Thanksgiving dive: Sharks & Surf
Published on 2013-12-04 22:47:31
The weather had been perfect the whole week.
Visibility had been reported in the 30ft range, surface had been a lake.
While I was working.
Then came Thanksgiving, and things got messed up. Big swell was coming, Surfline was predicting 4-7ft, MagicSeaWeed 5ft at Pearl St, a block away from Mountain, rain was supposed to show up, but what the heck, I decided to go anyway.
Parking was perfect, Summer is long gone and everybody seemed to have followed the surf prediction, only boogie boarders were in the water, no signs of any divers. The ocean and its underwater wonders all for myself... The boogie boarders should have tipped me off.
Anyway, after surveying the surf for 10 minutes I decided that bad sets were far apart enough to let me in without too much trouble and opted to go, once again oblivion to the horde of boogie boarders having fun in the "waves".
I nearly locked myself out of my car, going through my mental checklist just before I slammed the door closed and suddenly realizing I had not my car key around my neck... Signs were being sent all over but I paid no heed.
As planned, I went through the waves without any problem and after a 500 yard surface swim, dove into the blue. Or more like green actually. Visibility was not really 30ft anymore and the surge was washmachinesque. I dropped on three leopard sharks. That was good. They shied away from the camera though and my damn G12 kept on focusing on the particulates instead of on the majestic animals. Treacherous technology. Hopefully I won the GoPro at the SOCDC Christmas Raffle next week...
Anyway, after chasing the sharks for 10 minutes, I decided to head to the 2nd reef and got lost. I ended up finding a very cool rock in the middle of the sand that hosted a huge variety of life. Within a few feet from each other, I found sculpins, Spanish shawls, lobsters, abalone (whom I fed fresh kelp), strawberry anemones and more. Very cool. Going further South, I finally hit the 2nd reef and the visibility opened. Nice sunbursts, TV 1/250, no flash obviously worked its usual magic. Not much life around, and very strong surge. Hitting 100 bars (1,400 psi) I decided to turn around and had to surface 3 times to figure out where the hell I was going and avoid the nasty rocks that separate Cress from Mountain.
A hundred feet from the shore, I realized surf had picked up quite a bit. Maybe the 4-7 ft prediction was fulfilled after all... It took me 5 minutes to reach the shore 10 ft away, rip current was amazingly strong and even though I had timed the sets pretty well, the leftovers were still 3-4ft and strong enough to be nasty. But I stood fast and did not lose anything!
After that fight with the elements, I was exhausted and decided to call it a day. I dropped by Shaw's Cove for the Pumpkin Pie Annual Thanksgiving Dive to say hello and drove back home for the Turkey. That I managed way better.
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