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9/25/2011 Nixies aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Jim Capwell, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 10' - 30' Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: 53F - 55F Surge: 4'

Max Depth: 205FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:40 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
BAUE tech charter on Sunday took us to The Nixies in the Yankee Point area. Conditions were better than expected. Its was dark at the bottom, but visibility was in the 20-30ft range with warmer water in the 51-55 degrees.

Highlight of the dive was Grunt Sculpin that Susan found walking about at the bottom, and then she also found a large Pacific Electric Ray. We were able to hang around with both of them with was really nice experience.

There was a strong current toward the top of the pinnacles, and we enjoyed a fun time driving in and out of the current while circling the pinnacle a couple of times.

We surfaced to found nice sunny skies and flat ocean for the drive back.

9/3/2011 Roxies land aboard Escapade by John Heimann -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Clinton Bauder, John Heimann

Visibility: 10' - 20' Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: 52F - 55F Surge:

Scooter: Gavin Short Burn Time: 0:30

Max Depth: 180FSW Avg Depth: 150FSW

Bottom Time: 0:35 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
6,4,4,4,4,15,6 up
Don't let the naysayers discourage you, this was a nice divesite! As Beto noted in his trip report, conditions allowed a trip south, and though Sur19/20 were an option we decided to check out a new site Beto had located on sonar maps which he called Roxie Land. Current was strong and consistent, with the exception of a ledge near 145' that had relatively little life other than kelp, so Rob and Clinton weren't able to do a spectacular photo survey of the new site. There were lots of fish on the site however, including lots f vermillion and yellow eye, and a decent collection of nudibranchs. It would be fun to go back to this site in better viz.

9/3/2011 White Cayon aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Joakim Linde, Jim Capwell, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 5' - 15' Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: 180FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:40 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Back on the Escapade for another BAUE tech charter. We were feeling like Bay Area Explorers so we decided to try some new dive sites. This is "dangerous" business as it's impossible to know if the site is good or bad by looking at the sonar that, so you have to take your chances. It might be an ok dive site, or it might be the best site on the whole peninsula waiting to be found.

First dive was a pinnacle south of Sur Banks which looked only like the famous SUR19 and SUR 20 on the sonar data, but about twice the size. The top of the pinnacle at 120ft had more kelp that hydro-corals, which was disappointing but on the other side there were tons of red rock fish: vermilion, yellow eyes and others. We were able to hand around with some quite large yellow eyes which does not happen often, and we also found a nice rat fish on the south end. There was quite a nice current coming from south so we alternate btw scootering south and drifting north. Vis was pretty bad 5-10ft and dark so not the best conditions.

Second dive was at a site north of Carmel. We have been trying to dive it for a while but never got around to it. At this location two parallel walls go for about 400ft in a north-west direction. The base of this canyon is at about 130ft and the top of the wall is at 80ft. We unfortunately hit a layers of bad vis at about 50ft and vis at the bottom was 5-10ft range and dark :-). We followed the cayon for about 400ft, while enjoying the terrain. The walls were all covered with the invading barnacles so they were all white. There were several nice patches of hydrocorals along the ride and some nice scallops. This is definitely a nice to check with better vis. We decided to name this one The White Canyon.

All in all two nice new sites, not the best vis but still a lot of fun.

Sonar data for Roxie

Sonar data for White Canyon

photos for Roxie

8/28/2011 Xanadu aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 10' - 100' Time: 2:00 AM

Temp: 48F - 53F Surge:

Max Depth: 201FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:40 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
On Sunday we had the Escapade for an all Big Sur tech trip. As always weather does what ever it wants during our tech trips so we ended having a very foggy day (no the F word). We went for breakfast at the Breakfast Club giving some time for the fog to lift, and headed out at about 10am.

There was not hope for BS Banks, and even around Yankee the surface visibility was too low for doing any tech diving.

We finally settled for diving around the Lunaticos/Outer Outer Pinnacles area, and we dropped the downline at one of Wings Stock's diving places, and descended to find 80ft visibility. I can't recalled if I dove this before but by looking at the sonar data it looked like a 800ft long wall in the SE direction. Which such a good visibility Susan and I could not avoid but hitting the based of the pinnacle at about 200ft and headed in SE direction for about 10min. The terrain was great with all kind of towers and canyons to scooter th and tons of vase sponges. Our favorite one had a juv yellow eye sitting at the opening of the sponge. We got to the end of the wall in about 10min and were not 100% sure we'll be able to make it on the west side, so we back-tracked our steps. On the way back we moved east about 100ft from the wall and could easy see John, Clinton and Dionna at the wall. Easy way to navigate.... follow their lights back :-). After about 20min at the base we reached a split on the wall and headed to 150ft for another 20min of playing on the shallow. There were tons of gorgonias and a very nice school of juv rockfish dacing around the top of the pinnacle.

During the end of the day we experienced a very amazing changed in water visibility. We noticed a large shadow around us and as we looked West we could see a dark wall moving towards us. In about 3min vis went from 80ft to 10ft, and it became a night dive as we were engulf by murky water full of invertebrates. On the positive side, that water was 53F which made it for a nice warmer deco.

Here are some images from Rob and CLinton.

Here is a link for a sonar
map of the site.

Another grand day out!

8/27/2011 Pt Lobos by Mark Lloyd -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Harry Babicka, Mark Lloyd

Visibility: 45' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 55F Surge:

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time:

Max Depth: 161FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:17

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
3,3,3,3,3,15
Harry and I decided to take a run out to Twin Peaks if the visibility was good enough. If not our back up plan was to stay around Beto's and the Sisters. Additionally Gary wanted me to take some photos of certain sites to document the barnacle encrustation. One area was the Long Metridium, the other was a red sponge on Sea Mount. As we were gearing up in the parking lot we met Vanessa "Shark Bait" Young who was as usual stirring up trouble ;-) Gary and Dionna were also diving and they were heading out to Granite Point wall. We dropped at the Worm Patch, now quite easy to find due to the Project that we had in June. Scootered out and located Sea Mount and the sponge for the second dive, then headed to the end of Beto's reef. We turned West, scootered till we hit the reef again, and followed the edge of the structure till reaching the very end of Twin Peaks. The vis at Beto's was very good and was dark and clear at Twin Peaks. We hung around for a few minutes while I took a bit of video then headed counter clockwise around Twin Peaks. Reaching the turn point to go back to Beto's is quite easy as there is a tire in the sand. There is also another tire half way across and a final tire near a single Metridium close to Beto's. I took some more video as I scootered along Beto's, trying to capture the reef and the barnacles. We cut over to the sand channel at the start of Betos then made our way up to 70' where Harry took us through deco. At the worm patch we switched to our back gas scootered in to 20' and finished up on O2. Nice dive!

For our second dive we clipped on our 32% stages and ran out to the Lone Metridium to get a few shots of the area. We then ran over to Sea Mount and I captured a few shots of Harry hovering/hoovering over the red sponge. Second dive was only 45 minutes but overall not bad vis and the temp was pretty warm at 55 degrees.

8/7/2011 Midway Pinnacle aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Jim Capwell, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 20' - 60' Time: 11:00 AM

Temp: 48F - 55F Surge:

Max Depth: 197FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:40 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
For the last two years we had been trying to dive Mid-way pinnacle. This is located btw Big Sur light-house and the BigSur banks. The list of reason we haven't gone there is quite large: bad weather, fog, people wanting to dive sur19 or sur20, and many others. However, on Saturday we motored out and by the time I went up to talk with Jarrod about dive site destination the GPS was already set for Mid-way or MW as we have been calling it.

We got there, dropped the down-line, resettled the down-line and went for our dive.

By the time we got to 70ft visibility was about 50ft, and the water was nice a blue :-), with a nice current coming from the south.

We motored to the base of the pinnacle at about 190-200ft and looked around on the rocks and cracks in the West side. We found a nice wolf eel resting at the bottom. There were tons of fish at the base and did a full circle around the pinnacle while motoring in and out of overhand and large cracks. After 20min we moved up to the shallow (150s) , and spent quite a lot of time looking at invertebrates and hydro-corals.

There were many egg jellies in mid water and we had a lot of fun seeing them fly by pushed by the strong current. At some point we scooter to the south end of the pinnacle and then let go with the current. It was quite fast ride !!!

After the dive we headed home and joined Capt Jim for a celebration of his birthday.

MW pinnacle rocks!

8/7/2011 Pt Lobos by Mark Lloyd -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Mark Lloyd, Dionna House

Visibility: 20' - 50' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 51F Surge:

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time:

Max Depth: 105FSW Avg Depth: 60FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:15

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Reading Gary's email on Saturday, I saw that conditions were very good at Lobos. Cursing my luck at not planning to dive this weekend I assumed the conditions would continue to be poor. Just then I saw another email from Grey Nyce giving up his Lobos spot! I immediately snagged it... thanks Greg ... and proceeded to round up my dive buddy, Dionna. Since Dionna and I both had parties the night before, we met at a leisurely time, 9am. With scooters and cameras we made our way to the worm patch, out to hole in the wall, round to Beto's, then over to the end of Middle Reef, over to Granite Point wall and back. Vis was pretty good at about 50' and the usual barnacle covered reefs were visible.

A few pictures can be seen here:
http://www.baue.org/images/galleries/v/local/Lobosaug72011/

This was a dual purpose dive. First to try and get some additional photos and videos for the BAUE project, and to capture additional images of the barnacle invasion. After 70 mins of zooming around Lobos we exited the water, chowed down on lunch, entertained a few tourists, educated a few divers, then went back in to see if Dionna still had some bottle juggling skills left. Apparently she does and 30 mins later we were out washing down the gear. No sun appeared but it was a nice day of diving all around.

7/31/2011 20SUR aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 10' - 50' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 48F - 55F Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 170FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:45 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: 50/25,O2

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
This weekend we had the first calm conditions in a long time. The swells were 1 -3 and the wind was slow with patch fog but the fog was high on the sky. We were also lucky to have two tech charters schedule for the weekend so we set sailed for Big Sur Banks.

On Saturday the group dove Sur 19. Pretty pick and purple hydro-corals were the main attraction of the day. Sur 19 is the best hydrocoral dive in the coast with big large bushes of these colonies covering the top of the pinnacle. The depth ranges from 150 to 120 allowing team to spent quite a lot of time at the site. T2 teams dive about 50min of bottom time, while T1 team did about 30min. Visibility was about 50ft at the bottom with a green layer from 50ft to the surface. Joakim, Matt, Susan, Rob, Nick, Ted and Ben were on Saturday trip.

On Sunday after a long discussion about the target site, we settled for Sur 20. This is a sister pinnacle to Sur 19. Sur 20 has more relieve, with the bottom at 170 and the top 130 range. There is a nice canyon that crosses the pinnacle and it's usually full of vermillion and yellow eye rock fish. On sunday we thought we were going to have a kick ass dive, but we were actually ass-kick by the current. There was a 1.5 knot current going by and our deployment was pretty challengeing and pushed every body skills and capacity. Once at the bottom the vis was great 40-50ft and we had a very nice time going around the pinnacle and enjoying the terrain, and again the pretty hydrocorals. Mark, Dionna, Kevin, Allison, Susan and Beto were on Sunday trip.

BSB diving season is open!

Cheers
Beto

7/23/2011 Pt Lobos by Mark Lloyd -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Mark Lloyd, Gary Banta

Visibility: 5' - 20' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: Surge:

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time:

Max Depth: 89FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Gary and I dove Lobos today but with the current vis reports we were not expecting much. Our plan was to go out behind the granite point wall area and do some exploring. We dropped at the worm patch and 10 mins later we were motoring round the backside of the granite point area. The vis varied from about 20' to 10' in this area. Just good enough to enable us to use our scooters without plowing into walls. Gary with his great navigation skills led us into a number of interesting spots then tok us over to the Lone Mitrid. To finish up our dive. The white barnacles are really taking over the walls and hydrocoral near the lone Mitrid. Some of the hydrocoral looks like it covered in ice. Hope that goes away eventually. After a nice long dive we headed back to Garys house for a bit of lunch then back home. This weekend is the motorcycle races but didn't hit any of the traffic.

7/17/2011 Mount Chamberlin aboard Escapade by Robert Lee -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Robert Lee, Allison Lee, Kevin Dow

Visibility: 40' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: 260FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:45 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 15/55 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2,21/35

Backgas Config: Double LP104 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
We finally caught some weather luck this Sunday and headed south for some rare (for this year) diving :-)

There was some discussion of where to go and trying for further south, but "a bird in hand..." was the prevailing mindset, so we set about to drop the shotline at Mt. Chamberlin. I love this spot, as it easily supports a wide range of dive profiles and is big enough to not get old.

After dropping into almost no current, we quickly made a beeline to the bottom where we found a decent 20-30' of viz, but very dark. We headed west for deeper water and started working the base of the wall looking for strange critters. We passed a basket star and some other interesting stuff and just as I stopped to shoot a juvenile lingcod that had a rockfish in its mouth, I started getting the very distinctive "GPO" light signal from behind me :-)

Sure enough, as I turned around, I found a diver-sized GPO just hanging out and walking along the reef. For the next 15 minutes or so, we hung out with the octopus taking pictures and watching it as it walked around trying to figure use out. At one point, it decided that it found my strobes interesting and started to wrap its arms around them. I managed to pull the camera away and hand it off to my teammates only to find that the GPO was now exploring my arm. Soon, my entire arm up to my shoulder was enveloped in GPO (which by the way is a very cool sensation) and it was starting to pull on me (these things are strong!).

At some point, it occurred to me that while I have plenty of gas/time, we are a bit deep, and I don't have *that* much time. After a bit of a tug-of-war, I eventually got my arm back and we resumed the photoshoot.

All too soon, it was time for us to leave him behind and head up the wall for shallower waters, but it was an amazing encounter. Scootering north toward the K2 pinnacle, we came across a big (3-4') eyed skate on the bottom (which turned out to be dead or dying).

Overall, it was quite a dive, and made up for some of the lousy weather this year so far.

Some pictures here

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