Octo-COOL

Here are a few reasons to consider why the Giant Pacific Octopus is the coolest creature in the sea!!!

Tactical Alterations in the Field

There are some times when a professional diver will notice that there is some small flaw in his gear or that if a slight alteration were made the gear would have more of a "personal fit". I believe we can see clearly here an example of how to make a tactical decision in the field. The bootie just was not feeling right. Chris takes a quick assessment of the situation. Notes there is a need for immediate action. Pulls his knife and gets to work!

 Effective alterations will at times be made in the field not while at the shop. Some of the most effective gear alterations have come due to "men" recognizing a limitation. Then solving it with quick R&D while in the theater of action. Now that's a real man. 

No pansy's here. We whip out our knives and get her done. (Disclaimer: If you have to ask what he is doing, or if you are using "RENTAL GEAR" Please DO NOT ATTEMPT this at home or at any other time! Chris is a Professional Diver with many many dives under his belt and is skilled in the proper use of a knife! :) I mean the USE of a knife.  ) 

Cheers

RSB

Monterey Dive Trip part.2

So Here we are in our Northern Divers Drysuits following our outstanding dive at Monastery Beach. The water was cold but the dive was great with the new dry gloves. I can not say enough about them. Having your hands dry makes the dive entirely unique. It was in the time following this dive that we munched down a few sandwiches to fill the new found emptiness created by the dive. 

We next loaded the car and headed for the Breakwater Pier parking lot to get set up for a night dive. A diver can not go to Monterey and not do at least one dive along the

 breakwater. It is a staple dive of the area. Nick and I geared up again and headed in for a nice hour plus cruise along the pier. 

The night life was out and did not disappoint. It was a perfect night cool but not too much wind. What more could a few divers ask for. If you know anything about the break water you know that there are always classes being taught. As we were exiting the water we geared down and were soon joined by a group of 1st time Night Divers. They were stoked on the dive and we passed out a few Chocolate chip cookies to the crew.

 They were pumped and you could hear them telling their buddies.. "hey we told those guys over there that it was our first night dive and they gave us some cookies.."  We just laughed and 

remembered back to the first day we went diving. Wow.. How long it has been and what a change. 

The next day we Dawned Beautiful and sunny as a classic day in Monterey would have it. We got up and headed to the office.. Got an Air-fill and knocked out a dive on the Metridium Field. That place never is a bad dive. As many times as I have been out there it has always been great. 

following that we did a final dive on the Breakwater and it was pack the car time to head for home. Sayonara Monterey, for now. We will be back. 

RB

Monterey With the SQUAD (part.1)

It is always a pleasure to take a trip to the shores of Monterey, CA. As you leave the LA area and begin the 6 hour drive to reach the beautiful bay area you see the colors change. It is truly nice not to look out the window and see only brown dead grass and desert on all sides.

  The Bay area is foggy and cool bringing in a large variety of life. Birds, foxes, raccoons and the occasional owl are to be seen. Yet the waters off the coast offer up some of the most diverse sea-life to be found along the California coast. What better place to take a slow weekend than back home in my childhood stomping ground. The Monterey bay. 

Nick and I took the "red bandit" Ak

a the subaru. As getting the most out of your gas is not just a dive thing. We traveled up to my parents ranch in the hills of the bay. It was indeed nice to be home even for a few days.  But the trip was to be more than just a trip home. We had several agendas to get down and so we knuckled down and got to business.

First order on the list was to organize the gear and set up the plan for the dives. As Nick had not dove in the Monterey Bay before it was imperative to get him in at two of the more frequented locations. First Monastery Beach and Second Breakwater Pier.

 However before any of this could occur it is imperative to know a little more about the local environment. What creature are indigenous to the area. What they do and where to find them. We were lucky enough to have a few Guest passes for the Monterey Bay Aquarium and so we stopped off there first. 

After that we load up the car and headed out of town toward the Monastery beach area. Arriving there we found it fairly calm and no people diving. We scoped it out and things looked real good. So we broke out the gear and loaded up for a nice dive along the North East wall of the bay. I was interested to see how my new dry gloves would work out with the cold Monterey water.

 

To Be Cont....

Deep Casino Reef

This past weekend has seen the first dive into the realms of the deep casino reef. Which was by far the best dive I have done in or around the dive park in a long time. This fact alone suggests a follow up dive to the reef in the near future to establish a map of the reef. In my mind I believed it to be a small pile of rocks sitting in the middle of the sand with one or two small animals and maybe a fish or two. This was not quite the reality of what we found. The reality was that we found a large reef that calls us to return and dive its entirety. As our bottom time was a limited to 35 min. due to the long swim and depth of the reef. We were unable to see the entire reef. Several large spires loomed before us as we turned to head back to the line. We will in the future be back to see what other possible things maybe found in the deep.
RSB
SSS Pres.

Stories from the Squad Episode #1 (How they roll!)

So this story comes done the pipe from one of the members of the squad. They shall remain nameless as it is irrelevant to the reader and the squad all know who it is. So here we go then. The stories goes something like this. A couple of the fellas decided to go diving in the beautiful waters just south of the San Diego. Mexico to be more precise. As the diving from ponga boats is fairly cheap they went ahead and spent the $25 dollars for two dives to get out on the boat. As they were getting back in the boat after the second beautiful dive. They noticed a boat kinda off their starboard side, in line with their return heading. So as they were heading back to shore they were able to get a good look at the operations of the local divers. One guy getting in the water in a wet suit wearing a weight belt and clipped off hookah line. So the guy in the water is down at like 30 ft. breathing the air being sucked in by the compressor in the boat. (the general idea of hookah is you don't need a cylinder you can just have a compressor that will provide compressed "sometimes filtered/sometimes not" air to the person breathing on the end of the hose.) As they floated passed the hookah team. They could only see the compressor and the man attending it. He was seated by the intake valve with a lit joint in his hand. After every hit he took on the joint he would lean over and exhale into the intake on the compressor (in this case the compressor being a Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine with a few extra belts and hoses.) I can only imagine the level of narcosis that was hitting the diver at 30ft. You think to yourself..... "so that's how they roll".

Now as a proviso I need to make it clear that we the SSS do not in anyway endorse or encourage the use of drugs. In diving and outside diving. We support Proper diving techniques and solid training. the above story is to give a smile to all the divers out there who have seen some foolishness while diving.
Hope you got a laugh out of this episode.

SSS

Mid Week Update

Midweek, work is starting to ware on you. Last weekends dive trip seems like it was a year ago. It starts getting hard to keep concentrated. You find yourself wearing your Dive computer to work. People look at you funny as you sit on the tail gate taking hits on your O2 bottle during lunch. I think we call it "Scuba Detox". I need to get a H2O fix. You know what I mean. You need that descending in to the blue feeling. You need to hear the crisp hiss of your second stage delivering Air(Nitrox/Tri-mix, or whatever you could afford). The feeling of neutral Buoyancy as you drift along the reef/sand or open ocean. Man I can't wait to get in the water again this weekend. Hope your week is going good. Hit up the site get a little Scuba fix. Watch a SSS movie or two and start dreaming of Diving.
RSB
SSS Pres.

PS. (This is the kind of break I think we all need. An Afternoon nap by the beach is AJ squared away with the squad.)