Rapture of the Deep

Date: 12-28-07

Time: 11:30

Location: Cathedral Heights, Scripps Canyon, La Jolla, CA

Dive Length: 40 mins

Temp: 50 F b-b-b-bone chilling degrees–brrrrr!

Viz: a dark and hazy 10-12 ft. due to Green Algae Bloom

Max Depth: 132 ft.

Mix: 29%

Critters Seen: not too many fish…..many Yellow, Orange and Red Sponges, Red Gorgonians, San Diego Dorids and several species of Opisthobranchs unknown to me……and a sizable Sheepcrab

Well…. all things considered, things went quite well today.

By that I mean, I coordinated a major dive trip on the open ocean [50 mins each way] on Capt. Barb’s boat without hurling anyone into the water [ much to NOAA Jim's immense relief!] and led a dive on Scripps, which included someone who had never dived it before and they came out impressed with what they saw, despite rather dark and cold conditions at depth.

The only thing I would have done differently would be to get an earlier start next time: 9 am is really not early enough when you have 50 min trip each way and a full day of diving.

Nonetheless, after successfully mooring up to the Fuel Dock [not ricocheting off it, like last time...] and filling up for the trip, we were on our way out of the channel and heading North, towards Scripps Pier, just North of La Jolla Shores.

Although I knew the basic route [North], I still used the pre-set route on the GPS to get us to the general site off of Black’s Beach and discovered a newfound respect for Capt. Barb’s ability to zero in on the exact anchor drop area as indicated on the Garmin.

It’s one of those things that’s easier said than done: the spot is marked on the GPS, but as you zoom in closer and closer, the little X mark becomes increasingly elusive as you close in on it, especially when there is wind chop and current.

I found myself driving in smaller and smaller circles, like playing a video game on the GPS, attempting to line up the little boat ‘thingie’ with the little location marker ‘thingie’ on the screen. Real impressive, I know.

Finally, I just gave up getting the two thingies to line up and we dropped anchor fairly near to the marked area in 50 ft. of water and let out a bunch of scope on the anchor, to allow for drift and it seemed to work.

The amazing thing was: I ended up dropping the anchor a mere 50 ft or so from the edge of the canyon. Bingo!

Oh, ye of little faith……

For some reason, at this spot, several schools of rather large dolphins had decided to make this area their playground, and for the rest of the day, cavorted in and around the area of the boat for the rest of the day…….some of them becoming, on occasion, airborne while leaping from the water only yards from the boat. How cool is that?

We had one person on board who had never dived Scripps before, Jim #2, or Jimbo as we ended up calling him, to distinguish him from ‘NOAA Jim.’

We wanted him to have the best time possible, but remain safe in the bottomless abyss, so it was decided that NOAA Jim and [Iron Man] Charlie would go in first, because they both had scooters, to be the ‘canaries in the coal mine,’ so to speak, and report back on conditions, and then, Jimbo would be sandwiched between two ‘Scripps Veterans,’ me and Peter on the descent. [Peter and I knew each other from the good ol' days of diving Scripps from shore 4 years ago with the former UCSD Dive Club, which still makes the pilgrimage up 'Heart Attack Hill' after every dive with George Spalding of "Doriopsilla spaldingi" fame].

So, Charlie and NOAA Jim jumped in with their scooters and quickly disappeared in a cloud of bubbles……reappearing a mere 30 minutes later, reporting extremely dark and cold conditions in the abyss below. Rats!

I had been hoping for better conditions for Jimbo’s ‘maiden voyage’ into the deep here……..oh, well: we would just have make the best of it. We suited up and jumped in and down the line we went.

Sure enough, on the way down, an icy cold gripped us immediately, giving me an instant ‘ice cream headache’ before we even reached the bottom, where the anchor lay. Jim had been right: it was colder than a witch’s you-know-what….and I was in a 3mm crushed neoprene dry suit with thick liner.

As we reached canyon edge and dropped down, it only got colder and blacker. The cold gripped us like a giant fist as we dropped into the abyss.

And, it got darker and darker, the further we dropped, until below 100 ft. it was as black and cold as night in the Arctic.

Upwelling, ‘nutrient-rich’ [and ass-freezing] currents from the lower reaches of the canyon, no doubt.

As we dropped further into the black, cold abyss, I maneuvered so that Jimbo was sandwiched between me and Peter on the way down, in case of problems. I looked at my computer….it read, as I had feared: 50 F. Brrrr!

I switched my Nite Rider wrist light on double beam. This dive was definitely going to be a ‘double-beamer’!

Amazingly, though, by the time we hit around 130 ft., the viz seemed to open up a bit and as we swept out lights across the steep rock face of the canyon, we could make out beautiful yellow, orange and red sponges everywhere, glowing like multi-colored neon in our lights.

The occasional Vermilion Rockfish would flit by, gazing at us curiously, but for the most part, the marine life on display today was mainly sessile.

We leveled out and began heading South, per our original plan.

Despite the rather harsh conditions, Jimbo seemed to be enjoying himself, sweeping his light up and down the dramatic vertical and horizontal cracks which seem to split the rock face into various sections and taking the occasional photo with his camera.

Leaning back, we could make out the jutting ledges high above us, silhouetted against the dark green gloom of the algae bloom, high above.

We peeked into the cracks, hoping to spot a Swell Shark or at least a Moray, but all large animal life seemed to have fled due to the upwelling cold current from the abyss below.

We remained in tandem as we proceeded South, along the canyon, until we almost reached our agreed turnaround point, but I made the decision to turn around early, due to the cold: my 5 mm-gloved hands were becoming numb and I could only imagine how Jimbo, in a 9mm wetsuit was faring.

So, we began the long, slow ascent, back the way we came, slowly rising above the cliff-face, to the lighter, shallower [but, no warmer depths.

Here, the steep canyon cliffs gave way to the sandy outcroppings at around 70 ft., replete with beautiful neon-red Gorgonians everywhere, waving gently in the current and tiny fish flitting around between them.

Occasionally we would encounter huge, sandstone boulders, the size of Mac trucks, lying about.

We were trying to locate the line we had left at around this depth, but, as we later found out, the flashing strobe on it had become flooded, depriving us of a signal beacon to home in on.

We never found the flashing strobe, so I decided we should begin heading in East, towards the boat. The cold was becoming a distraction to everyone.

Turns out, I failed to allow for a pretty stiff South-bound current, which I never noticed and after our safety stop, we popped up about 1/4 mile South of the boat and had a good, long swim to get back. I really hate that when you come up from a dive, and the boat is real tiny on the horizon--don't you?

Despite this and the rather cold and unforgiving conditions below in the canyon, it turned out that our Scripps newbie, Jimbo, had thoroughly enjoyed his dive and was chomping at the bit to do it again.

Well, that was good enough for me and made the day worth it.

Amazingly [and predictably enough] it was the dry suit divers who whined and complained the most about the cold, myself included and declined to do a second dive……Jimbo had been cold in his wet suit, but not drastically so. Go figure.

The other factor was the late start we had gotten: it was now almost 2 o’clock and we still had a relatively long journey home. Everybody just wanted to be warm again.

Only ‘Iron Man’ Charlie had the you-know-whats to go back in , so we sent him back down, with his scooter and redundant air supply to do a second dive. He popped up 50 mins later, shivering but happy at having made a second dive, current being of no concern to him with a scooter that would do 3 knots.

We threw him and his scooter back on board and set the helm and GPS to ‘Home’ at 25 knots and were back at the dock within 45 mins., after racing several schools of dolphins on the way back.

All in all, it was an excellent day of diving and boating and no one went into the water suddenly or involuntarily and I managed to park the boat backwards without taking out half the dock this time.

But, everyone, I imagine will breath a large sigh of relief when Capt Barb returns to the helm on Monday!

Date: Christmas Eve: 12-24-07

Time: 12:20

Location: Farthest South Kelp Beds of Pt. Loma: now named ‘Matt’s Reef’

Dive Purpose: Bottom Survey for Possible Sink Site for ‘Ships to Reefs’ Program

Dive Length: 35 mins

Mix: 31%

Max Depth: 103 ft.

Critters Seen: Where do I begin? Giant Spined Starfish, Bat Stars, Fragile Stars, Blood Stars, Rainbow Stars, Lacy Bryozoa, Volcano Sponge, Yellow Sponge, Orange Sponge, Macrocystis, Rockfish, Male and Female Sheephead, Blackmith, Lingcod,
Keyhole Limpets, Chestnut Cowries, Wavy Turbansnails, Kellet’s Whelks, Senoritas, Strawberry Anemones, Aggregating Anemones, Zoanthid Anemones, Urticina mcpeaki, Cup Coral………..sheesh……the list goes on [and on and on and on....]: how much can you remember?

How many people can say that a dive was worth it after: their dry suit became flooded with icy cold sea water, a flooded SPG and an episode of major vertigo at 100 ft? I can, after today.

The day started off auspiciously enough when NOAA JIm met me at the dock at 9 am with a young 16 yr. old in tow, whom he presented to me as ‘Matt’ with the words: “This guy can drive a boat.”

Apparently, his parents own a boat and he’s been around boats all his life and, as we were to find out, knew what he was doing around boats. That was all I needed to hear: I handed him the keys and we never looked back.

[I guess this was Jim's way of telling me he was done with swimming around the dock with his clothes on--who knew?]

So, we stopped for some gas and then were on our way to the first dive site.

The purpose of today’s diving was to scout out some suitable sites to sink warships and/or battle tanks for the San Diego Ships to Reefs Program. As Chair of the Sink Site Committee, it’s my job to recruit smart guys like NOAA Jim to do some of the legwork. Working for NOAA doesn’t hurt either, when it comes to access to bathymetric maps.

First stop was a site directly West of the Mission Bay Channel, about 2 miles, where Jim wanted to survey a site he had seen on his GIS maps, a spot that looked like it had a possible wall which dropped from 85 ft down to 100 ft. which looked promising for a warship.

Because I had felt a virus coming on this morning, but had successfully nuked the congestion with Sudafed, I decided to make only the second survey dive and send Jim and his scooter down to do the first one.

So, with Master Capt. Matt at the helm, we took Jim out to the spot, did a bit of reconnoitering on the surface, and using the GPS, decided on a spot and did a ‘live drop,’ meaning we dropped Jim off at the site, and rather than drop anchor, simply followed his bubbles with the boat and awaited the pre-agreed shooting of the lift bag to locate his position and pick him up.

He made pretty good time with the scooter, with us following behind his bubbles at about 2-3 knots, finally came up to report that it looked like a good site, so we marked it on the GPS and moved on.

I had heard of this second site, in Pt. Loma, which Jim called The Fingers [not to be confused with Three Fingers, which is quite a bit North] before: Jim had been ranting and raving about it for a couple weeks now, but nothing could have prepared me for what a spectacular site it really was.

Capt Matt wove the boat masterfully at 25 knots or so, back and forth between the kelp beds in Pt Loma, until we came to the site, at the very Southern tip of the peninsula. The only thing you could see South of here is the Coronados Islands.

We dropped anchor at the spot as Jim remembered it, using lineups on the hill high above us, and suited up.

After briefing Matt on our diving habits and proper protocol with the marine band radio in case of emergency, we dropped into the 52 F. water, knowing the boat was in good hands.

No sooner had I begun descending than I felt the dreaded trickle of ice cold water down my leg and into my socks. This suit had a leak and a bad one at that. Ironically, I had borrowed it from Barb, forgetting that this had been the suit which we called the ‘Hole in the Butt Suit’ because of the hole that had been burned into it by a halogen light head a few months back.

CRS is getting worse, I see.

Anyway, I remember thinking to myself: “Jim: this site had better be good, because I’m making the decision not abort and to dive in a wet ‘dry suit’ to check it out with you!”

I was not disappointed.

So, with the stream of ice cold water still trickling down my leg, we hit the bottom of the kelp forest at around 70 ft. and headed South on our predetermined route.

The bottom here was classic kelp forest flora and fauna, with all the usual suspects, Senoritas, Sheephead, Rockfish and lots of huge kelp fronds, but nothing really spectacular.

But, we continued heading South, with Jim zooming up ahead on his scooter and the doubling back to make sure I was still following.

Soon, we came to what appeared to be the Southern tip of the reef and it became sand at around 100 ft……….all the way to the Coronados Islands.

I was like: “This is it?” “This is what you brought me down here for in a flooded dry suit for?”

Dude…….

Then, Jim zoomed around me and, with a twinkle in eye, beckoned me to follow him back the way we came, this time on slightly NW heading.

This time we arced around in a slight curve back the way we came and headed back towards the kelp forest.

Next thing I knew I was approaching a wall: a VERY BIG wall: it towered above me as far as I could see in the 20 ft. viz.
I couldn’t believe it…….I had never seen anything this big in Pt. Loma. It dwarfed the pinnacles in Broomtail Reef.

We literally could not see the top of this wall from the bottom at 100 ft.

Unfortunately, because I had made the decision [against my better judgment] to take Sudafed to mask my cold symptoms and dive, the second I looked up to try and visually scale the height of this thing, I was immediately hit with massive attack of vertigo and the entire universe began spinning clockwise at extremely high speed.

Ye olde stomach let me know in no uncertain terms that it wanted to evacuate its contents, like…….RIGHT NOW.

This can be quite unpleasant at 100 ft., especially when combined with a bit of narcosis.

I immediately reached out to grab the wall, looked down and the spinning stopped. Whew! Take my advice: don’t dive with a cold, especially if you’ve taken cold medication for it.

Once I got everything to stop spinning and stopped looking up, I was able to take notice of the wall.

It was the largest thing besides the Yukon I had ever seen underwater: it was alive and glowing with color and just teeming with life.

Giant Spined Starfish, Bat Stars, Fragile Stars, Blood Stars, Rainbow Stars, Lacy Bryozoa, Volcano Sponge, Yellow Sponge, Orange Sponge, Keyhole Limpets, Chestnut Cowries, Wavy Turbansnails, Kellet’s Whelks, Senoritas, Strawberry Anemones, Aggregating Anemones, Zoanthid Anemones, Urticina mcpeaki, Cup Coral…..with Rockfish, male and female Sheephead and schools of Blacksmith patrolling about………it was absolutely gorgeous.

Now I could see what Jim had been ranting about for the past 2 weeks.

It had been worth it.

But, now our problem became how to get around this thing. Obviously, the only way was up.

So, we slowly glided up: 90 ft., 80 ft. 70 ft. and this thing just kept coming.

Finally, at close to 60 ft., we came to the top, which was covered in huge kelp fronds reaching up to the surface, far above.

Just as we crested the top, we saw a huge Lingcod just sitting there, eyeing us warily.

This guy was nearly a meter long.

Jim arced around in his scooter and came straight at it, video camera running…..whereupon, it seemed to leap up and zoom off into the distance, with Jim in hot pursuit…….I had to laugh. Good luck catching him!

Unfortunately, by now the leaky butt in my dry suit had become nearly a flood, and both feet were now filling up with ice cold water, hampering my ability to fin forward and I realized it was time to begin heading toward the boat and end the dive, so I signaled Jim with my light that I was heading back to the boat.

I made the mistake of taking a final look upward towards the surface, to gauge where the boat might be, and once again was hit with massive spinning and vertigo. This time, had nothing to grab onto, except the kelp fronds around me.

This time, I decided enough was enough, and when the spinning stopped, I headed back on original course we were on towards the boat. It was a shame I couldn’t linger in this underwater paradise, but I had issues to deal with and I had already decided we would return later in the week.

Luckily for us, our heading led us right back to the anchor chain and I was able to complete my safety stop without further incident–by being careful not to look up!

Back on the boat, Jim and I ranted and raved to Matt about how beautiful the wall had been and agreed we would name it in Matt’s honor, for having done such a good job as boat capt.

Once back onboard, I saw how badly my suit had been flooded: the feet made the dreaded ‘sloshing’ sound when I walked and when I took it off, about a quart of cold sea water came pouring out of the feet. Whew! It sure felt good to get out of that suit!

Naturally, back at the marina, Matt made a perfect entry with the boat into the slip [backwards]….first time……. and then looked over to us as if to say, “What was so hard about that?”

I can’t stand it.

But, minor mishaps aside, it was truly a gorgeous day in paradise, both underwater and above, with sunny skies and glassy flat seas and we plan to return again as soon as we can.

Happy Holidays, all……….and dive safe……oh, and, please……..take it from me: don’t dive on cold medicine when you have a cold!

Mikey

[I should like to take this opportunity to thank NOAA Jim for all the work he has done on the boat and the windlass--without him, it would have been a lot more work!]

Dive #1 [Actual: #743]

Location: Dragon Head, Pt. Loma

Time: 11:19 am

Dive Length: 38 mins

Max Depth: 100 ft.

Surface Conditions: absolutely flat: Lake Pt Loma

Viz: 10-12 ft.

Temp: 54 F

Mix: 28%

Critters Seen: Blacksmith, Copper Rockfish, male and female Sheephead, Giantspined, Shortspined, Fragile, Blood and Leather Starfish, Blackeyed Gobis, Painted Greenlings, Red and Brown Algae, Orange and Yellow Sponges, ISIFS [I'm Sure I'm Forgetting Something]…..

It’s been a long day on the water, so, for once I’ll keep this mercifully short–HA!

We had a pretty full boat today, with NOAA Jim, Iron Man Charlie and Dan, who, having come over recently from Virginia, had never been to Dragon Head before, so we motored out under cool but sunny skies with high hopes of showing him a good time. He was not disappointed.

My goal was to complete a REEF Vertebrate survey.

Anchoring at Dragon Head, it was decided that Dan, Barb [with video cam] and I would splash in first and let the two Scooter Twins, Jim and Charlie go in last with their underwater rockets.

The 3 of us descended down the anchor line and placed the line with the flashing strobe right on the edge of the wall, which drops from 90 down to 100 ft.

Upon arrival, we discovered we that we had anchored on the farthest West end of the wall, which runs, not surprisingly, East to West and peters out on the far West end, sort of the way Great Wall in China does, so it was decided we would head East towards the Dragon’s Head to explore.

The 10 ft. wall was replete with marine life hiding in all the various nooks and crannies and an absolute kaleidescope of color, with the various types of brown and red algae and Red, Yellow and Orange Sponges.

Giant Spined, Short Spined, Fragile, Blood and Leather Starfish, lay about everwhere and Blackeyed Gobis, Painted Greenlings darted in and out between the crevices and vertical cracks in the wall.

Barb stayed on the high part of the wall, around 85 ft., while Dan and I explored the lower reaches of the wall, between 95-100 ft.

Surprisingly, there was no current today, as often the current running through here can be rippin’.

I was able to get a full sheet filled out on my slate, so much marine life was there at this spot.

After a surprisingly short dive of only about 30 mins admiring the beauty of the wall, we were all running into deco and it was time to come up, so we reluctantly began the long climb upward to sunlight and air, between the giant fronds of kelp.

Dan and Barb said they saw a seal come down to play with us, but apparently, I missed him–rats!

Great dive, anyway, though!

Dive #2 [Actual: #744]

Location: Broomtail Reef, about 1/2 mile North of Dragon Head

Time: 1:48 pm

Dive Length: 48 mins

Max Depth: 57 ft.

Viz: 25–30 ft.

Temp: 55 F.

Critters Seen: Very similar to above: Blacksmith, Copper Rockfish, male and female Sheephead, Giantspined, Shortspined, Fragile, Blood and Leather Starfish, Blackeyed Gobis, Painted Greenlings, Red and Brown Algae, Orange and Yellow Sponges

Broomtail Reef is rapidly becoming one of our favorite sites now. The underwater topography is absolutely amazing.

Barb, Dan and I dropped down immediately onto one of the pinnacles jutting up from the flat Kelp forest bottom like giant hands at around 50 ft.

Some of these pinnacles are triangular in shape, others are mushroom shaped, ie wide at the top than at the base.

This one was triangular in shape and about 15 ft. in circumference at the base, with all sorts of overhangs and crannies for marine life to hide in. Blacksmith fish and male and female sheephead seem to circumnavigate it in a slow circle, while gobies and Greenlings played about at the top. And, much to Barb’s delight, It was also nudibranch heaven.

Dan and I decided to leave Barb here to hunt nudis with her video cam as we headed off due North into the dark of the beckoning kelp forest all around us.

At first it was a bit spooky, penetrating the dark Macrocystis forest, but, then as we glided through them, the visibility opened up and we were amazed at the underwater topography in this area.

At first, all you could see were huge Macrocystis holdfasts every 2 meters, and huge kelp fronds, 50 ft high, as far as the eye could see.

Then, as we penetrated further, the bottom flattened out and we could make out another GIANT pinnacle, this sitting out in the open, like a huge mushroom, about 20 ft across at the top, with numerous overhangs on each side, providing shelter
for the abundance of marine life here.

We circumnavigated this pinnacle for a few minutes, admiring its beauty, before forging on in a Northward direction, not really knowing exactly where we were heading.

We entered another dense forest of kelp and the spooky darkness returned, but we were kept company by large schools Senoritas and Blacksmith as we forged ahead admiring the stunning beauty of this underwater wilderness.

Finally, we emerged from this kelp forest into an area with large granite stones next to one another, forming huge crevices between the rocks, which when you peered down into them, revealed large clumps of Spiny Lobster, huddled together for protection…….antennas waving in the current.

After cruising about this area for a bit, we decided it was time to begin heading back, before we wandered too far from the boat.

After kicking back along a reverse compass course for about 15 mins., I gave the signal to ascend to look for the boat and we slowly made our way to our safety stop and the surface.

As we hung in the top layers of the kelp, large groups of Kelp Bass flitted all around us, keeping us company the whole time.

Long rays of slivery sunlight rippled through the kelp, lending an almost fairlyland appearance to it.

It turned out we had surfaced not far from the boat, so I took a compass heading and we ducked back down and began heading towards it under the thick canopy of kelp between us and it.

As we descended back down towards the bottom again, I noticed it was an unusual area, strewn with boulders and large granite rocks, with huge crevices between then and an strange-looking 10 foot section of pipe which lay at odd angles along the bottom.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have the gas supply or bottom time to explore more, so I made a mental note to mark this spot with our GPS and return another day.

We surfaced, happy and amazed at the beauty of the underwater wilderness we had been privileged to see, once again.

‘Nuther day in paradise, folks!