Blog for Nayan

I decided to head out this sunday on Sundiver diving Catalina. It was supposed to be a clear sunny day and it definitely turned out to be one. The previous night i had met up with paras, miril and diti for dinner and then had ice cream at Mashti Malone. I was really stuffed that night and it was a good thing.

Woke up at 4.30 am and because of previous night heavy dinner i didn’t feel like having anything for breakfast. I left at about 5.45 am and the usual ramp on sunset for 101 was closed so had to take a detour but managed to reach the boat at about 6.40 am. The boat was going to be full.

After completing the usual paperwork etc, i found myself a bunk and tried to take a nap since i had like 3-4 hours of sleep the previous night, but i wasn’t able to sleep. Got up, had something to eat and drink and then it was almost time to get ready. I saw that we were getting closer to island and going in direction of two harbors. At first, we were planning to dive a place where the bat rays were supposed to be in plenty but then we moved to a different spot for some unknown reason. The water was crystal clear with vis upto 70 ft.

Dive teams were being created so to say since there were some who were diving for the first time in cold calif water and i was supposed to tag along with Andrew and a group of 5 more people. The heat was intense and i was starting to sweat in my wetsuit so i decided to get into water as soon as possible. Some people decided to take off their hoods since the water was 70F on the surface which was surprising. I got into the water and it surely felt good, i wasn’t hot anymore but wasn’t cold at all, just comfortable. It took a long 10-15 mins to get the entire group together and for some reason i thought my dive light fell off. Andrew asked to me dive down and look for it so i went in by myself while keeping an eye on the gang.

I started looking for my light but after a while i realized that it was attached to my BC, bummer and i also lost Andrew and rest of the gang. i decided to go Solo and explore the reefs by myself. The kelp was thick and there was no way that i would have found those guys but back in my head i was thinking what if they are looking for me or something but i was wrong about that. Andrew figured i would be fine on my own so he didn’t bother to look. I found lots of bugs and the usual critters and while i was looking for something i came across a Scorpion fish by chance. I always wanted to find those things since they are really well camouflaged and today was my lucky day, i found couple of them on this dive and all of them by accident.

yes that is a fish.

revealing its true colors

It blends really well.

School of Fish

Since i wasn’t sure whether or not those guys were looking for me, I decided to end my dive early though i had like more than 900 psi left in my tank and could have gone for another 10 mins. I saw a group of 6 and thought it must be andrew n gang but it was others. I finally found andrew and ferris during their safety stop and i also stopped along with them.

Dive 1 Details:

Total time: 44 mins 

Max Depth: 44 ft

Buddies: None

People were getting warm with their hoods and 7 mm suits so some of them were diving without wetsuits. I contemplated taking off my hood but decided against it. We were going to be anchored at the same point since the conditions were so great and this time for the dive it was just me, andrew and ferris. The rest of the gang were comfortable and diving on their own. Jumped into the water and we decided to head in a different direction this time, with Andrew leading and me being the last person. I was going to be slow since i would get caught up taking pictures. Few mins into the dive as we were exploring the reefs, Ferris had stopped and was pointing me to something. It was a horn shark resting and it was quite big as well about 3-4 feet i suppose. Took a few pictures and then continued on, saw lots of lobsters again, quite a few rock fish and a big cod resting. The algae forest closer to the shore at about 12-15 feet was very colorful with some lavender growth. It was really pretty. We did little more exploring and i was trying hard to find some nudibranches but they weren’t to be seen anywhere. It was a good dive nonetheless. For some weird reason my mask was really bothering my during this entire dive, i had to clear it every couple of mins.

The plant life

The underwater forest

The Horn Shark

This it the lavender plant.

Dive 2 Details:

Total Time: 44 mins

Max Depth: 36 ft

Buddies: Andrew and Ferris

It was time for lunch and there were no veggie sandwiches for me but there were some spinach pizzas which were good enough for me. For the last dive we moved across two harbors and came to place called Africa rock or something like that. This was the place where the boat captain Kyaa had her students see some crazy Bat ray behavior so i was hopeful of seeing them this time. Hilary needed a buddy so i decided to go along with her, I was going to lead and she wanted me to go really slow so that she could explore things and have more time to look around. I was fine with it since i wanted to find some nudibranches myself and take few cool pics. Also she wasn’t sure about her navigation and I am not that bad myself so that was another reason for me to lead the way. The vis out here wasn’t as great as the earlier spot but it wasn’t too bad either. It was in 25 – 30 ft range.

We decided on a general direction and then dropped down, Hilary had some problems clearing her ears initially but managed to clear them and so we continued our dive. I was looking out for anything colorful and bright but couldn’t find anything at all. No nudis during the entire dive. The reefs were abundant in life with the usual critters, lots of bugs aka lobsters. Also managed to find a scorpion fish on this dive, at 40 feet I was getting bit chilly and 20-25 mins into the dive Hilary told me that she was also feeling cold. On the way back i wanted to go along the edge of the reef since that was the place where the rays would hang out but since both of us were little cold i decided to go to a shallow depth and explore the reefs again. No luck with the rays or the nudis. Hilary had about 990 psi left and myself about 800 so i decided to continue a bit longer with the dive but after a while hilary signaled that she was down to 800 and wanted to end the dive. We took our safety stop and then swam back to the boat, we didn’t wander that far and it was a short surface swim to the boat.

Love this picture, was from the previous dive.

Sea Fan, Juvenile Garibaldi and Star Fish

Dive 3 Details:

Total Time: 48 mins

Max Depth: 43 ft

Buddies: Hilary

I packed up my things, took a shower and was ready to crash as soon as possible but not before i had that awesome yummy chocolate cake. I slept the entire way back, it was almost 7 pm by the time we docked. Almost forgot to take the camera out of the camera bucket, if it wasn’t for Ferris reminding me about it. She gave me her email address so that i could send her the pics. Reached home at about 8ish and then the usual cleaning up of my gear etc.

It was a satisfying day of diving even though i didn’t see bat ray or nudibranches but there were plenty of lobsters and saw a few scorpion fish.

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