Area and trip map for this dive. The red line shows my trip. The GPS lost the start of my track, where I drove from 'Home' up to Graton. Turned on to Graton Road and went to Occidental, then went North towards highway 116 (where the red line starts up, near Tyrone. The names in blue have comments. Put the mouse over one of these names, and the text appears in the box. Cool, huh? If you have any suggestions on improving the map(s), please let me know! email Rich@journalsonline.com
The dive the dive! We have lived in Sebastopol for over six weeks, and I had yet to do a dive. Sure I snorkled, once, and we have gone to the beach a few times, but diving was under represented. Today became the day!Leaving the house is not always easy. I left at 10:20, all systems go. I suspect that a lot of people are finishing up their dive and coming home by this time.
I am not one of these people. It appears that I live my life such that events that happen before noon may just as well happen on the moon, at least as far as my ability to be involved is concerned!
Dive Log Entry 33 minutes, max depth 36 feet. Visibility up to 15 feet at 15+ feet (but I am a generous person).
Entered on the beach. The viz in close was, well, Rancid. The weather was coming in from the West and even South West. The normal pattern is North West. The difference is stunning.
Last month I came up and did a little free diving. There were waves outside the cove, but with the weather coming from the North West, the cove itself was mill pond smooth. That was not the case today.
The Rangers had anchored a boat within the cove, closer to the points than to the beach. There was a tarp over the console, and the boat went up and down in a sickening heave.
I went under close to shore, in 5 feet of water. There was no visibility. Okay, it wasn't full silt out bad, but less than two feet. My thought was 'okay, I can deal with conditions. This is just the universe letting me know that I should do a nice shallow dive (so that there would be light) and spend some time getting up close with the small stuff.
I once spent 30 minutes in 15 foot water examining one 18" square kelp hold fast. I know what to do when conditions are poor!
I kept swimming my compass course, and found that at 10 feet deep things started to get better, and at 15+ feet visibility was decent at 10+ feet. I have been looking at masks with corrective lenses. It was a treat to try one on, and to be able to see across the dive shop. I think that I will splurge and buy one, but one could argue that you don't need to see more than 10 feet in Sonoma county...
Ten feet visibility is pretty good. You are encased in a circle of clarity in a dim ocean of ambiquity.
There were a lot of Abalone, and the largest urchins I had ever seen. I have been on dives with more urchins, but never as large!
I have a current obsession with 'Uni,' Sea Urchin Roe Sushi, and so the Urchins brought flutters to my heart to rivel the Abalone. During the whole dive I gave a great deal of attention to my compass, but I still managed to come out tangled in the rocks at the North end of the cove. It was a minor drag. I surfaced, and there was surf and I was bumped against a rock. It was an unfortunate place to find myself. I inflated my BCD, it just seemed the thing to do, took a visual on clear water, put my head down and set myself to kicking out of there!
I was out of the discomfort zone in less than a minute, and had a clear shot at my beach. One lesson: if it is getting shallow sooner than you think it should, or if there is more surge on the return than going out, stop! get back 'deep' (in this case 15 feet) and below the surge, and then figure out what is wrong. I was only off about 50 feet on my compass course, but sometimes that is more significant than other times.
All in all, it was a good dive, and it reinforced my current view that it is all a matter of practive. Get in the water, go with the surge, float around a bit in the boullaiboise of the sea, and it all becomes more comfortable.
Cheers, and good night!