Saturday, we went out on the Sea Bass to dive at the oil rig Eureka, several miles off San Pedro. Eureka lies in about 600 feet of water, and is out in the open – which means it tends to be subject to strong swells, wind and currents. There was a bit of a swell running this day, but not too much for the 40-foot Sea Bass to handle. I was a little nervous about how getting on and off might be made tricky by the occasional extra-large rollers that came through, but I never had much trouble. I’m not sure if our timing was just good on all our entries and exits, or if I’ve just improved in the last year of diving (last time we dove the oil rigs, everything about it seemed hard).

Because the boat can’t anchor or tie off to the rig, they have to drop off the divers “live” – that is, the boat keeps running. They’re required to approach from the windward side, to avoid conflicts with the rig work boats, which means that they can wind up being blown towards the rig by wind and current. So the idea is to get the divers off the boat as quickly as possible. Everyone gears up at the same time, sitting on the two benches that line either side of the deck. When everyone looks ready, they’re instructed to put on their fins and masks, and then the boat heads over to the rig. Once the boat stops moving, everyone stands up and giant strides off the back of the boat, one after another (picture paratroopers leaping out of a plane, with someone yelling “go, go, go!” and shoving each one out in turn). The first entry went totally smoothly, I’m sure due to the fact that most of the divers were extremely experienced (8 out of twelve were diving drysuits; 7 with double tanks and stage bottles; 1 with a rebreather).

Exiting the boat:

Once we were in, I was amazed by the clear visibility at the surface. Our first trip to the rigs was during the summer, and there was a 30-foot layer of plankton soup that reduced the visibility to a couple of feet until you got below it (and blocked out most of the sun once you were down). Yesterday, as soon as I stuck my face in the water I could see the oil rig pylons stretching out at least a hundred feet below, and huge schools of topsmelt (thin silver fish) were everywhere. For the most part, they drifted about slowly and aimlessly, scattering every once in a while when one of the resident sea lions would drop down for a snack.

Our first order of business was to find some giant white-plumed anemones (metridium giganteum) for Jeff to photograph. They’re quite common in the pacific northwest, but here they only grow where it’s pretty cold and deep. On the rigs, they first start to appear in ones and twos at about 110 feet. If you look down, you can see larger aggregations 30-40 feet blow, and they completely swamp the rig struts at greater depths (which, frankly, I hope never to see).

Metridium Giganteum:

Jeff shot a couple of metridiums from various angles, while I puttered around and kept an eye on our nitrogen loading. It’s great fun just to be under the oil rig, even if you don’t see anything special. It’s just so amazing to be surrounded by such a feat of engineering – these huge pipes disappearing down in the abyss. It’s also such a weird synthesis of man and nature: every inch of metal is completely encrusted with tiny strawberry anemones, molluscs, and algae, and is home to all kinds of fish that hide in the clutter. I spotted a few rockfish, some greenlings, and a california scorpionfish – and of course, the ever-present schools of topsmelt swirling around the outside of the rig and occasionally through the center. Looking up, you see the sun shining down through the rig’s struts, and silhouettes of sea lions on the surface (and frequently diving down). Looking down, I could see the lights and rising bubbles of the 4 divers working on their required-decompression class, who spent 13 minutes at 145 feet.

My favorite sight on that dive was a sea lion who dived down to about 80 feet, and then slowly worked his way up. He turned somersaults and blew bubbles, then poked at them with his nose, slowly spiraling up towards the surface. Very cool visual. There was also a young sea lion who was quite curious about the camera.

Look at those big brown eyes:

We decided to stay at Eureka for the second dive, since conditions were so nice, even though the swell was picking up a bit. On our second dive, Jeff and I found two baby garibaldis in about 20 feet of water. In their early juvenile stage, they’re frequently more fluorescent blue than orange, and dart around spastically. Of course, the camera chose this moment to give its intermittent “Err 99” message and crash. Argh.

Last pic of the day: an out-of-focus baby garibaldi

We tooled around between 40 and 60 feet of water, drifting into the large schools of fish and just taking in the view. Jeff spotted two cormorants (diving birds) swimming around down there – I missed it! Eventually I had to admit that I was freezing, and Jeff wasn’t able to take pictures anyway, so we called the dive a bit early and headed back onto the boat.

We did a little troubleshooting back on board, and tracked the camera problem down to the sync cable between the strobe and the housing. It looks like the connector at one end had some leakage through the seal, and it must be shorting out or something: it always works for the first part of the day, then starts acting up and eventually dies completely. Luckily, we still have time to replace it before Bonaire!

I was really freezing by this point (the sun never stayed out for long, and it was windy), and feeling seasick to boot, so I decided to sit out the third dive at the Ellie/Ellen oil rigs. Jeff opted to remain behind with me, and we passed the time chatting up the crew.

There was a bit of an incident on the last boat entry of the day. One of the guys wearing doubles was among the first people out of the water, and unfortunately he was about halfway up the ladder when a pretty good-sized swell lifted the boat up and dropped it. The ladder, which isn’t permanently attached but sits on some metal hooks and is held in place by two crew members, lifted up just high enough to hop out of the hooks – and ladder and diver tipped sideways and back off the boat, where other divers were waiting their turns. For a few seconds ,I was positive we’d be ending the day with a call to the coast guard – but amazingly, the guy that was landed on managed to duck underwater, and he escaped with only a tiny scratch on his head. The diver who did the falling was completely confused when he finally did make it on board, and was glad to hear that it had been the ladder that let go, and not him that lost his grip!

The nice thing about diving the oil rigs is that you make it back to harbor so early – we rolled in around 3pm, and were all unpacked and crashing in bed by 5.

Oil platforms Ellie and Ellen, with Eureka in the distance:

More pics here: http://gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-20041120_oilrigs.

Friday night, Jeff and I hooked up with Maggie and Dave from our dive club. After dinner, we all headed up to Santa Barbara to board the Truth dive boat, on a trip to the northern channel Islands. We did a similar trip last year on the Vision, which is run by the same company; compared to that boat, the Truth was a little bit of a letdown, but still very nice by dive boat standards! Jeff and I snuggled up in our bunk, and woke up out on the open ocean heading for Santa Rosa island.

Our first two dive sites were pinnacles off the southeast bit of Santa Rosa. Lots of anemones, starfish, nudibranchs, and rockfish, and very nice visibility. But it was COLD (mid-50s underwater, and low 70s above). During the second dive, it started to rain, so there wasn’t even much sun out to warm us up between dives!

Dive #3 was in a kelpy, rocky area, and I spotted a nudibranch we’d never seen before. But there was a problem: it was in a hole where the camera and strobe couldn’t possibly reach. After a short internal moral debate, I suggested to Jeff that we move the poor little slug. His internal debate didn’t take long either, and he nabbed the poor thing by the tail. It instantly, er, voided itself, and then curled up in a little ball. Jeff tried to place it on top of a rock, but in its pillbug-like state it just rolled away in the surge. I caught in in one hand, and cupped it away from the surge until it uncoiled and started crawling around on my glove. Then we found a lovely red kelp leaf to pose it on, and it cooperatively let itself be transferred. After that, it was a bit of an adventure: I held the kelp still in the surge and fanned away other bits of kelp and floating crud, while Jeff tried to get a good shot.

Judge for yourself if it was worth the trauma inflicted on this innocent Hilton’s Aeolid:

By the end of this dive, I was feeling downright hypothermic and decided to call it quits for the day. Dry clothes and a hot shower never felt so good, mmm…

Two more dives came and went without us, followed by dinner. Then it was time for the night dive, and I could tell Jeff wanted to go. I waffled for a bit, but eventually decided I’d be happier staying warm on deck, and sent him off with a couple of strangers.

For the night dive, the boat crew hung a bright light over the side of the boat, which attracted a huge swarm of plankton. The plankton in turn attracted schools of fish – and then a school of squid! Some other non-divers and I leaned over the side watching the pink-tinged, foot-long critters squirt there way backwards and forwards. Very fun!

Jeff was having fun of his own down below. No squid, but he found this red octopus swimming around:

The next morning, the swell off San Miguel had died down enough for us to go dive Wilson’s Rock. Last year, this was our favorite dive site. This year, it wasn’t quite as great – we did the wall instead of the crevices, and the surge was a bit wild (vertical as well as horizontal), making photography difficult. The high point of the dive for me was spotting three mola molas (sunfish) swimming by! Unfortunately, Jeff only managed to get one so-so shot before they got out of range. Oh well; next time!

Dive #2 was at Foul Area. Funny name, huh? We went there last year, too – apparently, it’s good lobster hunting. We weren’t hunting lobsters. Last year, we dropped down, hit the bottom before we could see it, and almost instantly thumbed the dive (3 foot vis and a barren sea floor, ugh). This year, we decided to stick it out even if it was crummy conditions. We had about 5-7 foot vis this year, and 3-6 foot surge. Jeff and sort of crawled along the bottom, spotting a few starfish, cowries, sea lemons, and small island kelpfish. Not a good dive for photography!

Dive #3 was at Westcott Shoals. It was raining while we got suited up, and I was FROZEN and shivering. The current line was thrown out and was instantly swept outwards, and there were occasional sets of enormous swells rolling through (very long wavelength, so not too nasty on the surface – but would cause very deep surge). The first few divers dropped in and reported so-so visibility. I was shivering uncontrollably now, and decided it just wasn’t worth it; we called the dive.

The divers who went down reported an ok dive that was a lot of work – nasty current, roller-coaster style surge. Can’t say I’m that sorry I missed it. :)

Next year, we’re renting dry suits to do this trip!

More pics here: gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-200411_sanmiguel

Better late than never… I finally have a few minutes to describe my fun-filled Halloween weekend. :)

It was just me for the weekend, since Jeff was in San Francisco for a trade show. Saturday afternoon, I met up with Marianne, Anastasia and some visiting friends of hers for a trip up to Lombardi Ranch in Santa Clarita, a farm where they do a big pumpkin patch/petting zoo/hay rides kind of thing every Halloween.

It was packed. And, I have to say, slightly more fun than I expected! There were thousands of pumpkins laid out on the ground for people to choose from, and kids running around trying to carry pumpkins that were too big for them. In the middle of everything was a huge pile of hay bales you could climb up for a better view. A little tram and several horse-drawn, hay-filled carts offered rides around the outside of the farm. Sunflower fields bounded two sides of the place (the sunflowers were rather past their prime, though), there was the promised petting zoo (with a baby llama!), caramel apples, corn on the cob, etc. Quite a place! It’s probably slightly more fun with kids of your own. We skulked around with telephoto lenses, trying to take pictures of other people’s cute kids while trying not to look like creepy stalkers.

It also really made my day when I spotted a tiny Boba Fett among the pumpkins:

I would definitely go back next year – especially if I can convince some of our kid-laden friends to come along.

Sunday, I mostly took it easy – puttered around, went and swam my daily laps, fiddled with my laptop. In the evening, I went up to Michelle’s beautiful house in the “Bungalow Heaven” neighborhood of Pasadena – seriously, I never get sick of visiting her place! She goes nuts for Halloween (kind of the equivalent of me for Christmas). The house, which already has a very autumnal color scheme inside, was totally decked out with harvesty and halloweeny decorations; she got fires going in the living room and out back (nice outdoor fireplace and sitting area), made pumpkin pie, spread Halloween children’s book all around the house (note: Michelle has no children; she just likes children’s books!), and invited a few people over to hang out for the evening. It was mostly friends from her Renaissance Fair group, but I make friends pretty quickly and felt right at home. :)

One guy, Jeff, brought over a “Fairy Tale Pumpkin” to carve. Picture a normal pumpkin. Now make it a deeper, darker shade of orange. Make the bulges MUCH bulgier in all dimensions, and the creases MUCH deeper, and voila: fairy tale pumpkin. It really did look quite cool – especially after Jeff tipped it up on its side and carved a wicked little face on it.

After dinner, we took turns walking around Michelle’s neighborhood. One block to the west of Michelle is The Place to Be on Halloween. Almost every house on that street goes nuts, and I mean really nuts with the decorations – full-blown haunted house kind of stuff, often with music, fancy lights, sound effects, etc. And more jack-o-lanterns than I’ve seen in years! Kids get trucked in from all over Los Angeles to this area; the sidewalks were downright crowded. I felt like I was at an amusement park instead of walking around a normal neighborhood! The cutest costume was a little kid dressed up like Max from Where the Wild Things Are, with the white furry suit, black tail, and crown. There were also quite a few tiny Spidermen.

Michelle was a big hit with parents and kids alike: she decked herself out in her Jedi costume and carried around a very authentic looking/sounding light saber. There were a lot of muttered “Star Wars!” exclamations in her wake. Here’s a picture of the costume taken a few months ago (and no, the light saber is NOT photoshopped, except at the very tip where it overlapped some door frame):