Having lived in SoCal off and on since the early 90s…I’ve
dived around Catalina many times, and none of the dive spots that we hit on a trip
this past weekend were new…but in diving, you quickly find that for most dive
locations, every time you go can be a new and thrilling dive of discovery, if
you pay attention. You can also be
presented with new challenges in unexpected places.
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| Diving with KK in Palau -photo by Mark Grantham |
I’ve been diving with the same group of friends now for
about 9 years. We are friends above and
below water…and I would say we’ve learned more about love, friendship,
forgiveness, and tolerance from all of our adventures both topside and
underneath the waves. In the past year,
having had 2 in our group go through some life-threatening accidents and
challenges, I believe we all are more appreciative of our time together and the
special times that we share. This
weekend…a few things happened that have made me think about how important it is
sometimes to be able to a) know your limits, both physical and mental, and b) when
to accept help from a friend.
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| Sunlight in kelp - photo by Tessa Ptacek |
On Saturday, we dove on one of my favorite dive sites off
Catalina, a pinnacle on the leeward side of the island, called Ship Rock. I love this dive, because it provides great
diving for beginning divers through technical divers…as the
pinnacle slopes off from about 30 feet, all the way down to 200 feet or
more. My buddy Kathryn and I decided to
dive down to about 100 feet on the pinnacle and then work our way around and
slowly up. The dive was stunning at
times…with water clarity up to at least 60 feet or more in places, and schools of
blacksmith swirling around us like a swarm of bees.
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| Ship Rock - photo by Robin Bronner |
I took time to breathe and look up and see the sun filtering down
through the kelp and rocks and take that mental picture that I’ve learned to do
on my most beautiful dives, as pictures can never capture the exact feeling. Diving gives me such a sense of peace and
wonder…and I always try to stay very conscious of the fact that I get to
witness a world that most people on earth will never see.
We hit a strong current as we swam around the pinnacle,
reminding me of some of the cave flows in Florida, but it was so beautiful and
clear, we kept going, working our way up to about 30 feet or so. We had circumnavigated the pinnacle…a
perfect dive. We surfaced briefly and
saw we were right in front of where the boat was anchored, so we took a compass
heading and descended to make our way to the boat underwater. Ah, best-laid plans. After kicking for several minutes and not
seeing any sign of the boat, we again surfaced to check our position. Um, now we were on the far side of the
boat…down current. Did I mention there
was a strong current that day? This is one of the challenges of underwater
navigation, you may have a correct heading but if the current pushes you
down…your heading will be off of your original position. So we took a new heading, descended again
and kicked away. During this process,
we lost sight of each other, and while we both ascended again trying to
connect, I soon saw K. was far ahead of me now and I was still really in the
same spot. Even though I had been
kicking like mad.
Really??? (I found out later that I had incorrectly
tucked some seals in my borrowed semi-dry suit into my boots, bogging me down
with tons of water in my legs!). I
kicked again….hoping to gain some distance.
Surfaced. Same spot. Signaled to the boat by raising one
hand…”come pick me up.” Now, as an
experienced California diver, I HATE to do that…we pride ourselves on getting
back to the boat…but when you’re not making headway and just getting more and
more tired, it makes no sense to keep pushing yourself into exhaustion, where
you’re no longer able to help yourself.
While watching to see if they sent out the skiff to get me…(I didn’t) …I
spotted another diver in the water, moving very quickly my way. I soon recognized my friend Terry, who has a
scooter….coming to pick me up!
Whew. He clipped me in, and
drove the scooter back to the boat. I
could feel the scooter working hard against the current to move both of us to
the boat. I just put my head down and
relaxed as much as possible to create less drag. I put full trust in Terry to get us to the
boat and he did.
We did two more beautiful dives that day, one at Eagle Reef, where hornsharks were plentiful,
and one at Sea Fan grotto, known for a shallow cavern with beautiful gorgonian
sea fans, creating a magical atmosphere of a secret mermaid cave. One of my favorite spots.
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| Hornshark in hiding - photo by Tessa Ptacek |
That night, we docked back in San Pedro, and several of us
attended a birthday party of another dive friend, who was celebrating a special
one…with a lovely Moroccan theme, which had transformed her home into a true
Casablanca abode. We enjoyed amazing
food, drinks, ambiance, and some of us received readings from a tarot card
reader…who seemed to only have positive readings for all of us, no matter the
cards. ;-) We liked that. It was a nice interlude to two wonderful
days of diving.
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| Fog lifts on the backside of Catalina |
We headed back to the boat and slept well, all the way
through the early morning departure to Farnsworth banks. Sleeping on a boat is the best thing ever,
especially when the boat is under way.
The movement is like being rocked to sleep, and the water slapping
against the boat hull is tranquilizing.
Sometimes you feel like you can sleep forever. But then you smell breakfast and hunger wins
over sleep.
The sun was rising over the boat when I got up…hitting the
water like a million sparkling diamonds. We were on our way to the backside (windward) side of Santa
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| Sunrise over the Pacific Star |
Catalina to dive
Farnsworth Banks…one of the most stunning dives in southern California. A ridge of pinnacles that starts at about 60
feet and drops down to deep depths, the ridges are covered by purple hydrocorals
like I’ve never seen anywhere else.
Strong waves and currents can make this site undiveable….and you never
quite know until you get there if you will make the dive or not. Fortunately…it was a calm day, and Captain
Dave of the Pacific Star got us right on top of one of the shallow
pinnacles. No other boats were
there…which also made it perfect.
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| Purple hydrocoral at Farnsworth - photo by Mirek Wolski |
We made our way down the anchor line, and saw that we had great visibility and tons
of life swirling around the pinnacles, including TWO large electric (torpedo)
rays, one of whom was very interested in my buddies for the dive, Kathryn and
Jennifer. It swam right over their
tanks, which gave me a bit of concern, since these rays can shock a person, and
while probably not fatal, would certainly stun and cause some pain and
shock. Fortunately the ray swam off …maybe
it just likes girls wearing doubles and wanted to check them out more closely. ;-)
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| Torpedo Ray at Farnsworth - photo by Mirek Wolski |
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| Purple hydrocoral, Farnsworth - photo by Mirek Wolski |
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| Farnsworth - Photo by Mirek Wolski |
After two spectacular dives at Farnsworth, the captain moved
the boat down the island to drop off some of the technical divers in our group
to a deep water wreck, with the rest of us hitting a spot called Johnson Rocks
nearby. My buddy for this dive,
Jennifer, and I headed down this lovely reef, in less than stellar conditions,
because a strong current had kicked up and visibility was starting to drop. I saw the kelp laying down flat as we heading
down current, but there wasn’t really an option to swim in the opposite
direction, so we made our way down the reef and back, and had a beautiful dive
with more schools of fish, and tons of outcroppings that were fun to swim around. As we made our way back towards the boat, we
again hit strong currents, and we were actually pulling ourselves along the
flattened kelp to conserve energy. On
our way, we heard a boat passing overhead, and looked up to see the boat’s
skiff towing 3 divers in a row.
Hmmm. We surfaced down current
from the boat…but at least this time not as far as my Ship Rock dive, and we
both were able to kick back to the swim step.
Props to Jen with her doubles…I was working really hard to kick with my
single tank…at least I didn’t have a gallon of water in my legs this time!
Back on the boat we relaxed on the Lido deck with friends
and sunshine, laughing at our misadventures, and celebrating our safe return
and time together. Two groups of divers had to be towed in that
last dive…mainly due to the distance they had been dropped and the strong
currents.
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| DiveVettes Forever: Kathryn, Mary, Kathy M., Jennifer |
All of this made me reflect on how diving can be such a
metaphor for life…when all goes well, it is magical and easy…but particularly
in our part of the world, diving can take a quick turn. Although being trained to your best ability
helps a diver deal with the inevitable challenges that can arise, knowing that
you can depend on your buddies and fellow divers to assist when needed can make
all of the difference in the outcome of a potential problem.
I’ve found
that it’s not just “the adventure” that counts, it’s with whom you share the
journey.
