In Reply to: Quick dive report; Redondo Canyon posted by Max Bottomtime on December 11, 2008 at 21:38:14:

Max beat me to it.
Dive 1 1048 AM Arrived at Vets Park to its weekly farmers market, sunny sky's and genuine ankle slappers at best for the waves. After a slow start thanks to traffic which delayed my partner we walked down to the Topaz Jetty (long walk or tons of stairs, pretty much evens out). We waded out into remarkably clear water. Could clearly see the bottom even in the chest deep water. We surface swam next to the jetty out to the end. No fishermen on it today which made it good for the swim. Once at the end we dropped down into 10 feet of water (dang, that is shallow at the end of the jetty!) and headed off on a course of 300 degrees in search of 45 feet and the old pier pilings. At 35 feet and right on course we came to the first pier piling. Things change and the once tall pier pilings we found were much shorter. The first one was only 3-4 feet tall, the second 4-6 feet and the tallest of the 4 we saw was not over 6 feet. We found the line between the pilings but it only connected to the two. There was a layer of red tide between 40-60 feet and things got very dark. I was disappointed that the pier was not the tall 10-15 or more pilings I remembered. But still, hey we found them and that is often an accomplishment. After loosing the pier in the murk (I am sure there are more pilings and hopefully taller) we headed off toward the North West in search of visibility and more to see. Dropping eventually down to 73 feet it was still murky, but still had 10 foot visibility near the bottom. Fond lots of small stuff if you looked close, inch long halibut, little crabs and stuff.

Dive 2 1:49 PM. We walked south about 100 yards south of the Vets park stairs along the bike path to a line of rocks extending into the ocean. Once again we waded out into remarkably clear water. But here as we swam out we could see the water turn noticeably darker and we could no longer see our fins as we floated before descending about even with the end of the pier. We dropped down into 12 feet of water and headed off on a course of 270 degrees in search of deeper water, better visibility and something to see. There was a distinct layer of dark reddish water that thinned out below 20 feet or so. Spotted lots of the usual suspects, including a decorator crab and two baby 4-6 inch horn sharks hiding behind kelp leaves on the sand. Had to cut the dive short due to an appointment at 4:00.

All in all, sure beat working all day.

• Re: Re: Quick dive report; Redondo Canyon Max Bottomtime 14:47:58 12/12/08 (0)