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Alacosta divers visited Emerald Bay at Catalina from September 25-October 2. Alacosta divers started their diving in their usual auspicious way.
Kevin Dalley and Tom Whitaker lost their dive lights on the first dive of the trip.
On her third dive, Susan Carter threw her dive light over the pontoon of the Achilles, which sat in 100 feet of water.
There was a shortage of horn sharks and moray eels, with an abundance of lobsters and sea urchins. After much research, Alacosta discovered that horn sharks generally drop down to 120 feet by winter. Moray eels, on the other hand, do not reproduce in southern California. Morays drift northward from areas where they do reproduce. Simon Kisch found the first horn shark. Unfortunately, it had died a few days earlier. Its back had been nibbled on a bit. The empty eye sockets seemed to follow the divers around the ocean. There was no stick sharpened at both ends.
Charlie Cleland found a message in a purple bottle. A few days later, Debbie Kane found a similar message inside a similar bottle. According to Debbie, the bottles were found in the mouth of dead dolphins.
A dive at Bird Rock caused many divers to forget their masks. Tom Whitaker left his mask behind and was unable to complete his dive. A few minutes later, Roy Benedict forgot his mask. Roy was able to dive by borrowing Susan Carter's mask. He was amazed to find that he could see underwater. Susan's prescription mask corrected Roy's vision better than his own mask.
The Blurb cross dressed during this trip. He wore Debbie Kane's weight belt during a dive when he left his own weight belt behind. He attempted to repeat the feat attempting to free a stuck anchor, but decided to use his own weight belt as the tremendous depth of dive prevented the use of Debbie's belt. On the trip back to surface, the Blurb had to remove the anchor from his mouth in order to bite through the kelp which entangled around his fins.
On the same dive, John Beland discovered that the bow line of the Achilles has been lengthened so that it was just long enough to catch in the engine. The engine was released from the bow line with a little effort.
Debbie Kane reached a personal limit for a cold water dive of 45 minutes for a Catalina dive with Roy Benedict during her 30 foot dive. Usually Debbie dives with Tom Whitaker, which causes her to breath more quickly, especially when he places a clump of grass in an obscene place!
Gary Schleimer attempted a night dive on Thursday, after repairing his video camera for a few hours. The dive was successful, but the video camera still did not work.
Hank Collins made sure that we never ran out of coffee. There was freshly prepared coffee every hour, day or night.
Common dolphin were sighted in large numbers on Friday's morning dive to Ship Rock. More than a dozen dolphins were sighted. They leaped a few feet into the air. Other dolphins rode the bow wake of our inflatables.
There were many salps at Catalina this year. Both the sexually and asexually reproducing forms were all over the place. Many of the salps were dead and decaying. A few were still alive. The salp look similar to Thetys vagina.
Alacosta shared their campsite with a group of naturalists and 60 7th graders. Surprisingly, everything went well until the naturalists stole the last of the Alacosta chips and salsa.
On the way home, Tom Whitaker and Debbie Kane had car problems. Tom's car stopped running just north of Harris Ranch. Under Tom's name, they were towed 100 miles toward Pacifica. Then they used Debbie's name to be towed the additional 100 miles to Pacifica. The stress built during the trip. Upon arrival in Pacifica, Debbie vacuumed.
After finishing the abalone dive, we moved to a nearby pinnacle to prepare for a scuba dive. After sitting in the rough water for a while, Udit Minocha decided that it was best to return to land.
Eventually, Tom, John, and Kevin Dalley returned to the
pinnacle to complete a wonderful dive. The team reached 90 feet,
and 
F. The visibility was about 5 feet near the surface,
reaching 6 feet at depth.
Many dive boats advertise the wonders of drift diving. In California, we can experience many of the advantages of drift diving during our surge diving. In a surge dive, divers need not exert themselves in order to move from one area to another. In drift diving, returning to a desired location requires a lot of effort. In surge diving, a diver can return to that favorite location after just a short wait. In drift diving, a boat captain needs to follow the divers to ensure that it is possible for the divers to reenter the boat at the end of the dive. In surge diving, the boat can be left anchored above. The divers return to their starting point without a captain.
The Van Damme surge dive added to the excitement of horizontal surge diving by adding occasional vertical surge diving. Every diver should have this experience. The divers saw a large number of Loxorhynchus crispatus, also known as moss crabs, or occasionally decorating crabs. A few large shrimps hid in the rocks.
Saturday evening, Alacosta celebrated another successful day by slaughtering a few fatted abalone.
blurb@alacosta.org