I was late (as usual) so I rushed to get geared up, and helped Scott adjust his brand new super awesome DSS rig before we got in the water.
There was very little current and visibility was easily 20+ feet. We decided to head south and check out the cabin cruiser while Kate, Eric, and Casey went north to see the satellite dish.
Life was booming at the cruiser, including a couple of very cute baby warbonnets and a very, very large octo tucked way back in. And, oddly enough, as we headed north to check out the tire piles the current came with us. It’s weird to feel a north running current at TTN.
58 minutes of bottom time and no lumpsuckers later, Matt and I exit the water (the other teams had gone on before us). During the surface interval the newly christened “Bladder Mobile” made a coffee and bathroom run up the road. I need to get a yellow flashing light for that.....
Dive #2. The plan this time was to head north. No north running current for us this time, we managed to hit some wicked southbound current. Yikes! Spatman and I dropped down a little south of the rest of the group, and were kicking our asses off to catch up. I wish the viz (or my camera) had been a little better...when we found them, the 5 of them were ahead of us, in a perfect line, bubbles rising, kicking their asses off too, and going absolutely nowhere. Would have made a nice picture. Bollocks! I finally caught up, gave the signal for “Hell no! Turn around!” and we drifted south for a bit. Eventually we’d had enough and headed to shore. A whopping 19 minute bottom time for that dive.
On the surface we decided that current sucks and we’re heading to Redondo to see what was going on there. Loretta left us to head back to her family, while Spatman, Sheri, Scottsax, Pez, and Fishstiq (after some grumbling and “I dunno’s” , packed it in and booked it south, where we ran into Casey, Kalatin, and Sockmonkey again!
So, Dive #3 at Redondo. Oh, Redondo.....holy mamma what a dive!
Uh…where to start? Pretty good viz, ever so much better than the club dive. Lots of gunnels, baby warbonnets, full-sized warbonnets, sailfin sculpins, baby grunt sculpins, 3 octos out in the open, one big one in a den. Lots of alabaster nudis, which was nice after hardly seeing them at all this summer.
And a shark! A dogfish with a funny curve in its back.
Oh, and we saw a lobster. That was, I dunno, kinda cool, I guess.
Somebody want to tell me what the heck a maine lobster is doing in Puget Sound? Joe swam past with his eyes like pie plates and gave me a pinching hand signal, and pointed that way. Everyone was pretty excited over something, so I moseyed over so see what all the excitement was abo....”wtf?!?! a LOBSTER?! Who the hell let a frickin’ lobster loose!?!” Escapee from Salty’s? Did someone buy one from the grocery store and let it loose? It was nice of them to take the rubber bands off first.
I got some pretty cool video of Scott in perfect trim in his new gear and I didn't even get to see his perfectly executed back kick. Joe practiced shooting a bag at the end and Matt practiced removing his mask. Scott unintentionally kicked Sheri's mask off, so she got to practice that too. Incredible finds and a skills dive too!
Back on the surface, the excitement wasn’t over yet, as I almost did a faceplant in full gear (very graceful, I am) after tripping over the curb on the way back as I was heading over to coachrenz & co. to blather on about the lobster find. Then it turns out that Kate, Eric, and Casey exited the water not too far behind us, and they had almost the exact same dive that we did, seeing the dogfish and the lobster too. What a day!
Afterwards, Matt headed home and the rest of us (minus Joe) had beer, burgers, and some damn fine onion rings at the Deluxe. A most excellent day of diving with most excellent company.
