Posted by brianc on November 28, 2000 at 12:00:21:
In Reply to: The Yukon? Yes, I think it was. posted by seahunt on November 26, 2000 at 21:28:40:
I drove the 500+ miles to San Diego, looking forward to some SoCal diving, including the Yukon. (OK, so I was also going to do my part in lowering the turkey population by spending the holiday at mom's in Escondido. That makes my story seem less traumatic though.) The weather was fantastic - air temp 20F higher than I had experienced in months, water temp reported as 10F higher than my dives last weekend at Monterey. There was a report of fog over the water - that just made me think that the water would be calm. I had secured the last available spot on the Lois Ann for the Sunday afternoon dive - the Yukon followed by kelp beds. I was actually more excited about the kelp beds. I love diving into dense kelp and was looking forward to seeing different animals - I am a biologist...
I was not sure what the drive from Escondido would be like, so I left early. I found the Lois Ann's dock and hauled all my gear over - those HP 100's felt heavy, time to get back to lifting weights. The boat was scheduled for 11:30, but I expected it to be late. At 11:15, I was still the only diver on the dock. I started to worry, but figured that locals knew that they would have time. At 11:30 I was still alone and decided that it was time to phone the captain. He told me that he was 5 min. out on his way back. He also said that 17 out of 18 confirmed divers had canceled. He promised to call other boats to find me a spot. Well, we talked when he got back to the dock and it seems that every other boat was also canceled. He said that the viz was bad the previous days, but had cleared up over night. The three divers who went on the morning boat reported good conditions for two dives on the Yukon. The captian said that cancelations had been a problem due to a radio dive report that based conditions on La Jolla shore diving, which was not a good indication for boat dives.
The Lois Ann's captain was real nice, he did his best to find me a spot. But, as for the SoCal divers...let just say that I worked hard to keep the word "wuss" out of the conversation. I mean water at 59F, viz over 10 ft., one guy from the morning boat told me it was upwards of 40 ft. I mean, those conditions sound great to me.
So, when can I go down to SoCal and have a chance of diving? A 10 hour drive is a bit much for dives that may not happen.