Get Bent Scuba Diving Blog

This is my combination Scuba Diving Log and Blog. I'll post dive reports, underwater pictures and video here. I'll discuss scuba diving related articles and diving, ocean & marine related news and throw in my 2 psi. I may even announce new designs and promotions in our store. Feel free to comment on any post.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Lake Pleasant Scuba Diving Video

Big Mike and I headed to Lake Pleasant today. I wanted to shoot some video of Scorpion Bay which is closing Monday, they are building a new Marina on top of it, but it was blown out, which tends to happen, so we headed to Desert Tortoise/Two Cow.

Dive #121
Time In: 12:00
Viz: 15-30'
Bottom Temp: 57F
Bottom Time: 01:20
Max Depth: 34'
Buddy(s): Mike

posted by Garrett # 5:08 PM 0 comments

Monday, March 26, 2007

SoCal March Trip (Dives #117-120)

Headed to SoCal for some diving and fun last Wednesday. The rain had just stopped as I arrived in town and a NW swell was pounding North and West facing beaches, the two combined didn't help any shore scuba diving prospects.

Thursday morning however despite the grim prospects I headed down to the South facing OC beaches, my call for buddies having been unanswered, I was looking to pimp myself out or perhaps fly solo. Stopped by Shaw's Cove in Laguna Beach just as a group of divers were exiting, they reported conditions as "diveable" with a lot of surge and <10' of viz. There were no other divers at this site, so I drove on North up PCH to Little Corona in Newport Beach. No divers at this site either, but the surf looked manageable after watching it for awhile the water looked green. While sitting on the cliff watching the surf I saw 3 whales (seperately), come within feet of a large kelp patty (to the left of the lifeguard tower) while they headed North. I thought if I went and camped out a the edge of this patty I may be able to see a whale pass by. As I had formulated my dive plan and entry/exit strategy the Santana winds started to pick up...

I hurried to gear up and made my way down the hill and was greeted by 2-4' surf, wind chop, and the surf had a bit of a bite to it now due the offshore winds, my entry/exit channel now wasn't looking as appealing as it had 30 minutes prior. I stood geared up in thigh deep water assessing my prospects, but conditions were deteriorating with every minute that passed and the surf had no distinguishable pattern. So after about 20 minutes I called off the dive, headed back up the hill and geared down. Had I had a good/experienced buddy with me, I would have definitely gone for it, but not solo.

Friday morning I was invited to dive in Laguna with one of my regular SoCal dive buddies, Peter, but the prospect of getting up at 5am for marginal conditions at best didn't sound that attractive, so I opted to hang out with family and get my gear ready for my boat trip to Santa Barbara Island leaving that night.

Arrived at the Pacific Star dive boat in Redondo Beach at about 8:30pm, was greeted by "dive Sherpas" who carried my gear and tank from my truck onto the boat (gotta love that). After grabbing a bunk, setting up my gear and doing the paperwork thing, myself and the other Scubaboard folks walked over to Ruby's for some dinner. We got back to the boat at 10:30pm for the briefing so the crew could rack-out before the 3am departure. After some more socializing went to hit the sack around midnight, I wish my night had ended there but...

The dude in the rack directly across from my was sawing logs, so loud, he'd have pauses in his foghorn like snoring, where when I was just about to fall asleep he'd start up again. I tried to tune it out, cover my ears, tried just about everything in my rack and couldn't fall asleep. I never wanted to smother someone in their sleep so much in my entire life, and I was married for 10 years! Finally about 2am, this other guy starts snoring in a distant rack, not loud enough to bother me (considering), but I seriously think it woke up the guy who had been keeping me up, too funny. So I finally was able to fall asleep around 2:30am. I never did see who this guy was; which was probably a good thing by that point, I wouldn't have been kind.

Awoke Saturday morning at about 6am, we were still about 10 miles away from Santa Barbara Island, we arrived an anchored about 7:30am after circling the island. The windward side of the island has some decent sized swells and wind chop, so the Captain took us to the SE side in the lee.

All I can say is it was a day full of sea lions and more sea lions and more sea lions, they were a constant on every dive, annoyingly so by the 3rd dive...

Dive #117
Site: SE Reef, Santa Barbara Island
Time In: 08:10
Viz: 15-30'
Bottom Temp: 55F
Bottom Time: 00:50
Max Depth: 38'
Buddy(s): Phil, Scott

Dive #118
Site: Brittle Star Reef, Santa Barbara Island
Time In: 10:07
Viz: 30+'
Bottom Temp: 55F
Bottom Time: 00:43
Max Depth: 61'
Buddy(s): Phil, Scott

Dive #119
Site: Sea Lion Rookery, Santa Barbara Island
Time In: 11:58
Viz: 20'
Bottom Temp: 56F
Bottom Time: 00:46
Max Depth: 37'
Buddy(s): Christian

The first dive at SE Reef, we had about 75-100 sea lions join us and that was a conservative estimate, quite a surgey reef, so most of the time was spent interacting with our hosts. They even followed us back to the boat right to the swim step kind of like a pied piper effect.

Second dive, Brittle Star Reef, is just what it sounds like, Brittle Stars completely cover the terrain, the ground appears to move as the millions of stars move their tentacles. Saw a couple huge Sunflower sea stars as well. Good Macro photography site. Tons of sea lemons!

Third site, Sea Lion Rookery (Uggg), well they basically harassed us all dive, not a great site, especially since I'd had my fill of the local residents for the day. Did spot a Red Gorgonian towards the end of the dive though.

Would have liked to get to some of the other sites on the windward side, I've heard they are nice, like Arch Reef, but I won't be hurrying back to Santa Barbara Island anytime soon unless conditions are perfect, the SE side is a nice experience once and if you love playing with the California Sea Lions you'll be in heaven.

The Pacific Star is a roomy boat, pleasant crew, good food, I enjoyed the ride. I'd dive her again. We arrived back at the dock right around 5:30pm as expected. The ScubaBoard group and I walked over for some dinner at El Torito on the Redondo Beach pier, with a window seat overlooking Vet's Park (Beach), which is a very popular night diving site in SoCal, if we would have stuck around an hour I'm sure we would have seen some divers descending into Redondo Canyon.

Got home by 8:30pm and was showered and fast asleep by 9:30...

Pictures from Santa Barbara Island dives are here (click image below)

Santa Barbara Island, CA, US

Sunday morning snuck in a Deadman's Reef, Laguna Beach scuba dive with Peter, before heading back to purgatory, I mean Arizona. First Deadman's dive in quite awhile. Nice conditions for the surface swim, wish that was the case Thursday and Friday, I hate non dive days when I've made the trip out. No camera, but saw a swell shark, horn shark, some large fish hidden within the reef, sheep's crab, lobsters (taunting us, they must know the season is over)

Dive #120
Site: Deadman's Reef, Laguna Beach
Time In: 07:58
Viz: 10'
Bottom Temp: 57F
Bottom Time: 00:45
Max Depth: 63'
Buddy(s): Peter

Got home about 6:30pm due to an I-10 closure and stopping for lunch in Chiriaco Summit, CA.

Good trip...

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Labels: California, Laguna Beach, Pacific Star, Santa Barbara Island, Scuba Diving, Sea Lions

posted by Garrett # 11:42 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Last Scorpion Bay Dives(?)

Headed to the lake and met up with DJ and Craig to do what is thought to be the last dives at Scorpion Bay for me. Word has it that they will starting construction on the new Marina on Monday 3/26. Skipper Buds said "dirt work" will start on 4/3/07.

Dive #115
Date: 03/20/07
Time In: 9:35
Viz: 25'
Bottom Temp: 53F
Bottom Time: 00:37
Max Depth: 51'
Buddy(s): DJ & Craig

Dive #116
Time In: 11:14
Viz: 25'
Bottom Temp: 54F
Bottom Time: 00:40
Max Depth: 44'
Buddy(s): DJ & Craig

posted by Garrett # 8:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, March 18, 2007

It's Been Awhile

OK so it's been a heck of a beginning of the new year for me and the Get Bent Scuba Blog has suffered. To my readers I'm sorry and I am back to blogging now.

So first things first, let's get the dive log up-to-date...

Dive #103
Date: 12/31/06
Site: Wood's Cove, Laguna Beach, CA.
Time In: 12:37
Viz: 5-15'
Bottom Temp: 59F
Bottom Time: 00:55
Max Depth: 29'
Buddy(s): Dale & Jose

Dive #104
Date: 12/31/06
Site: Shaw's Cove, Laguna Beach, CA.
Time In: 15:48
Viz: 10-15'
Bottom Temp: 59F
Bottom Time: 00:40
Max Depth: 45'
Buddy(s): Jose

Dive #105
Date: 01/13/07
Site: Scorpion Bay, Lake Pleasant, AZ.
Time In: 14:43
Viz: 25'
Bottom Temp: 52F
Bottom Time: 00:45
Max Depth: 48'
Buddy(s): Mike

Dive #106
Date: 01/27/07
Site: Scorpion Bay, Lake Pleasant, AZ.
Time In: 11:23
Viz: 5-10'
Bottom Temp: 50F
Bottom Time: 00:45
Max Depth: 46'
Buddy(s): Mike

Dive #107
Date: 01/27/07
Site: Scorpion Bay, Lake Pleasant, AZ.
Time In: 13:26
Viz: 5-10'
Bottom Temp: 50F
Bottom Time: 00:45
Max Depth: 57'
Buddy(s): Mike

Dive #108
Date: 2/17/07
Site: Shaw's Cove, Laguna Beach, CA.
Time In: 08:41
Viz: 10-15'
Bottom Temp: 57F
Bottom Time: 01:00
Max Depth: 37'
Buddy(s): Ruth

Dive #109
Date: 2/17/07
Site: Shaw's Cove, Laguna Beach, CA.
Time In: 11:17
Viz: 10-15'
Bottom Temp: 57F
Bottom Time: 00:56
Max Depth: 46'
Buddy(s): Ruth

Dive #110
Date: 2/18/07
Site: N. Crescent Bay/Seal Rock, Laguna Beach, CA.
Time In: 08:58
Viz: 10-15'
Bottom Temp: 57F
Bottom Time: 00:48
Max Depth: 32'
Buddy(s): Ruth, Larry

Dive #111
Date: 03/08/07
Site: Scorpion Bay, Lake Pleasant, AZ.
Time In: 15:21
Viz: 10-15'
Bottom Temp: 51F
Bottom Time: 00:30
Max Depth: 48'
Buddy(s): Blake

Dive #112
Date: 03/08/07
Site: Scorpion Bay, Lake Pleasant, AZ.
Time In: 16:58
Viz: 10-15'
Bottom Temp: 51F
Bottom Time: 00:42
Max Depth: 60'
Buddy(s): Mike

Dive #113
Date: 03/14/07
Site: Scorpion Bay, Lake Pleasant, AZ.
Time In: 12:09
Viz: 25'
Bottom Temp: 52F
Bottom Time: 00:49
Max Depth: 56'
Buddy(s): Mike

Dive #114
Date: 03/18/07
Site: Scorpion Bay, Lake Pleasant, AZ.
Time In: 08:58
Viz: 20'
Bottom Temp: 53F
Bottom Time: 00:58
Max Depth: 62'
Buddy(s):

posted by Garrett # 11:07 PM 0 comments

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