Feb 13 2009
Weekend of Diving Catalina
This weekend (02/07 – 02/08) i spent two days aboard Sundiver diving around Catalina Island mainly the west side. The original plan was that we would head out to Santa Barbara Island and dive with the sea lions and then the next day we would spend at the backside of Catalina. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t co-operative and we ended up spending two days on Catalina.
Looking at the meetup site i was under the impression that it would be a full boat but it wasn’t the case. It turned out that we were only 12 people on board and it was nice because it wasn’t that cramped up. I reached the boat at about 11pm friday night and found myself a bunk. After setting up my gear i went to bed and didn’t have problems sleeping. As it turned out we didn’t leave the dock until 4 am since we were not going to Santa Barbara.
It was 7 in the morning and the sun wasn’t out but it seemed to be a pretty good day for diving, we didn’t do the early morning dive since everyone was asleep and once awake it took while getting geared up, the cold wasn’t helping as well.
I buddied up with Mike and he warned me that he was a air hog but i was fine with it. I didn’t have that much issue with it, it was all good.
The first dive site was going to be African Cove or something like that.
I asked Mike to lead the dive since he had more dives under his belt but then into the dive we were going back and forth. We dropped to 44ft and were going to cruise along the sandy bottom before we would come across the reef. The bottom was full of orange tree worms it was cool. I wasn’t able to get any really good pics of them.
We hit the reefs and saw the usual suspects, exploring further i came across a tiny nudibranch, I was glad to find it since it wasn’t the usual spanish shawls i come across. I think this was a lemon dorid not sure.
I also played with my camera and flash light to see if i could get some cool effects with it but it turned out to be alright. We continued exploring the reefs more and didn’t come across anything too exciting.
Dive 1 Details:
Dive Time: 37 mins
Max Depth: 45ft
Avg Depth: 27.8 ft
Air Consumed: 1276 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 13.6 – 14.8 C
Next dive was at a site called Dead Mans. We dropped down onto the reefs and the place was littered with Limpets, there were so many of them. We came across a horn shark, it was resting peacefully and we didn’t disturb it. I also saw 3-4 spanish shawls on this dive, no new nudis. I was trying hard to play with my camera settings to get nice pics of these guys but i didn’t do that gr8 of a job.
As we were cruising around there were so many of juvenile sheepheads, those guys wouldn’t stay still for the pics they would just dart around. It was fun watching them. At the end of the dive, we came across this big rock on top of a boulder and this rock was covered with these white plants (need to id them), It was really pretty. I tried taking pics but they didn’t come out that good.
Dive 2 Details:
Dive Time: 35 mins
Max Depth: 51ft
Avg Depth: 30.4 ft
Air Consumed: 1272 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 14 – 14.8 C
For the 3rd dive we moved towards Indian Rock, It was a dive site where i have dove before but we anchored towards the east side so not exactly the same dive site. In the earlier dive, Mike had little trouble clearing out his ears so he was going to take it really easy on this one.
There were some really big boulders to be explored at this dive site, mike descended slowly and could clear his ears so we proceeded with the dive. The boulders were really huge and in the crevices we found some fishes lurking, saw a big cod (not yet sure) and a tree fish hiding. There were few lobsters too. I led the dive and just went around the big reef, but the time we finished one circle it was time to head back.
I would have loved to spend more time underwater but then mike was almost down to 600psi so we had to do the safety stop and then surface.
Dive 3 Details:
Dive Time: 27 mins
Max Depth: 54ft
Avg Depth: 37.1 ft
Air Consumed: 1070 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 13.6 – 14.8 C
After this dive Mike wasn’t feeling that good with his sinuses so he decided to call it a day, he also wanted to save himself for the sea lion dives which we could be doing tomorrow. For this 4th dive, i buddied up with Chris and Rema and also i didn’t carry my camera on this dive. I should have but its ok.
They asked me to lead the dive and i obliged, we dropped down and started exploring the reefs. I was leading them through the thick kelp it was fun. I came across a cute tree worm and asked chris to take a pic of the same. After a while i saw a ray and tried to get Chris’s attention but the time he and rema caught upto me, the ray just took off.
There wasn’t anything else exciting on this dive and after a while Rema was getting cold so we decided to abort the dive. It was the 4th dive of the day and i wasn’t exactly warm either 😀
Dive 4 Details:
Dive Time: 37 mins
Max Depth: 35ft
Avg Depth: 25.9 ft
Air Consumed: 1215 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 13.6 – 14.4 C
We were going to anchor near two harbors for the night and that would be our dive site for the night dive. For this dive i decided to buddy up with Tina, Albert, Adam and William. We all were going to go together as a group. They were going to follow me into the darkness of the night and it was going to be fun.
We dropped down to about 50 ft and i started to head out in the direction where the reefs were supposed to be located in about 30ft of water. I love night dives, its fun to watch the tiny critters that come out at night specially the shrimps,crabs etc.
I didn’t see crabs but there were plenty of shrimps, i had little difficulty taking pictures but i managed to get couple of good ones. I also saw a moray but it went into hiding as soon as my light fell on it. Watching the resting fishes at night is also cool, they act so differently. Fishes would be just laying still inside crevices, afraid of us and hoping that we don’t do anything to them, its interesting. You have to be extra careful because the urchins come out and are all over the place.
About 20 mins into the dive, i asked the group how much air did they have left and for some reason they were having a hard time letting me know. We didn’t co-ordinate the signals and hence it was little frustrating. I was doing fine on air but wasn’t sure about others, also one of us decided to head out for the surface. He let couple of other guys know but i wasn’t aware of it so i was little concerned.
At this point we decided to end the dive and head back to the boat. I stayed underwater following the others on surface and made it to the boat. I love night dives and was ready to jump into the water after dinner but it wasn’t going to happen 
Dive 5 Details:
Dive Time: 33 mins
Max Depth: 62 ft
Avg Depth: 41.1 ft
Air Consumed: 1484 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 13.6 – 14.8 C
Dinner was an excellent stir fry with Soy Chicken, followed by dessert of berries,chocolate and Ice cream. Yummy, even though i had a sore throat i couldn’t say no to that :). It was time for me to head to bed and get myself ready for the next day.
The weather hadn’t improved on Santa Barbara Island so we ended up staying on Catalina. I woke up at 7 in morning and wasn’t feeling that great. Very few members of the group were up and ready to dive and we moved towards Indian rock where few were going to do a deep hunting dive in currents.
I wanted to re-hydrate myself before venturing out in the water, I gulped down atleast 1.5 ltrs of water along with banana and a Clementine. It helped me a lot and by the time everyone was up and ready for diving I was ready to go as well. Mike didn’t feel good about his sinuses and wasn’t going to do any diving so i decided to dive along with the big group.
We moved back to Bird Rock, it was promising to be a clear and a sunny day. We got into the water and Tina she was going to lead the dive. I was just going to follow them at my easy pace, taking pictures etc. It was a nice dive and the reef was full of life. There was light amount of surge and i was enjoying working with it.
15 mins or so into the dive the group was looking at this transparent weird fish like creature. It was a salp i think but just looked like a transparent fish. It was really a cool thing and easily the highlight of the trip so far but there was more to come on the subsequent dives. Finally after posting on boards and trying to find out more about i figured out that it is a heteropod. http://jellieszone.com/carinaria.htm
As we started to head back to the boat, i found a nudi in the reefs. I had found the same species couple of weeks ago but wasn’t sure if it was a nudi but this time i saw it move and spent a min taking his pics :).
Dive 6 Details:
Dive Time: 49 mins
Max Depth: 43 ft
Avg Depth: 24.5 ft
Air Consumed: 1505 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 13.6 – 14.4 C
We quickly moved to other spot but it was very windy out there so we had to move again and came to a spot called Yellowfin something. This was a good site where there were supposed to be lots of abalones and horn sharks but our dive ended up showing us something else.
The reefs were located in 30-40 ft of water about 100 ft directly behind the stern of the boat. Tina was going to lead this dive and as we dropped down she started heading out in the opposite direction towards the deeper, sandy ocean floor.
We had disagreement about the direction to go in but then i let it go and followed her. Considering the fact that 5 mins into the dive we saw a ray just hovering about 5 feet off the sea floor i wasn’t complaining at all. I didn’t think that rays would just hover like that and then i saw its dorsal fin and i thought this could be an angel shark. It turned out to be a torpedo ray.
There was one more just cruising along next to it and it was really tempting to touch them but good thing i didn’t because they can send some serious electrical shock which i found out later. Was glad i didn’t try to experience it first hand :). Tina realized that we were not in the right place so she let me lead the way.
As i started heading out to the reefs, i saw another nudi on the ocean floor, yippeeeee one more nudi species i came across. I was happy or what. I also realized that my dive computer had slapped me a level stop at 10ft, my max depth was 87ft and prior to this dive the SI was only 50 mins so at this point i didn’t want to continue trying to head in the direction of the reefs.
We had been at 60+ft for more than 21 mins so everyone had consumed more air and i had to worry about getting those level stops in. My Computer had increased it to 5 mins now. So as we headed back in the direction of the boat, i started doing my 40,30,20 ft stops and by the time i got to 10 ft, the 10 ft level stop was only a min. I love that.
Dive 7 Details:
Dive Time: 33 mins
Max Depth: 87 ft
Avg Depth: 55.9 ft
Air Consumed: 1906 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 12.4 – 18.4 C
We then moved to a place called Wash Rock for our final dive of the weekend. The weather seemed to be turning worse and it was about time to get back into the dock. It was only going to be 6 people doing this dive, our 4 people group, Chris and Rema. This time before heading back in the water, myself and Tina agreed on the direction we were planning to head into :).
As soon as we dropped down, I saw a big bat ray coming in our direction but something happened. I think it didn’t like us dropping in its path and it just turned around quickly and swam back into the ocean. I took off in its direction but he was headed into the deeper ocean and was too quick for me. I got a good look at it but wasn’t able to take its picture.
I wasn’t sure if the rest of the group saw that ray, we got together and then we headed towards the reefs. There was so much eel grass, i was just having fun going through it and trying to find something interesting in there. I wasn’t having much luck with that but still it was nice to go through that grass nevertheless.
10 mins or so into the dive as i was coming out of the grass cover, We saw a Skate. I didn’t try to go after it to take its picture or anything, I took one shot and let that guy be on its way. Rest of the dive was pretty mellow, i was just cruising around, trying to maintain my buoyancy and stay 6-12 inches above the ocean floor without stirring up any sand.
As we were approaching the end of the dive, Tina pointed out a big nudibranch to me. It is something called Sea Hare and those things are big and have body structure like snail with flap like thing on top. It was perfect way to end two days of awesome diving.
Dive 8 Details:
Dive Time: 46 mins
Max Depth: 41 ft
Avg Depth: 29.8 ft
Air Consumed: 1618 psi
Min/Max Water Temp: 13.6 – 18 C
We were heading out to the dock, as usual i took a nap not before finishing off the yummy potato and mushroom curry.
It was a wonderful day of diving aboard Sundiver and i am glad i booked the trip through Dolphin Dive Center. They posted it on their meetup group.