Sunday, May 30, 2010

Dive Report - 5/30/10 La Jolla Shores



Date: 5/30/10
Location: La Jolla Shores, CA
Time in: 6:53 AM
Time under: 70 minutes
Max depth: 62 ft
Min temp: 53 F, cold
Vis: 5-10 ft, mostly 5 w/ pea soup.
Waves: 1-3 ft w/ occasional 4 footer
Buddy: Mike Hallack

Highlights: Happy to be diving at all with this el nino. Saw stearns aoelids, lots of lion nudibranchs, a school of juvenile rockfish.

Weather topside is beautiful today and the waves weren't too bad. On our way out, I had to dive under one 4+ ft wave that was breaking right on us, but came out unscathed. It was pea soup green underwater, with vis less than 5 ft at the surface. At depth it got up to 10 ft in some spots. Mike and I had to use our lights to keep track of each other.



We saw the usual suspects, with lion nudibranchs crowding the remaining shreds of kelp. At Vallecitos Point, there was a knot of kelp all bunched together about 10 feet off the bottom. There was a group of lion nudibranchs and a school of juvenile rockfish all huddled inside. We surfaced in 5 feet of water with an uneventful exit.



More photos:
http://underpressurephoto.com/Dive-Reports/20100530-Scuba-LJS/

La Jolla Shores:

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Scott

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Dive Report - 5/16/10 La Jolla Shores



Date: 5/16/10
Location: La Jolla Shores
Time in: 7:59 am
Time under: 52 min
Max depth: 80 ft
Min temp: 53.6 F (Uwatec) - Spencer recorded 49 F
Vis: about 10 ft, less in the shallows, a tiny bit more at depth.
Waves: 1-3 ft, occasional bigger one. Easily timed.
Buddies: Spencer and Bill S.

Highlights: First dive in 7 weeks, first dive back at La Jolla Shores in 7 months.

It was really nice to get a dive in... finally. Waves were easy to get through and the vis was not spectacular, but with shooting macro, it didn't really matter. We dropped in a little north (Bill was 2ft off on his depth estimate at the drop in point, knowing that Spencer aims for 35 ft :) ) and stopped at the crap patch on the way south. We never quite made it to the Vallecitos Point, but that was fine with me. I had some buoyancy problems on the way in and up, since I was wearing an extra vest undergarment. Apparently, I need to add more than a couple of pounds. It was good to be shooting underwater again, since it's been forever.



More photos:
http://underpressurephoto.com/Dive-Reports/20100516-La-Jolla-Shores/

La Jolla Canyon:

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Scott

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Last rays of the setting sun at Moss Point, Laguna Beach, CA



Almost a month ago was another weekend, high and dry with no diving. I needed to get my fix at the beach, so I headed up to Laguna Beach for a Saturday night sunset. I knew the tide was going to be high, so I wore my scuba booties in case I needed to wade back to the stairs. I managed to time the waves to get over to the reef on the far left side of the cove.

I decided to shoot looking perpendicular to the sun to get the warm setting sunlight on the sandstone cliffs, combined with the texture of the sandstone reef I was perched on. This also meant I was getting splashed from behind from the incoming large waves and had to keep one eye behind me in case a really big one came in.

Moss Pt Cove, Laguna Beach CA:

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Scott