Dive 56 - Newport Pier - Newport Beach, CA

12/15/10


This was our second ever night dive and was simply outstanding!  We've been talking to Mike for about a month trying to find a night where the conditions are good for a dive and we finally go it in right before the rain hit.


We saw tons of Spanish Shawls, various other Nudibranchs, lots of crabs (lots of them mating too).  There was a large sea star that was eating a crab.   The highlights were seeing two bay pipefish, a relative of the seahorse that is about as thing as a headphone cable and also Mike found an Octopus hiding under a fallen plank.  


Great dive.  Mike said it was possibly his favorite ever california dive, I can understand that.  Nothing is quite as amazing and haunting as going into the ocean at night.

·      Time In:                                   07:52 PM

·      Bottom Time:                           00:49

·      Depth:                                      21ft

·      Buddy:                                     Jenni Wilson-Cooper & Mike Kelly

·      Visibility:                                  5-10 ft

·      Temperature:                            57º

Dive 55 - Shaws Cove - Laguna Beach, CA

12/08/10

2:03pm to 2:31pm
Buddy: Jenni Wilson-Cooper, Joe Tustison
Depth: 33ft
Bottom Time: 28 minutes
Vis: 8ft to 10ft
Temp: 57°

Notes:

We did this dive on the same tank as the earlier dive, as we had about 1800 PSI left and didn't want to walk up and down the 80 or so stairs at Shaws Cove, which is a daunting task with 70lbs of gear on your back.  Especially after doing a bunch of overhead squats that morning at Crossfit.

The thing that amazed me about this dive, was how much worse the conditions were only about 40 minutes after getting out of the last dive.  Surge was noticeably stronger, visibility was lower, and the water at some point turned very green (usually something you only see around 50 feet and below).

I fixed the issue with my video housing, however, when we got down the lense fogged up, so again I was unable to shoot.  This can happen due to temperature shifts, I need to get some moister packs to put inside the housing. 

There was one epic moment looking up at a giant reef structure with Kelp surging back and forth that was quite nice, but short lived.

Since it was our AWARE fish ID dive I should point out a few things we saw:
- Lots of girabaldi
- Lots of Sea Urchins
- Some Spanish Shawl Nudibranches
- A really cool rockfish

This was our Final AWARE Certification Dive.

Dive 54 - Shaws Cove - Laguna Beach, CA

12/08/10

Start: 12:40pm
Buddy: Jenni Wilson-Cooper, Joe Tustison
Depth: 35ft
Bottom Time: 34 minutes
Vis: 15ft to 20ft
Temp: 57°

Notes:
Very fun dive, we saw lots of Spanish Shawl Nudibranches. Such fun little creatures!

Visibility was oddly much better closer to shore, maybe about 20ft.  Once we got out to the edge of the reef structure it was not as good.  Jenni got some nice pics.  I was hoping to get some video, but I messed up when I put my camera into it's housing and I was unable to use the record button.

This was our final Underwater Photography dive.