Old dives

Lobos Diving July 7th
Twenty-seven shots above the Sea
By Susan Carter, Trip Chairperson

With eight divers that actually got wet, the turn-out for the club dive on July 7th was excellent and the club members that came were treated to some world class diving! Some divers even showed up for breakfast at Baker's Square, where they managed to pick up another buddy, Oliver Edwards, a member of the Aqua Tutus Dive Club, who turned out to be an excellent addition to the crew. Upon arrival at Lobos and after listening to lectures from the Rangers directed at certain ``older'' members of the club who hadn't realized that Lobos's rules regarding buddy pairs are now more stringent than they might have been five or six years ago (reportedly the last time Linda Yee Nakamura had on her dry suit) club members were pleased to find absolutely flat seas in the cove (only the kelp would have gotten in the way of water skiing) and less than two foot swells outside.

Much to the amusement of on-lookers, the group managed to get all eight divers AND all of their gear into the Latex Queen, and even started the engine (the Long Shaft) without incident. With such favorable conditions, a run over to the Great Pinnacle outside Bluefish Cove was in order. If you didn't join us, and want to know more about this site, check out the write-up in the Lobos web site at http://pt-lobos.parks.state.ca.us/scuba/openwater.html. Kevin Dalley even managed to get the GPS coordinates for this beautiful spot, assuming he didn't forget them while fretting over the fact that his camera managed to shoot an entire roll of film while still on the boat in its bucket...(Kevin shouldn't fret too much, there is enough kelp on top of the pinnacles to locate them, at least in summer. Of course, pictures would have been nice too).

However, despite Rob Vedovi and Oliver swimming initially in the wrong direction, Linda having to deal with (fairly mild) surge for the first time in a long time, and Susan Carter's curses about the now unusable camera taking up precious deck space and making it difficult to get on her fins, and thanks to John Purnell's patience in helping Susan put on those fins in spite of all her cursing, all were soon diving in the beautifully flat water and were treated to vis as high as 40 feet, in gorgeous 100 foot canyons and on spectacular pinnacles starting below recreational limits and topping out at about 35 feet. Most divers went to 90 feet or below and found the vis quite good at the greater depth. It was an overcast day, and lights were in order. The pinnacles were completely covered with Corynactis (strawberry anemones), hydrocoral, and other life. Other sightings included a large male sheepshead and many juvenile rockfish. There were many eggyolk jellies to entertain divers on the safety stops.

Susan and John were wise enough to go down the anchor line, and Susan checked and then moved the anchor which was not secure and had somehow landed right at the top of the pinnacle in a most precarious position. (Somehow no one had read the warning on the web site description, that in this particular location ``incorrect anchorage can cause your boat to drift away while you are diving.'').

The other divers should have thanked Susan for keeping the boat from floating away, but weren't very thankful when they had considerable trouble raising the anchor from its new (very) secure position under a ledge. Fortunately, Oliver had enough air in his large tank (the others concluded he has gills) to volunteer to go and free the anchor from 90 feet or so, but even more fortunately the anchor managed to free itself almost as soon as Oliver jumped in the water. This was a particularly fortunate coincidence since Oliver forgot to zip his drysuit before jumping back in a move that encouraged the others to encourage him to join our club as obviously well-qualified to be an Alacostan.

Following a long pleasant lunch with the non-divers present, four divers, including Bill McDowell, Janet Myers, Rob and Kevin went back into the water for a second, equally nice dive. Rumor has it that Kevin actually got some camera shots in underwater on the second dive. All in all, one of the best Lobos dives the author can remember in a long while...

So if you missed this trip, try and join us the next time we go to Lobos: when conditions are right, there is no location in Northern California like it!