Saturday, August 8, 2020

Feeling like a former diver

     
This was my first dive in exactly 6 months and I'd thought my previous surface interval of 59 days was bad :/

D'Or and I decided on an easy dive to shake off the rust and make sure my drysuit's zipper replacement was good. He'd already been diving quite a bit and didn't have the jitters about social distancing at the dive site that I did - that turned out to be a non-issue and, other than pre and post-dive socializing, was exactly the same.

Pretty low tide when we got in and the visibility inside the cove was worse than what I would have expected at the trough - brown like miso soup made but also darker due to the thick kelp canopy. There was also some magnetic interference caused due to solar flares and Saturn being in retrograde that messed with my compass and resulted in multiple navigational errors.

Granite Point Wall side was murky and super surgy. Hole in the Wall and slightly deeper towards Lone Metridium was much nicer. The ascent was a clusterfudge mainly because I forgot how to do them. And then I got us tangled in the surface kelp on the way back.
Classic.

-> 71ft, 70min, 20-30ft viz in some areas, dive-by-braille in others, 50F

Short and simple dive - no stages and didn't venture out too far. Nothing particular to note except it's great to be back in the water and see my dive buddies. Also glad that my drysuit stayed dry after a zipper replacement.

 - U

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Beto's Reef

 
First dive after Cave 1 - the Perdix was practically taunting me as it showed a surface interval of 59 days. Huge waves were crashing on the wash rocks outside the cove and we almost didn't go in but D'Or and I both had gear we wanted to test out so even getting in the water was a win.

Beto's Reef was awesome as usual. Viz was a little hazy but didn't take away from the reef and tons of hydrocorals and elephant ear sponges we saw.

Super fun to be back in the cold - zipgloves are way warmer than the pull-ons I had before.

-> 123ft, 57min, 20-30ft viz, 52F

 - U