Posted by ptf on August 16, 2004 at 15:18:16:
Once again I was afforded a hall pass. Of course a string was attached: Start the removal of the 1970's vintage popcorn from the ceiling afterwards. So after dropping the wife off in Bev Hills I went fro a short hop at Redondo Beach. I had called "wreck" the night before to see if he had a suitable pig sticker. he did not but offered to find something in the back of the shop that would fit the bill. I was thinking welding rod. I had used a coat hanger before but that was rather unsatisfactory as it was too flexible.
Over the years we have had a few buckets for the classes to use as anchors. The first few used rebar placed into concrete. I was a bit critical of the maker of these as he used the thin style of rebar and as I predicted they did not last too long. After a good storm the buckets would be buried due to the same action that San Francisco will get reclaimed in a really good earthquake - liquefaction. Our original buckets were once buried by the sand storm from the city reclamation project. IMHO the ground life of olive shells and sand dollar beds are finally recovering. One or two of the buckets were rolled down the hill after they were no longer usable and a couple of them were buried under the black muck that was pumped at the dive site. As happenstance would have it just about the time that the last bucket was loosing its anchor hold I was given some exceptional hardware.
About 3 years ago SoCal Ed removed and replaced a power pole from the alley behind me. In the wake of repairs I was granted a thimble eye and a triple eye (here is a pic of a twin eye http://www.hubbellcatalog.com/hps/datasheet.asp?PN=6561). A trip to the local orange box for some all thread a few nuts and washers and a bag of readi mix I was set to make up two bucket anchors. One dark night we hauled them out to the favored spot and chained them up. Over time the chain became a bit ratty and finally after a storm we "lost" the 2 buckets. For the past 6 months I have been threatening to hunt them down and unbury them. Saturday's dive was to local them.
Arriving at the site I asked Wreck if he had a pig sticker for me, oops left it at the shop. Humm i really had my heart set on finding the buckets, especially since the viz looked good and the waves were small. Then it hit me, Hey this truck my wife bought me has a long hand crank for the car jack. Pop the hood, a little long but it might just work. So I swim out and triangulate the spot where the buckets were last seen. As it was the class was in close proximity to where I was searching - not good as I knew that if I found the buckets that I would screw up the viz. With the probe I started jamming it down into the sand out 9 - 12 inches every 8 inches working in a circular pattern. On one of the sweeps I noted a stick in the sand - not normal. I started probing and ...CLUNK... hey that sounds good. Now who put that stick there?? A few more probes and I figured the bucket - if that is what it was is on its side. Buried about 6 inches under the sand. Hey and I can barely make out the class.
About 35 minutes later after excavating, fanning and hooking 2 lift bags I was able to retrieve the bucket with the eye bolt. I was really hoping to uncover the triple eye as it is much beefier and more substantial.
One of the DM's after the dive said that he knew where another bucket was and that it was buried - about 50 yards away. I made sure that he was not talking about the square memorial that Hollywood Divers put up. Since I didn't have another tank wand the ceiling was calling we decided to go after this one the next day. I asked him if it was the triple eye and he said - yeah.
Well it ends up he really didn't know what a triple eye was, he thought it was just a circle loop and thus was an eye - once I showed him what it looked like he said - nope never seen that. In any case there is a plastic tub with another thimble eye that has been unburied - it too was on its side. It is about 5 feet East of its previous location.
So if any of you know where my triple eye bucket is drop me a line, otherwise it is back out to probe some more :-)
viz - was great until I got there
stuff we saw - sand dollars, sea pens, olive shells - on the move, about a dozen bat rays in the extreme shallows (sure hope those beach goers were shuffling their feet!
max Depth 26 feet
Time 68 and 73 minutes