Posted by mike on June 17, 2001 at 22:24:43:
Farnsworth bank that is. Tim Burke was kind enough to take eleven very lucky divers to Farns even though that was not enough divers for the boat to break even.
Vis was pretty darn good, at around 40-70 feet, depending on a transient cloud of plankton here and there. The water temp? i could have cared less, even though my drysuit leaked a little when i looked down, it wasn't that bad.
Dove /w/ twin Al-80s with 36% and stayed down for 45 minutes before surfacing from near the high spot. Spent the first 13 minutes at 86-90 fsw prior to dipping down to 102 just for a second to look at a HUGE octopus (thanks for pointing it out, Don Lake) and spent most of the dive at an average depth of around 75 feet. Lots of sculpin (two species) and smallish calicos, hordes of juvenile blacksmith, lots of opaleye and one 30 inch lingcod, which ended up on someone else's dinner table (shucks!). One interesting side note: just prior to ascending from 68 fsw, my Oceanic Prodigy (circa 1995) indicated that i assumed a 5 minute deco obligation at 10 feet. On the way up (ascending at 15-20 feet per minute), i did "Pyle stops" at 40fsw, 30 fsw, 20 fsw for 2 minutes each followed by 4 minutes at 15 fsw. By the time i finished my 20 foot stop, my deco obligation on the 'puter had vanished. So i learned that my Prodigy gives me credit for deep stops! (i had planned the dive earlier in the week using Buelhlman based tables in the 'trox manual)
Second dive at the bank was for 47 min, with a pole spear. Didn't bother to stick anything because there wasn't anything that i felt proper to stick. Saw a bat ray cruising near the high spot. Way cool.
Third dive was near the west end in some BEAUTIFUL kelp!! Swam to shore near the bottom (first 35 minutes), ran into a cool, calm, collected bat ray & gave it a 15 foot wide berth so as not to disturb it. Swam back to the boat very leisurely at a depth of 15 -25 feet for the second 35 minutes (till everyone got sick of waiting and the underwater recall went off) and then i high-tailed it back. On all three dives, i started with 2500 psi, and returned with 1000 psi and the doubles were barely noticeable with the backplate and harness. 7 foot hose did'nt get in the way either. Nor was the necklaced octo an issue. Feels to me like the DIR config works pretty well in the kelp forest!!!