Diving at the Marine Room (La Jolla Shores)

Well we planned out a great dive today... we were up at 5AM and on site by 7AM... we had rented our rigs the day before, done our homework about a week earlier... trying to squeeze in at least one more dive before I deploy again. Weather Channel.com said that it was going to be sunny all day, 0% humidity, good temps... we got there and surveyed our spot... here are the write-ups of what we expected to see at "The Marine Room":

"... it's likely you'll catch glimpses of Leopard Sharks, which come by the hundreds to mate in the shallow waters. Leopard Sharks are harmless and are beautiful to watch. At the Marine Room are scattered rocks, surrounded by sand. There are other large bottom-feeding marine animals in this area too. Bat Rays, Angel Sharks, Round Stingrays, and Banded Guitarfish are also a common site..."

Well, the surf looked pretty rough in close to the shore... pretty good sized waves and coming really fast... our backup dive spot would have been very calm but it is in Mission Bay and the bacteria levels vary a lot there and we have heard that the visibility there is pretty crappy... we'd already rented our gear so we weren't going to turn back now... we decided to give this spot a try... *** BIG MISTAKE ***

The water was REALLY WARM (57deg), but just getting out to the buoy where we were going to drop down turned out to be EXHAUSTING... it was 1/2 a mile off the shore... a 1/2 mile swim is a pretty good distance in itself but going against such heavy waves made it feel like AT LEAST a mile!!! Once we got there we had to hold on to the buoy and rest for at least 10 minutes... the waves were so bad that Brandon actually started to feel a little sea-sick!!! Once we descended we both got a little more worried... visibility was about 4 feet MAXIMUM! We got to the bottom, took a few pics of each other and practiced an "out of air" emergency response... at that point we both decided that the water was so rough we should just abandon our dive plan and head inshore... so we proceeded to return underwater to avoid fighting the bigger waves on the surface. We were down a total of 36 minutes and reached a maximum depth of only about 30 feet... we had originally planned to dive to at least 40 feet and stay down for about an hour... we really didn't see anything but a few plants... Brandon *DID* see a big lobster, Heather swears it was just a plant... that is HOW BAD the visibility down there was... downright SCARY! As we got closer in-shore the waves got so bad that the dirt on the bottom was no longer visible as it was being stirred around into clouds... this caused Brandon to get pretty seasick... since we only went down to 30 feet and had come up very slowly to about a depth of 10 feet at this point, we decided to come straight up to the surface so he could get his head re-oriented. We kicked our way back in to shore from the surface... we really weren't far from our mark of where we wanted to surface at, maybe only about 20 feet or so... unfortunately in that small amount of distance that we were off, we found ourselves in the beach rocks!!! Talk about *TOUGH* to deal with! The waves were beating down on us and pushing us in-shore, the rocks were stumbling us so we couldn't get on our feet, our fin-tips were tripping us on the rocks at the same time... it was HORRIBLE! At one point we decided to just CRAWL those 20 feet on our hands a knees! :) The life-guards came over to watch us to make sure we'd make it ok, which we did... we were POOPED! It was so bad we decided to just call it a day... we had originally planned 2 dives with about an hour break in between. We are taking our cameras in to get developed... no good pics from this dive though, to be sure. Almost a waste of our time and money but we learned two valuable lessons: 1) don't look so much at the breaking waves to gauge the water conditions, look out at the buoys in the distance... water will always be breaking somewhat in-shore, but if the water is so rough that there are swells that hide the buoys in the distance, it's probably a VERY BAD dive day (we had a very hard time keeping sight of the buoys until we were right up on them); 2) No matter HOW MUCH money you paid to rent your rig, no matter how much you want to dive your spot... if it doesn't add up, don't waste your time and just make yourself sick... it won't matter 'cuz your dive will blow... just go to your second spot and hope it is at least calm enough that you can enjoy your time down there, even if the spot isn't as cool at least you won't get SICK! :)

A Party Aboard the RMS Queen Mary!

This weekend Heather and I attended her company winter party aboard the RMS Queen Mary. The Queen Mary is an old English Cruise Ship that has been permanently moored in Long Beach, CA, and turned into a floating hotel. It was VERY neat to go "back in time" and see the old styling of this ship that was one of the most elegant cruise ships around the beginning of the 20th century up until World War II at which point it was converted to a troop transport ship for the war. On a side note, the RMS Queen Mary is actually almost twice the size of the famous Titanic! Due to several horrible accidents onboard, this ship has a long and varied history of ghost sightings and paranormal activity. You can find out all sorts of info about the Queen Mary by visiting the official site! Here are a couple of photos of our time onboard!

               
The Queen Mary steaming in New York in the early 1900's and as she appears now berthed in Long Beach, CA.



               
Us all dressed up for the party, and then us the next morning in front of the old Ticket Booth.




Heather at the famous Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, CA.




Brandon, putting his hand in the imprint of Arnold Schwarzenegger's hand.

Brandon has been accepted to "IT" Conversion!!!

The news is finally in! The Navy today accepted Brandon's request to convert from "STG" (Sonar Technician) to "IT" (Information Technician)! He has to complete his tour on his ship as an STG until the ship is decommissioned later this summer, after which he will fly to Great Lakes, Ill. to attend schooling for about 3-4 months. After that he will be up for orders to just about any location in the world so we have no idea where we will be living one year from now. Basically a 'conversion' is the equivelant of a 'career change' in the civilian world and his new job, "IT", will entail working with satellite communications, PC's, networks, and similar things that he was doing prior to joining the Navy and should offer him training and experience that will convert much more easily into a civilian job later in life. We are both excited and nervous about the new changes we are about to confront!

We get NAUI Certified as Basic Scuba Divers!

Well today was the end of a long, fun, and demanding week for both Heather and I! After going to work EARLY every morning, this week we also had to be over to the base pool from 5PM to 10PM every night which included about 3 hours of snorkel & scuba training each night plus about an hour or two of classroom studying. It was a VERY demanding week for both of us, and poor Tazzy never got to really spend much time with either of us... in fact one night we couldn't even make it home to feed her and had to ask the neighbors to take her out... :( On Saturday we had to be at La Jolla Shores by 7AM for our open-ocean dives... our class started out by doing the first dive with just snorkel gear... we went out to about 10-12 feet of water and practiced various dive maneuvers and safety procedures. The water was in the low 50's but we were wearing 7mm wetsuits so it really didn't feel too bad. We got out of the water, grabbed the rest of the scuba gear and headed back into the water... we again proceeded to practice various safety procedures and went on a brief tour of the area... going down to about 30 feet. We came out of the water for about 45min. and headed back in for our third dive and went down to about 42 feet depth. The water was fairly murky but still had about 20 feet visibility. Sunday we showed up at the same place, same time... the water was a little warmer at about 56 degrees. Our first dive we went down to about 50 feet after having first practiced bringing an unconscious diver to the surface. We sat outside the water for about an hour and a half and got back in... but this time: ALONE! No instructor, no team... just us two! We were responsible for planning our own dive, surveying the conditions on our own, assessing our gear and performing a safe dive.... it was a little scary but really not too bad... we decided to snorkel out a ways to a buoy that could be seen from shore, align our compass and descend down the buoy's anchor chain (which rests on the ground at about 40 feet of water)... once below we would check all of our gages, pose for a few pictures of each other with our disposable underwater cameras and then continue down to around 60 feet... out just a bit past the anchor chain is a huge cliff that drops off for hundreds of feet, so we agreed to swim over to the cliff and begin our descent down the side slowly until we hit about 55 feet at which point we would use our compass to determine North and swim up the coast until our watch indicated we had been below water for about 16 minutes at which point we would use our compass to determine the direction of the coast and head back in-shore. We stopped several times along the way to take pictures of each other and check our gages. From the minute we went down below the surface until the time we returned to the beach and could stand up with our head above the water we had been down for about 29 minutes and our gages indicated we had reached a depth of about 57 feet.

So... we safely (and successfully!) went on our first dive together alone! And, being our final dive, we had passed and are now certfied divers! It has been a ton of fun for us both and has helped us both grow a lot... we would recommend diving to anyone! Aside from swimming, it is the first sport we have found that we both enjoy doing together so much and we plan on continuing diving!

Here's a picture that one of our instructors took of us (Heather is on the left, Brandon is on the right):

As we get OUR pictures developed, I'll post them here for anyone to check out... keep in mind, the San Diego water is pretty murky especially over THIS weekend... so they may not be all that impressive... but from our vantage-point it was VERY cool... we saw a harbor seal that swam around us pretty close, a few crabs, a LOT of 'rays', schools of small fish and a lot of inanimate objects like starfish, shells, snails, etc. But, in truth, we are just training to get us prepared for the really cool dive spots that we want to hit in the future!

We were trained by the excellent instructors at IB Divers down in Imperial Beach, CA. If you are interested in learning how to dive, this is the place to go! Ralph, the owner, was ESPECIALLY knowledgeable and patient with us through the learning process and is a very friendly guy to work with! Their website isn't much to look at, but it has the basic info. you need and I figure they are spending more of their time in the water and less stuck on the stupid computer anyways! :) Anyways, we appreciate their help in teaching us this life-long skill! Check out their site and then go visit their shop!




Click on the NAUI logo to visit the official site