Skydiving, Scuba Diving, and everything in betweenMay, 2012
The Sea on Fire
We don’t see much diving fiction, besides maybe a few scenes from Clive Cussler novels. In The Sea on Fire, author Howard Cunnell wisely foregoes the diving-as-action approach and presents the emotion and sensation of diving that we feel through the main character, Kim. As a diver and someone who writes about diving, I was [...]
Rare eggs and swimming scallops at White Point Rock
Merry and I went to White Point Rock to exchange thermographs for the Catalina Marine Society. We placed one next to the reef fourteen months ago, so it should have plenty of data to collect. After retrieving the old one Merry went to work on video while I scoured the small reef for interesting macro [...]
Don't Dive Angry
We’ve been diving the Redondo Barge a lot lately. Between finding new nudibranchs, octopus nests and sea lion encounters it’s been an exciting run. Sometimes, even fun can get boring. There are several artificial reefs near the barge made up of boulders, pier pilings and concrete blocks. One reef is within swimming distance to the [...]
Octopus Eggs of the Redondo Beach Artificial Reef
Despite dire predictions from the swell models we decided to give diving a shot today. The sea was calm and the red tide had dissipated enough to dive the barge off Redondo Beach. I’ve been wanting to shoot video of the developing eggs. After anchoring at the site I lowered the video camera into the [...]
Breaking News…Swell Models Wrong Again
Predictions for today were one to two foot swells. We couldn’t leave the marina until 11:30 due to thick fog, but we should have stayed home. Four foot swells, wind and red tide along the west side of Palos Verdes did not look inviting. We decided to look on the south side for any possibility [...]
Night Dive At High Noon
Kevin Lee joined us for an attempt at photographing octopus nests and the tiny Cadlina modesta on the Redondo Barge. Red Tide had moved in, creating night dive conditions with very limited visibility. I had to use both modeling lights just to focus, but came away happy. We headed for the Landing Craft, hoping to [...]
Decent Conditions On The West Side
Red tide has been showing up all over SoCal for the past few weeks. We’ve gone through patches of chocolate milk, only to find nice water on the other side. Today was no exception. We made a couple of shallow dives off Palos Verdes to practice shooting wide angle. At Margate Road we had nine [...]
Octomom Merry Strikes Again
This is getting old. I’ve been scuba diving for twenty-two years and had never seen octopus eggs until last month. Merry found two nests together on the landing craft. We later found a single nest on the Redondo Barge. Today, Merry dragged me over to a rock and showed me three nests, each guarded by [...]
Showing Kevin Lee Some Real Diving
Kevin Lee has dived all over the world, including each pole. His photos are extraordinary. We felt it was time to get him back into real diving, with real surge and real backscatter. We met up at the Cabrillo Beach boat launch in San Pedro. This is not Kevin; Our first dive was on the [...]
Birds, Snails, Nudis And Whales…And A Little Dolphin Porn
We got our butts kicked by the swells last Saturday. Sunday’s planned dives with photographer extraordinaire Kevin Lee were cancelled after checking conditions. We were bummed. On Monday, we decided to push our luck and bounce our way to the Redondo Barge. A Brown pelican and a Night Heron warned us to stay in the [...]