It was a great day blessed with good weather, for the most part, great visibility and friendly people. A special thanks to Penelope and the other folks who helped her to organize this event.
Thanks CaptnJack for making your boat available!
This time I was able to have a good look at the barges. I could recognize their shapes (when I dived this site before the visibility must have been quite bad) and see the boat (for the first time) and its dwellers including a couple of grunt sculpins tucked inside some pipes and the big sleepy GPO under its hull. Captn you did a great job in fixing Trevor's mask. You can add the humongous dive knife that I found down there for your marine paraphernalia collection if you have one.
Trevorrowe is was great meeting you again. I look forward to see the pictures that you took!
Thanks Bob for letting me use Cheng's Fusion dry suit and thanks Lynn for helping me in figuring out how to deal with the baggy inside layer. You were right: buoyancy control was much easier. I felt my neck and wrist cold, though, I guess because the latex seals are so thin that don't give any thermal protection and I am 'spoiled' by my neoprene seals. Latex also seems so fragile that I don't know if those seals will survive a rough handler like me. The boots were full of water at the end of the dive but maybe that's normal. The inflating? valve is a bit hard to operate, but then maybe that kind of valve, where you have to press a button at the center, is always like that...It was disappointing to discover that at the end of the dive my crotch was still wet! Well...maybe I do pee myself a bit at the end of a dive after all!!!!
During the second dive we spent about 20 minutes at the bottle field playing with the biggest spot prawns I ever seen (they were everywhere!), a beautifully big stubby squid and a bright orange yellow gunnel (that Dusty 2 identified as a young cockscomb) Sam and I lost our way back to the rope and the boats. I guess a let myself being lazy and did not pay much attention to navigation with a 'che sara' sara' attitude!, while Sam kept looking around to see any sign of man made structures gluing his yes on the compass. We ended up swimming along an endless featureless bottom covered with pebbles and sand, not even a sea star was hanging around in that wasteland. Sam surfaced briefly to see what the hell we were and came back down again. We basically crossed the beach and almost reached the pilings near the floating docks. Sometimes going off the beaten path is not such an exciting thing to do after all!
PS: I could not believe how much plastic trash there was at the bottle field! I would be interested to dedicate one dive in cleaning up the place a bit next time that the club organizes another CDive at Redondo! Next time I dive there I will try to remember to bring a bag too!
I saw a guy walking around with a video camera...Was it you, SeattleYates or the guy who posted a nice video about Mukilteo? 'Yellow Tail Rock Fish' diver (named after watching his video clip with a lot of YTRF) were you there yesterday? Some many people and so many screen names and real names to remember that my memory can't cope!
I look forward to seeing you again at Keystone!
. Darn you Uncle S., DAAARRRRNNNN YOOOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!! :angry: lol. Well now that's out of my system, hopefully I'll be able to make the Keystone Dive.
