Dive Report - May 21, 2006
Elaine, Beth, and I made the trip around PV to dive the wreck of the Avalon. Elaine promised great vis once we got below the muck and she was right! The vis up top was a very green 10ft, but it opened up to 40+ once we got to about 50fsw. We anchored near the bow and swam the length of the wreck to the crane near the stern. It was a beautiful dive with a huge school of Seaperch, some nudibrachs, a few big ling cod, and according to Elaine, at least one shy Black Sea Bass.
The school of seaperch was huge! Check out the mature sheepshead hanging out with them.
Here's a close up of one of the ling cod. Note - my
pictures are a bit grainy because I set the ISO to 800 in order to photograph
the school of perch
in the trivial amount of ambient light available on the Avalon. I forgot
to change it back once I started doing macro (duh!).
Check out the video of the seaperch and the ling.
Hey Brad - I dedicate this one to you!
The next dive was the large pipe at White's Point Outfall
(sewage pipe). The pipes end in about 160fsw.
We dove in about 60fsw to stay well away from the end. The pipe is about
12' dia and is pretty much covered in basketball to 5-gal bucket
sized quarry rock. The top of the pipe occasionally peeks from beneath the
rocks and is decorated with corynacty and gorgonians.
We found a bunch of Acanthodoris lutea mating down there.
We also found a baby abalone near the pipe.
On the way to the Avalon this morning we found some very intersting structure on the sonar in about 110' out in front of Pt. Fermin. Elaine and I decided to do a quick bounce (with a big safety stop) to get an idea of what it was. I only had 11 mins of NDL @ 110' after all of the other dives and Elaine started with less than a full tank. The plan was to go in without cameras because we needed to move fast. We would haul butt down the line, do a quick 5-6 minute survey, and head back up. We both felt a bit of apprehension about leaving the cameras behind but that's what the dive plan called for. Sure enough, the second we stuck our heads underwater on the anchor line we saw FOUR molas swimming in formation about 6ft away! It was an awesome sight and all we could do was look at each other and grin. After enjoying them for a minute we continued on with our plan. It was pitch black down there and I dropped my anchor right in the middle of the "thing". I'm still not sure what the "thing" is because I only had time to clear the anchor and start heading up. Oh well, it's not going anywhere and there'll be another chapter to this story :-)
It was another GREAT day of being on the water, diving, and hanging out with two beautiful women!