malaga cove...i failed!!!...


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Posted by kelphead on June 13, 2001 at 21:15:32:

so naive--and to think that i could actually do a quickie morning
dive and then head into lab right after. why not?! everyone else can do it! sheesh!!

well, i got there at 7:40am, but my buddy apparently go lost. he showed up an hour later.

the waves were not too bad: ~2ft, but w/the occasional ~3-4ft. the surfers were definitely out, but not having as much luck as they would like, i'm sure. we carted our stuff down the really steep path, but, hey, at least it was paved until the bottom.

i personally would have liked to enter from rat beach, but my buddy
decided that we could do just fine over the rocks. (the problem is
that i can't carry that kind of load AND negotiate some delicate footing over some relatively large and slippery rocks.)

my buddy, God bless his soul, did the heavy work and he walked each of our b.c.'s (w/wts!!) to the edge of the water where we donned our rigs. i went in 1st and swam out a good distance past the swells and waited for him: the water was green. very very green.

we swam out a bit of a ways more and decided to descend. the vis was practically non-existent and i would estimate it to be literally inches. in order to see the sand, one had to stick one's face a couple of inches above it.

we finally made it to the reef, but it was very surgy and the vis only slightly improved around the rocky reefs. we hung out where the vis was the best and where we saw some life. don't have the exact stats in front of me, but the depth did not exceed 20ft and the temp was ~62F. vis maxed out at ~5ft.

we did see the following though:

**a couple of lobster
**some type of shrimp; saw a few of them in a hole
**sea hare
**sheep crab--they look cool!!
**fragile(??) seastar--the white one that looks like it has really short spines
**scorpionfish
**garabaldi
**very healthy kelp
**gorgonians

not too much color, though. on the return trip, my buddy put his hand on a rock. b/c of the limited vis, i was right next to him, barely an inch away. as i see him put his hand down on the rock, RIGHT!!!! next to him a couple of centimeters away is the scorpionfish. it didn't move whatsover. i grabbed my buddy and pointed the fish out to him.

further on during our return trip, he turns at one point and i'm about to follow him, and i watch his fins to make sure he doesn't hit me (again), and that's when i see the sheep crab RIGHT where my buddy's fin is just passing over. i grab him again and show him. it, too, didn't move when i petted it. (...must be b/c it's a marine reserve, and the animals aren't too afraid...?...)

anyway, the diving sucked but it was still good to get wet. we ended the dive with ~50 minutes bottom time and w/1000psi still left (we just got bored and i knew we'd be doing a sandy beach exit, so i wanted a bit more reserve).

i have to confess that this dive was the most successful beach dive i've done thus far. the entry from the rocks went much more smoothly than i had anticipated (i still remember the pebbly/rocky beach entry at what we THOUGHT was leo carrillo, but instead was the beach just on the other side of leo carrillo!!). also, this must have been the 1st time i've never been in the 'rinse cycle' when exiting. = : D especially since those waves were really getting taller at the end there (4-5ft). it was practically a textbook beach dive--yayy!!! (yeah, like that's ever going to happen again!! *sigh*)

one other thing i learned on this dive: i now know i can clear my mask competently once someone has kicked it hard enough to completely flood it. i've always been proud that no matter how long i'm in the 'rinse cycle' or how hard the waves have hit my face or how many times or how hard someone has kicked my mask, my mask never ever ever came off or flooded at all. (truthfully, the only time my mask leaked was when i had some hair interfere w/the seal.)

well, my buddy happened to kick my mask hard enough that it didn't come off, but it did leak completely in a matter of one second. i was able to instantly close my eyes and purge the damn thing in something like 3 seconds. my buddy never even realized what happened (until i told him on the beach afterwards) and i continued on w/him.

now, the good deed of the day came when we ate a bit after we made it back to our spot and sat on the rocks to chat. in the middle of our conversation, i noticed that one of the seagulls was hooked on to a fishing line...a looong fishing line, of which i couldn't tell where the end was.

my buddy grabbed his knife and started to climb over the rocks to get to the bird. i figured that his knife might not be enough, so i got my shears and made my own way over there. by the time i reached them, my buddy had already 'pulled' the bird in by the fishing line and had grabbed the bird by the feet. of course, the poor bird was terrified of him and had attempted to fly away only to be wrenched back by its newfound leash. the bird tried several times to attack my buddy, and it succeeded in cutting his right hand (small cut). of course i love wildlife dearly, but am a wuss when it comes to actually touching them, etc. so, i used my buddy's knife to distract the bird while my buddy used my shears to cut away the fishing line.

he did such a great job, he was able to trim it all the way down to the visible hook and without injuring the bird any further.

at that point my buddy wanted to see if we could actually remove the hook from the bird's mouth. that's where he and i parted philosophically, mainly out of fear for limb! i just don't know how to handle birds and i already witnessed the blood gushing out of my buddy's (tiny) cut. so, i convinced him that the bird will be fine just as long as it could open and close its mouth, it won't starve to death. i'm not sure if this is true, but i convinced my buddy that the flesh will heal around the hook and the hook will just become part of the bird, permanently attached.

that seemed to satisfy him. = : ) so, we let the bird go.

interesting observation: when my buddy first approached the injured bird, the rest of the flock took off, understandably so. i thought they were completely gone, but my buddy told me later that they had just been hovering above us. well, after we finally released the bird after its 'trimming', i then saw the entire flock out of nowhere join the injured bird and they took off together...that was a really nice scene and showed the attachment that the rest of the flock had to just one bird. they didn't abandon it. interesting. i didn't know that about seagulls.

so, it was definitely an interesting dive, but not as pleasant as i'm sure it will be the next time we dive malaga cove.

when we got out of the water and back to our spot, it was already 1:30pm. i made it into lab ~3:45pm (and that was after i rearended someone on pch while trying to maximize nacho cheese on my tortilla chip and still not make a mess in my car). shoulda just gone straight home afterwards.

oh, well...

< : )

kelphead.





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