Posted by Chris on July 30, 2002 at 00:47:25:
On Friday and Saturday, July 19-20 2002, I went to San Nicolas Island with the Sea Divers on the Great Escape.
For the last two months I've been working seven days a week, so this was my first dive trip in quite awhile.
Because of my work schedule I was not well rested and missed the first dive at San Nick on Friday because I choose to sleep instead.
The second dive of the day, which was my first, was near the markers.
The water was about 61°F which is very warm for Nic.
A nice dive with about 50 ft. vis.
The next dive was a kelp bed at the edge of the badlands.
This was one of the most beautiful dives I've been on in a long time.
The kelp was thick and lush, in places it was so thick it seemed like the dead of night.
The water was so thick with krill it limited the visibility to about 30 ft.
In breaks in the krill you could see about 60 ft.
The water here was cold, 49°F to 51°F.
Many small rockfish, kelpfish, cabazon, and lingcod were there.
Near the outer edge of the kelp bed, I saw a school of several thousand small (4 inch) needle fish.
The rocks were covered with corinactis, anemones, and many other invertebrates.
The next dive was at the wreck, but I decided to nap through that dive.
The following dive was at the sand spit.
Here the water was a toasty 63°F with more than 60 ft. vis!
Here I saw many calico bass, and it looked like great territory for lobster, but none seemed to be home.
The next morning I awoke while the boat was cruising.
I looked out ahead of the boat, and there was Bock Rock in the distance.
Captain Tim anchored the boat about 60 yards from the rock, and since I was ready to go, he asked me to go down and check out the anchor.
He gave me a styrafoam plate to release if it was ok.
I hoped in the water and easy sawm to the anchor line, as soon as I started down I could see the bottom.
Near the surface the vis was about 50 ft, and at 100 ft, the vis was much more than 100 ft., because I could clearly see the next two ridges.
When I came to the anchor I found it sitting on top of a ridge, with the chian draped down in a large loop about 40 ft. below.
To make sure the anchor would catch if a current came up; I carefully pushed the anchor off of the ridge down the side where the chain was draped.
The anchor tumbled down the ridge to the bottom of the canyon into a spot where it would catch if it current came up.
I cruised around and during the dive got a limit of very nice large rock scallops.
We stayed for another dive.
There was no obvious current, but there must have been a very mild one, because when I descended for the second dive the visibility was reduced to about 35 ft.
It seems that the local plankton count had risen in the intervening hour.
It was still another great dive.
About 30 minutes after we pulled anchor we passed a group of about 5 blue whales.
One surfaced about 40 yards in front of the boat, but the rest stayed several hundred yards off.
There was no mistaking the large spouts from the others in the distance.
It was a great dive trip, as most Sea Divers trips are.
.. Chris Grossman