Had a lot of vacation to use up so I headed to Orange County for the holidays and most importantly to get some diving in. Arrived on Friday 12/22/06 to bad conditions, so Saturday was a non-diving day (NDD), however Mitchell called up and asked it I'd like to try my luck on Sunday, Mitchell is from Las Vegas and had been dry all week.

Sunday (12/24/06) Mitchell and I headed over to Corona Del Mar, Newport Beach and the conditions looked great. We suited up and headed in at "Little Corona", nice shallow dive within an abundance of kelp, probably the most kelp I've dove in from shore in Orange County.

Dive #98
Time In: 08:41
Viz: 15-20'
Bottom Temp: 58F
Bottom Time: 01:15
Max Depth: 22'
Buddy(s): Mitchell

Monday, Christmas Day, after gift exchanging and before family obligations and dinner, I joined a group of divers at Shaw's Cove for a Christmas Day scuba dive. I finally unpacked my camera blowing the dust from it, seems I haven't used it in months, which is probably true. Buddied up with Peter and dove with four others. Found a large octo at turnaround rock and a very playful moray on our way back in. Pretty good visibility although very surgey, too much to enter the inner reef. Christmas dive loot worth noting: 10w Salvo canister light :)

Dive #99
Time In: 12:24
Viz: 10-15'
Bottom Temp: 59F
Bottom Time: 01:04
Max Depth: 36'
Buddy(s): Peter & Co.

Tuesday (12/26/06) after taking care of payroll I met up with Mitchell at Shaw's Cove while the conditions were still good, I was expecting another storm on Wednesday. Milestone dive for me; #100!! Spotted a large Moray at the entrance to "The Arch", visibility was still good and surge wasn't quite as bad as the day before but the inner reef was still inaccessible. Had Mitchell snap a couple pics of me on this joyous occasion and I don't mean Christmas!

Dive #100
Time In: 13:02
Viz: 10-15''
Bottom Temp: 58F
Bottom Time: 01:02
Max Depth: 36'
Buddy(s): Mitchell

Tuesday night met up with Ruth and Larry at Wood's cove, Larry and I were going to get in some bug hunting and I wanted to test out my new light, but the NW swell I'd been expecting to hit Wednesday was already building and some pretty good size swells were already rolling in making for some 3-5' waves in the cove, I didn't feel like cleaning sand out of every place imaginable for next couple days, so I passed and Larry agreed.

Wednesday (NDD), sat around relaxing, read Jimmy Buffet's, A Salty Piece of Land and ran errands with the family. Thursday (NDD) took the dog to Laguna Beach (Cleo St.), there was 4-5' waves and a lot of wind chop. Friday (NDD), the kidz flew in from Phoenix and we had Christmas all over again.




Saturday (12/30/06) the NW swell had passed and the forecasts looked good. Met up with Peter as Shaw's Cove for a morning dive. Conditions were fantastic 30' of visibility no surge or surf. Peter had gone on an earlier dive, which I missed, so he had already scoped it out. This was Peter's #301st dive and my #101st, weird. Saw a good sized horn shark in a crevice past Turnaround Rock and a small moray just inside The Arch. Nice dive in great conditions. With conditions like these I had to do another dive, I opted to do a solo dive instead of buddy whoring myself out. I mainly played with the manual settings on my camera. Went back inside The Arch for awhile, on my way back in found a little octo opening a shell.

Dive #101
Time In: 08:57
Viz: 30'
Bottom Temp: 58F
Bottom Time: 00:54
Max Depth: 44'
Buddy(s): Peter

Dive #102
Time In: 10:54
Viz: 20'
Bottom Temp: 59F
Bottom Time: 00:56
Max Depth: 25'
Buddy(s): SOLO

I'm still in town for a few days hopefully I can get some more diving in!

Click below to see some photos!

The kidz, dog and I headed over to Lake Pleasant Friday night and joined Rob & Jen from Southwest Scuba for a campfire. Saturday headed back over for a dive; Rob and I decided to try to find the wall that I dove last weekend. We surface swam out from Scorpion Bay to in between the first and second buoy (from South to North) and headed East (out of the bay) and never found the wall, we must have been too far South. Reached 60' and headed South back to Scorpion Bay. Not much life, I saw a silhouette of fairly large fish, presumably a carp, go by. Nice dive, I wasn't quite as cold as I was last weekend. Last lake dive for awhile; I'm heading to SoCal for the holidays and will be diving there for about a week and a half.

Dive #97
Time In: 14:41
Viz: 5-15'
Bottom Temp: 57F
Bottom Time: 00:47
Max Depth: 60'
Buddy(s): Rob

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Saturday (12/9/06) headed out to the lake to meet some old and new buddies, Art, Karen, John, Troy and Edison. Haven't been scuba diving since Thanksgiving so was looking forward to a dive. Everybody else in the group was diving doubles and drysuits, I felt so inadequate, so they passed on Scorpion Bay due to exit points being a problem with doubles and headed to Dirty Shirt.

Buddied up with Troy and Edison and headed out to a wall in between Dirty Shirt and Scorpion Bay. Dropped in 18' of water and headed out, the water was cold. In about 25' of water, the lake bed just dropped off. We explored the 50+ foot wall, probably could have reached depths of 80' or so easily.

I was freezing in my 7mm wetsuit, I've been in colder water and been fine, but was pretty miserable on this dive, not a lot of life, which just made me focus on the water temp even more, nothing to keep my mind off of it.

After about 25-30 minutes I motioned to Troy I wanted to turn around and we all ascended the wall and made our way back into the shallows. Once in the shallows I still didn't warm up as I'd hoped. I surfaced with 1/3 of my gas remaining; can't say that's happened too many times by my own accord.

John brought his Kayak, so we could all play around, we've been tossing around the idea of taking a PADI kayak diving specialty. I'd like one to explore some of the inaccessible coves in the lake and offshore reefs in SoCal. We all had fun tooling around for a little bit.

I had another tank but passed on another dive due to the water temps and my apparently inadequate exposure protection.

Dive #95
Time In: 10:14
Viz: 10'
Bottom Temp: 58F
Bottom Time: 00:42
Max Depth: 65'
Buddy(s): Troy, Edison

Sunday (12/10/06) packed up my 3mm shortie and headed to the lake to meet Big Mike and Jay at Scorpion Bay. It's been awhile since we dove together; actually the last time we dove together was at Scorpion Bay in August. I dove in only X-Shorts that day!! (82F Water Temp).

Used my 3mm shortie under my 7mm and was warmer than Saturday but was still done (aka frozen) after 45 minutes & about 1/2 tank. Didn't see much life at all this weekend. Viz really sucked when we dropped today, I thought it was going to be a really bad dive however it cleared as the dive progressed and eventually was close to 10' at our entry point when exiting; shallows were better as usual. I jumped in from a rock (I love that ), there are 2 manageable exit points and should only get better, now if only the water would warm up a couple degrees.

Dive #96
Time In: 09:13
Viz: 5' and clearing
Bottom Temp: 57F
Bottom Time: 00:44
Max Depth: 40'
Buddy(s): Mike, Jay

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Photo courtesy Art Malone