Sea Ventures Dive Club
Underwater Challenge Course
Today was our first attempt to construct an underwater challenge course to test our diving skills. The concept was to work in the sandy area of Shaw's Cove in approximately 25-30 ft of water. A 90 feet measuring tape was to be laid out parallel to the beach with three hula hoops placed 15 feet apart. At each end a float would be placed as reference.
The initial concept was to swim to the float and drop down the line to the start of the measuring tape. The divers would make 3 passes on the tape. On the first pass the diver would have to navigate through each hoop and when they reached the end of the tape conduct a mask removal. Then on the second pass the divers were perform a buddy breath down the length of the tape. For the third pass the diver would navigate through the hula hoops again and when finished swim towards the beach. On the way back to the beach the divers were to perform a search and recovery of a gamebag filled with ping pong balls. The ping pong balls would represent a ticket for a prize raffle.
It turns out the true challenge of the underwater course were the dive conditions and laying out the course. The surf was 2-3 feet, with viz in the 5 foot range. There was a nice 2-3 foot surge at 25 feet which made it difficult to layout out the tape. I burned through 1000 psi just trying to work with the float, attached the measuring tape and start to reel it out before being wrapped in the float string line. Based on these difficulties I decided it was best to cancel the course and try it again at a later date when conditions would be better.
We did have four people end up making their way down to the beach. They were Gary Pike, JD Cook, Nick Cook, Tim Crabill, and myself. We decided to just dive the reef at Shaw's. The Viz did get a bit better at 45 feet but only to about 8-10 feet max. We did see some rays, large sand barred bass, masking crabs, and a school of black smiths.
Though we didn't perform the challenge course prize were still awarded to the people that committed to coming out and participating. Each person had their turn pulling a gift card from a hat (aka weight bag). Gary picked a $30 gift card to itunes. JD picked a $25 gift card to Applebees. Nick and Tim both picked individual gift cards for $15 to itunes.
Author: Shannon
Little Corona Club Dive 2/4/12
The club headed out to Little Corona Del Mar for the first club dive of the year. It was a tremendous success with twelve people in attendance. Dennis was gracious enough to bring us coffee and donuts.
It was a beautiful day with temperature in the high 60's with clear skies that enabled us to see Catalina. The water temperature was a nice 59 degrees with surf heights of 0-1 feet and visibility of 15 feet.
With fins to the left, fins to the right, and you're the only bait in town! Oh wait a minute wrong type of fins! It did feel like a dive trip right here in California with a diver in sight everywhere I looked. The diving was great though with kelp, no surge, a lot of life including lobsters, octopus, abalone, kelp bass, sand bar bass, crabs, etc.
Woods Cove Dive
Today we had an excellent turnout for the monthly Sea Ventures Club Dive. Members in attendance were Michael, Gary, Bryan, Patricia, and we had potential new members Angie and Ron join us today as well. The diving was at Woods Cove and viz was easily 10-15 feet. There was minimal surf with some slight surge, with the water temperature at 59 degrees. This is becoming one of my new favorite dive spots as there is numerous sealife. The highlights of the dive were seeing an octopus, lobsters, nudibranch, and a school of Sargo at least 50 strong. After the dive Patricia was kind enough to bring us coffee, hot chocolate, and lemon cake. This was a nice way to end the day of diving.
