Date: 12-30-10
Location: Palos Verdes
Time: 10:15 am
Dive Length: 35 mins
Swells: 8 footers, with the occasional 9 footer, and white caps as far as the eye could see
Viz: absolute zero–no joke: Iraqi-sandstorm-can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face-zero-viz
Mix: 32%
Dive Buddy: NOAA Jim
Dive Boat: California Science Center Boat: Maximus
Highlights:
Despite generally poor conditions up and down the coast of Southern California recently, Los Angeles Science Center divers got the call Monday to show up this week for some kelp harvesting for the Ecosystem Kelp Exhibit, so NOAA Jim and I headed up to San Pedro to meet up with the Center boat Maximus.
On the way out to the dive site in Palos Verdes, we flew over some pretty decent 8 ft swells, with white caps everywhere, so we were under no illusion as to the conditions we’d be diving in–and sure enough, when we dropped anchor, even in the protected area of the dive site, visibility was absolute zero. You literally could not see your hand in front of your face.
We had to grope our way, hand-over-hand, to fronds of macrocystis in the swirling, underwater ‘sandstorm’ and harvest them by feel: the assignment was to get 15-20 footers, with the holdfasts, so they could be reattached to rocks in the Ecosystems Kelp Exhibit.
Once you got the feel for it [ha, ha!], it actually wasn’t too hard–but, it was tricky in the zero viz, because it always seemed that a neighboring kelp frond, as if in retaliation for harvesting his ‘buddy,’ would try and wrap itself around your leg, foot, or tank valve, so you’d have to untangle yourself from ‘him’ first, before being able to make your way back to the surface with the 15-20 footer you had just harvested.
But, eventually, we got what we had come for and had to make our way back to San Pedro, for a date with the dock crane, which apparently, was only available until noon that day. If you stop and think about it, which I hadn’t–it requires a crane to return a large container of sea water and harvested kelp fronds to the dock.
See below for some rather jerky video I took on the way out–blame the swells for that–as well as video I took of our DSO, Chris Wade, guiding the crane over the kelp container, in order to lift it onto a truck for transport back to the Science Center.
‘nuther day in Paradise, folks! 
Photo:
Skipper Megan: http://tinyurl.com/2ftax3k
