A little of a delay with this report, my apologies. After many trips to Catalina as a diver and sailor, I had never dove in the dive park at Casino Pt. in Avalon. Upon hearing of this blasphemy in May some of my SoCal dive buddies Ruth & Larry planned a trip on my next visit. The date of 7-7-7 (07/07/2007) was purely coincidental but kind of cool.

Ruth took the bull by the horns, and made all of the reservations and pre-boarding arrangements for the Express to Avalon, Larry couldn't make the trip due to work. I met Ruth at their house at the pre-crack-of-dawn (04:30) as we carpooled to the Long Beach terminal for our 6:15 departure.

The trip over and the walk to the park were uneventful. We arrived at the park right about 8am just in time to grab some tanks, we were going to attempt to get in 4 dives.

Dive 1 (#142):
The plan was to dive the wreck of the Sujac at the East end of the park, conditions were good, the Sujac which is little more than a large hull now resides in 70-90' of water. Lots of fish on the wreck and some nudis for photo ops.

TimeIn: 08:50
MaxDepth: 81'
BottomTime: 00:46
BottomTemp: 57F

Dive 2 (#143):
We surface swam out to the park buoy straight out from the stairs and dropped right on top of small sailboat, made our way over to the glass bottom boat and the wreck of the Kismet. Made our way back to the shallows as Ruth's Suunto computer was getting into deco.

TimeIn: 10:38
MaxDepth: 70'
BottomTime: 01:03
BottomTemp: 59F

Dive 3 (#144):
After lunch of sandwiches packed from the mainland, we dove the "Old Swim Platform" and "Old Steel Pier", lots of schools of fish and more nudi opportunities on both places.

TimeIn: 12:57
MaxDepth: 80'
BottomTime: 00:52
BottomTemp: 57F

Dive 4 (#145):
Dove over to the Jacques Cousteau memorial plaque and explored Little Casino and Big Casino Reefs.

TimeIn: 14:29
MaxDepth: 51'
BottomTime: 00:44
BottomTemp: 62F

These were some good dives, not sure if the inconvenience of taking the Express, walking to the park, renting tanks, etc. will overcome my desire to just jump on a charter and wake up at the island, but it was a great experience, I wouldn't have missed it.

Saw pretty much all the usual SoCal suspects including Abalone, Horn Shark, Octopi, Eel, kelp which is in great shape, nudi's, lobsters, CA Scorpionfish, Giant Kelpfish apparently we missed some bat rays, but they were there and the following weekend there were Giant Sea Bass sighting in the park.

Took the 6pm express back to the mainland, we picked up Larry and had a nice dinner to wind down from a great day.

Mainland beaches in Laguna were closed due to high surf, so I left the following day.

Enjoy some pictures [click on slide show to view album]

For those of you that know me personally or have listened to my views on the various online scuba forums (as shark.byte.usa), your aware I have been in the past very anti-LDS (Local Dive Shop) at least in the Phoenix metro area. I somewhat prided myself in being independent and not having some, in my opinion, arbitrary devotion to a shop that when analyzed could only be construed as nothing more than a one-sided affair.

Well brace yourself, not only have I been convinced to persue a Divemaster role with a local dive shop I have been working there for the past month and a half. I have truly given up my independence!

The dive shop is Oasis Divers in Phoenix [map] [website], under new ownership since the fall of last year, newly remodeled, and with fresh blood and insight from the ownership group to the retail staff with the shop mantra, "A Dive Shop That Dives!". It is truly a refreshing experience to be a part of in my own little way.

I look forward to the things to come from this shop's ownership group and personally look forward to my involvement in things to come. So stop by and say "Hey!" if your looking for something new.