and then had a chimney going up at least 20ft. We found a nice octopus inside this little cavern. After about 30min we joined the rest of the diver and enjoyed the shallow kelp at the west end. It was a great feeling to be floating on the perfect blue water with school of rock fish all around and the kelp gently moving with the current. It was breath taking�

For the second dive we did Capt Phil favorite dive site in the West cost. Partintong Cayon wall. It was a nice relaxed dive and we found the skull of what it looks like a cow. Maybe this animal was the victim of a mayan ritual at the top of the cliff ;-). Of course the first words from the crew were �Did you put a light bag on them� ;-).

For the third dive we want to explore a new place and decided to check a reef north of Compost. It was a very nice reef with 3 main structures and a lot of kelp. Susan and I took the scooter for a second run and spend good 40min going around the different reefs.
Visibility was so good that you could see across reefs which were about 80-100ft.

Flying through the kelp with 100ft visibility remains me of why we love to dive in this area.

Here is a folder with several maps of the area.

12/31/1969 Star Trek by Joe Talavera -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Joe Talavera, Jody Svendsen

Support Team: Matt Hoelscher, Charlie

Visibility: 100' - 100' Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 82F - 84F Surge:

Max Depth: 216FSW Avg Depth: 210FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time:

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

Backgas Config: Double AL80 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
Jody and I decided to go diving on a Sunday. We were going to Star Trek; the local guys had me thinking it was an abandoned set from a Star Trek movie, until they told me there were wax cutouts of Kirk and Spock still on the bottom.

We dropped in on top of the wreck, and I was able to make out the shape around 140' or so. The wreck was lying on the starboard side, her bow pointing south. We dropped in on the wreckage, and then made our way aft to peek around the hull. Current pushed us back to the stern, so we decided to head around the other way. We passed over the wreckage, watching the tropical fishes dart in and out of the shadows we probed with our HID's. Eventually, we came to the bow and let the current push us along the hull until we hit a break. We then crossed back over to the top of the wreck before dropping into a swim thru that brought us from the stern through the holds, and up into the middle of the wreck from where we made our ascent.

Deco was uneventful, as we floated in the blue water, listening to outboards ponder if we were really big fish.

Joe

12/31/1969 Montana by Devin MacKenzie -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Alberto Nava, Devin MacKenzie

Visibility: 30' Time: 3:59 PM

Temp: 49F Surge:

Scooter: Gavin Long Burn Time:

Max Depth: 160FSW Avg Depth: 140FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:01

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Double LP80,LP104,AL80 Deco Tanks: AL40,AL80
Deco Profile:
~20@20




5@70
A very relaxed single dive day at Lobos. We were both trying out new battery packs and wighting on the scooters so we spent a bit of time playing getting things set up.

Vis was not great, but Beto could probably find the way to Montana with eyes closed. We scootered out from tip of middle reef to the wall and along 330deg or so following line segments where available. There is lots of broken loose and wrapped line out there. Beto put in a reel run for last stretch of sand to Montana and we scootered around counterclockwise, up in to the sea pen cleft in the sea mount then out and back to the reel. Lots of growth and an impression of the sheerness of the deepside wall enhanced by the dark ambient light conditions.

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