This week in ADP went a bit better than last. First of all, I’d had an additional two weeks to get comfortable in the water (thanks to some extracurricular pool and ocean sessions with Ray). But the main reason was probably just that conditions were nicer. (That, and I refused to humiliate myself by wussing out again!)

Our second beach dive was at White Point, a south-facing beach on the Palos Verdes peninsula.

Those arrows show our approximate path. Here’s what we did:

• Point A: We had the choice of doing a fins-on or fins-off entry here over cobblestones and rocks. The 1-2 foot surf made this a pretty simple matter, though I realize it would have made me pretty nervous once upon a time.
• Point B: The first order of business was to swim over to this rocky promontory and practice “washing on” and “washing off” the rocks. (Did anyone else just have a little Mr. Miyagi moment?) Aside from the fact that my washing-on turned into more of a washing-off when I let go of my handhold at a bad moment, this went fine. Next, we took turns towing our buddies over to Point C (my team left everyone else in the dust!)
• Point C was where all the real fun happened! First we tried another wash-on/off, this time onto a little step halfway up a steep rock. Basically you just let a wave deposit you up there – much easier than it sounds. Then, we got to play around “shooting the channels.” You can just barely make out a series of crevices in the satellite image: deep channels in the rocks that turn into shallow tidepools. A skin diver (wearing a wetsuit and gloves) can ride the swell in and then back out, and go for quite a ride in these channels. Kind of like a waterslide, but with more rocks. Our instructor pointed out that water never goes THROUGH rock, so you don’t really have to worry about getting creamed by a rock as long as you flow along with the water. Still, it’s a good idea to keep your hands in front of your face.
• Nothing too exciting happened at D. We waited for everyone to catch up, and practiced freediving down to the bottom.
• Point E was our exit spot for the skin dive, and also our entry for the SCUBA portion of the day.

Strangely, I have very little to say about the actual SCUBA portion of the day. It was supposed to be a navigation exercise, using floats and transect lines to form points and edges along squares and triangles. But it turned into a bit of a cluster-you-know-what due to missing anchors, tangled lines, and miscommunication. My buddy and I tried to do some squares and triangles on our own, only to discover that people on the surface were moving the float around that we’d used as a fixed point.

We had a nice dive on our way back into shore, though, and got a chance to see White Point’s characteristic thermal vents. Huge white bacterial mats form on the rocks next to the vents, and sometimes you can feel the temperature change (though not, apparently, through gloves).

In the afternoon, we all gathered in the picnic area for our first ADP picnic, a Carribean-themed BBQ. I somehow talked Jeff into driving down for this, despite the hour or more that he had to sit in traffic to get to Palos Verdes. Next time I make him come, I’ll also make him take pictures, so that my ADP blog entries aren’t so boring-looking.