Posted by tleemay on August 26, 2001 at 17:15:25:
...your boss calls you at 5:30 in the AM and asks, "how soon can you
be at Santa Monica airport with your dive gear".
I mumble to him "this better be worth it" over the phone. I asked him
where we were going.
"We're going to Mexico to dive" he said.
The only other question I asked him at that time was "When will we be
back?".
"Tonight" he said.
"Before midnight, or after?" I asked.
"Does it really matter? Get your butt down to the plane".
With the sleep still in my eyes, I grab my gear bag, load up the truck
and drive to WLA. I swing by a Starbucks on Venice Blvd before
reaching the airport and grab an MHK Special (grande cappuccino with
Sweet-n-low). I enter the code in the gate and pull up to where the
plane is kept. There's my boss, with another diver friend of his named
Jason, loading their gear into the twin engine Cessna.
My boss completed his pre-flight checks and then filed his flight
plan. We are going to Punta Banda and diving La Bufadora.
My boss has been a diver for about 20 years, he has a very old
equipment including a very old USD reg. He prefers Hawaii to CA, so
it's been next to impossible to get him out on the GE. Turns out he
only really likes to dive 'cold' water in one place, La Bufadora.
Jason is 'older', in his late 50's. He too has been diving since
forever. He, however, has much more up to date equipment and dives CA
regularly.
A little more than 2 ½ hrs later, we were dropping on a dirt landing
strip a couple miles inland from the Punta Banda coastal area. We are
met by another friend of my boss's named Rick, who is already
vacationing down there with his family. He pulls up in his Toyota
Pre-Runner and we off load the gear from the plane to the wheeled
conveyance. We also re-fueled then plane before leaving the mooring.
We stop off at the airstrip office and pay a $15 immigration fee.
We then drive down to the coast and rent tanks and weights at Dale's.
It turns out that Jason is friendly with the people associated with
the shop. Dale runs 22' pangas up and down the area, but they are sold
out for the day. Jason is told by one of the guys in the shop about a
crewed private Boston Whaler that they sometimes use when one of their
boats is down for repairs. Jason gets the directions and 35 minutes
later down a the highway and a really bumpy side road, we arrive at a
small marina where Don Homas is waiting. The shop called ahead so Don
already had the Whaler in place ready to load. Don had a cooler full
of bottled water, Mexican fruit drinks, and Coca-Cola. The Coke in
Mexico is way too sweet for me, so I opted for the lemon-lime Pinifael
(sp?) sodas. After a brief discussion in Spanish between Jason and
Don, we shoved off and motored 30 minutes out to a site called Key
Hole Rock. It's a very pretty and interesting rock formation that juts
form the ocean. It kind of reminded me of the Arch on the S end of
Anacapa adjacent to the lighthouse, but much smaller, more the size of
Begg Rock at low tide.
We jumped in. My boss wore his 3mm 2 piece, Jason and Rick wore 5mm 1
piece suits. I wore my old and compressed 7mm 1 piece with SS BP/wings
in my usual configuration. Only has to add 8 lbs of weight to ensure
the rented AL80's wouldn't cork on me. Everyone else wore their
SeaQuest and Scuba Pro jacket BCs.
Sponges of yellow, white and greenish blue corals, lobsters,
nudibranchs, strange looking flat worms, jackfish of some kind (not
yellow tail or king fish I was told), barracuda, four different types
of crabs (decorator-like, red rock-like, green rock-like, and one that
could have been a dead ringer for dungeoness, but much smaller in
size) as well as smaller schooling fish too numerous to try and name.
Stayed in on dive one for almost a full hour. The diving wasn't
agressive by sport diving limits, but it sure was fun. This was my
first time diving the Punta Banda area. The vis on dive one was about
80 feet and the water temp was 65 on top, 59 on the rock craggy
bottom. We came to the surface and Don Homas motored over to pick us
up. While this wasn't drift diving (there was a very slight current
though), Don operated his Whaler much in the same fashion the ops in
Coz do.
We climbed out and swapped to fresh tanks. It was now about noon, and
damned hot on the water compared to the hour before. There was a
slight breeze, but it did little to relieve the heat. Don told Jason
that the next dive spot was only about 15 minutes away, so we should
relax and have something to eat. While we stripped off our wetsuits,
out from under the wheel console Don pulled out a daypack stuffed with
some chicken sandwiches on Mexican style bollio rolls with white
cheese, bananas, and oranges. He then fished into the bottom of the
ice chest and pulled out a container if what I can only describe as
Mexican potato salad. We ate and drank sodas for about 30 minutes.
We motored over to an area S of Key Hole Rock that Don called White
Walls. Don said this was the best time of day to dive this site. It's
a shallow reef that has a ledge that drops into a sandy patch at about
60'. We dropped in and realized almost immediately why the site is
called White Walls. The sun reflecting off the sand on the bottom
bathed the ledge and drop off in a bright iridescent white color.
Everything on the walls was lit up. There were lots of corals and reef
patches of many colors. We swam the entire length of the ledge and
wall from the point we dropped in to the spot where the sandy bottom
gets too deep to reflect the sun with the available vis, a distance of
about 150 yds. Speaking of vis, it was remarkable here in excess of
100'. Schools of baitfish swam by one after another. When there was no
bait to be seen, barracudas were swimming by.
About an hour into the dive, Jason, who was my buddy after doing the
first dive with my boss, grabbed my fin and tugged on it twice hard. I
turned quickly preparing to donate the long hose only to see Jason
pointing behind us towards my boss and Rick. A dolphin was playing
with them darting left-right-up-down, all over the place. As we swam
back to enjoy the show, two more dolphins joined in. We had two adults
and a juvenile "harassing" Mark and Rick. It was quite a show. Rick
had a camera with him, but we found out later that his Sea-n-Sea
batteries died during the dive. The trio eventually got bored with us
and fled the area.
We got out of the water after a 69 minute dive all excited about the
dolphin experience. Don had a big grin on his face. He said he saw the
dolphins in our area and was VERY happy we were able to see them in
the water. According to him, it's not that common at this particular
site to have such experience.
We got back to the dock and loaded our gear back into the Toyota.
Jason took care of paying Don for the dive trip, we each chucked in an
extra $20 for him and his family (one of his daughters was having her
Confirmation the next day). The boat trip cost each of us $40 plus
tip. The tanks were $5 each, weights were $2. We drove back to Dale's
and dropped off the tanks and weights. W ducked into a local store
down the street from Dale's and picked up some snacks, bottled water,
and sodas for the flight home. By 5:15 we were saying thanks and
good-bye to Rick. We were back in the air heading north.
I know what some of you are thinking, flying that close after diving?
Our altitude flying along the coast was considerably less than the
typical airliner's 30,000', closer to about 10,000'. Mark's (my
boss) old Monitor computer said he was good to fly 3 hrs after getting
out of the water. Since he and Jason regularly do these types of
trips, he has always shaved time off the computer's TTF clock. I
myself have dove more aggressive than that Saturday and flown in
airliners to the East Coast within 2 hours of getting out, so I wasn't
concerned.
Anyway, it was my first dive in that part of Mexico, and it was a pure
pleasure seeing that part of the Pacific. Getting that phone call at
5:30 am was worth it after all.
I wish my boss's Cessna held enough fuel to get to Bikini.