Blog for Nayan

It has been a very long time since i have last dove the oil rigs, it was in May 09, so when Chris posted on Scubaboard about Sea Bass being an open boat with free nitrox it was hard for me to resist. The only problem was that i was going to head out to Santa Barbara to chill out with Paras and everyone but when that didn’t materialize, i booked my spot on the boat. I knew i had to dive wet because i wasn’t totally comfortable using my dry suit on the rigs yet and i was glad that i made that decision.

The plan was to dive the rigs on Saturday and then head over to Baldy for a day of Skiing on Sunday which could have been a bad mistake, more on that later. I decided to check my regulators on Thursday evening only to find out that they were free flowing, tried to soak them in water, clean them to no avail so i decided to head out to Hollywood Divers, got a nitrox fill and rental regulators while mine were being serviced.

Woke up at 5am and still had to pack up my things, was being lazy last night. So did that and made it to the boat by 6.45. It was a light load with only 9 onboard and was supposed to be a nice sunny day with winds picking up in the afternoon. It was little chilly and everyone almost started gearing up, its a short boat ride to the rigs.

We first headed over to Eureka which is the farthest rig but there was already a dive boat there so Captain Richard decided to head back to twin rigs of Eily and Eileen. We were going to dive the rig called Eileen. Earl, the divemaster noted that there was little bit of current on the surface but i had no idea that it would be strong.


Jumped into the water and the current was pushing us already so we decided to descend immediately, Cyrille mentioned that visibility wasn’t great, i assured him that as soon as we descend it should clear up a lot. During the descent we had to stay really close so we didn’t loose sight of each other, came across a Sea Butterfly but didn’t have chance to take its picture.


Male Sheephead

At 90 feet or so it was time to explore the rigs and it cleared a whole lot, the viz was about 10-15 feet now. I had to be really careful about my depth,was on 32% nitrox, but with the current pushing us and it wasn’t easy, i looked at my computer and i was at 105 ft whoa, ascended little and then we settled downed behind a column where we had some shelter from the current.

I was little bummed by the fact that my dive light stopped working, for some reason it doesn’t like the rigs and it has happened to me on more than one occasion. Still there was some amount of light and i could see the life on the rigs, even managed to find a nudi. The fishes were thriving on the rigs, there was huge colony of Sheepheads, the rock fishes were big. came across big ling cod and a cabezon too. Minus the current it was really an awesome dive, there were times when we had no choice but to hold onto the rigs for a brief period. I had to be really careful, that i didn’t break the big soft sponge. just gave it a few pokes, nothing too bad happened to it :).



I saw a huge star fish but had to swim against the current to get to it and take its pics. I tried going across but the current was too much and i didn’t want to tire myself out. When we ascended, swell was minimal and the boat picked us up. During the surface interval, a whale came about 60ft within the boat. It didn’t linger for too long, just gave us a sneak peek at it.


Whale passing by

Dive 1:

Max Depth: 105 ft

Total Dive Time: 45 mins

Avg Depth: 58.6 ft

For the second and third dives we moved back to the farthest rig of Eureka. I tried to see what was going on with my dive light but it wouldn’t budge, Cyrille had a spare so decided to borrow that and it was really helpful. Even though the current wasn’t that strong we had to deal with the swell on this dive.

We descended down and had to fight the light current on this dive but it wasn’t as strong. We got behind one of the column structures and were sheltered by it somewhat. Since i had a nice bright light for this dive it was much better for it because at about 90ft it got really dark. Sun was playing hide and seek with us all day long and it almost felt that this was a night dive.

The life was spectacular as usual, though not as many big fishes as the first dive but we still found few nudis. Lots of Hermissenda crassicornis in particular. At one point we thought about going between the columns and exploring more but then didn’t have the urge to really fight the current. So we just were exploring the structures which were sheltering us from the current.

Hermisenda and Dorid



During our ascent, the swell had picked up and we could feel it at 30 ft or so. We came across a huge lemon dorid, it was about 8-10 inches in length and i was amazed at its size, easily the largest nudibranch i have seen it socal and without a doubt it was highlight of this dive trip.

Huge Lemon Dorid

Dive 2:

Max Depth: 104 ft

Total Dive Time: 44 mins

Avg Depth: 60.8 ft

It was time for lunch and after enjoying the sandwich time for the final dive of the day. The swell had picked up considerably and once in a while there would be a 5 footer. We got into the water and immediately dropped down. We were both little cold at the end of last dive so we decided that it would be a short one but it didn’t happen to be case.

The viz had dropped all of sudden and even at 90ft it wasn’t that good as one would hope to be. We started exploring one of the columns and after a while we decided to do more exploring and were carried to a different section of the rig by the current. I was little disoriented and thought that did the current change directions or what, but i know as long as we had the rig structure in sight it was nothing to worry about.

Found a few more nudis and then about 15-20 mins into the dive while we were hanging at 70ft, Cyrille pointed me to his dive computer and wanted to ascend. I figured it must be getting close to the NDL and he didn’t want to get into deco. He was diving using air while i was on Nitrox so i wasn’t faced with the same problem yet.

We got to about 50 ft and could really feel the swell, the current not so much but definitely the swell. I have always enjoyed diving in the swell, i let it push me around while i maintain my buoyancy. There was a school of blacksmiths and i could see them moving up and down in the swell, i wanted to be in sync with them. Even though we could feel the swell at 50ft it wasn’t huge, i figure it was moving us about 3-5 ft vertically.

Dive 3:

Max Depth: 94 ft

Total Dive Time: 44 mins

Avg Depth: 57.5 ft

During the ascent we came across a lot of sea butterflies, they were all over the place and it was fun to watch them glide by. It was a very nice way to end the dive and the day. We got back to dock at about 4.30 or so and after dealing with traffic reached home around 6ish.

The Mistake which could have gone bad:

The plan for the next day was to go skiing at Mt Baldy which rests at an elevation of 6800′ at base and 8600′ at the top of the chair. It didn’t even occur to me that it would be a foolish thing to do after 3 deep dives.

I realized my mistake when i got back home from skiing and was going to transfer dives from my dive computer to laptop. My computer showed me that i still had 2 hours before i would be completely Nitrogen free and then it hit me.

Luckily for me because i was using Nitrox, my dive computer calculated a no fly time of 18 hours and i just came close to blowing it off. I ended my final dive at around 2.30 pm or so and then didn’t get to Mt Baldy till about 9.15 am. So i had a surface interval of 19 hours before i got to 6800′ but then it was also end of day light savings so i lost an hour.

I personally think Nitrox really saved me this time, because my dive buddy came really close to deco so if i was using air then i probably would have been close to it as well and my no fly time would have been closer to 24 hours. Lesson learnt and thankfully no harm done. Next time, i shall go skiing first and then diving not the other way around.

If you are unsure why could this be a problem, for non-diving folks, here is an article about DCS.

Finally the video which my dive buddy Cyrille shot,




Sorry about the quality of pics had to keep the file size down, more are uploaded here

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