Chad’s Dive Log

Ok…i know…i know…writing dive reports on Wednesday really isn’t the best way to keep the site updated, I apologize!  It’s been a crazy week, you’ll get all the details shortly.

So last week Matt and I looked at the forecast and agreed Saturday was going to be one great day to go diving.  Saturday rolls around, we head out to Monterey and grab Matt’s gear ( remembering fins this time ), and lumber off to Monastery.  True to the forecasts, the weather was beautiful, and the wave action was minimal.  In short, a great day to dive N. Monastery.

After final gear up and the long walk to the beach…we’re finally in the water!  Water temps on the surface were nice, mid-low 50s.  Visibility was so-so, ~20 feet.  We decided to begin our descent about 100 yards from the beach, and away we went!

Once we got to the bottom I fired up my salvo light ( which i absolutely love )…Matt was once again stuck with my rat backup.  We immediately began weaving in and out of the kelp forest as we worked our way to the canyon, plently of life to keep us occupied on the swim out.  When we reached the canyon we descended to 100 feet before slowly ascending and entering the kelp.  Matt’s ascent here was spectacular!  Very nice smooth ascent from 100 to 60 feet…complete control…it was awesome.  Fundies….here he comes!

Following the kelp back to the beach was a great dive.  Looking up through the kelp and seeing the sun is such a cool view, i wish i could take my camera underwater!  However…kelp does pose one small problem…i got us a little lost :-)  i knew if i followed the gradient on the bottom i’d eventually find the beach…but we were rapidly running out of room in the water column.  About this point Matt grabs my fin and points to a clearing in the kelp.  We surface, and I’m waiting to get complimented on my great navigation when he instead says, “Did you see that tank”?

I look beneath us and clear as day is a scuba tank…..how’d that get there?  I submerged and took a quick look at it…a steel 100, still attached to the BC, and the reg was near by.  That can’t be good.  After a quick discussion we decide we have to recover the tank, and with that we swam to shore for a short surface interval, and then back to the kelp!

It took a few minutes to locate the tank again, but once we found it we began the slow process of bringing it up.  The tank had flooded, so it was pretty negative….and my wing couldn’t lift it.  Thankfully it was only a short distance from the beach.  Once out of the water the tank must have weighed 80 pounds…Jesus!

Once we completed our 2nd dive of the day we took our recovered tank down to MBDC to see what they could do.  After the shock in their eyes cleared they agreed to look at the tank.  Jim ( owner of the store ) popped off the valve so we could take a look in the tank….not pretty.  As you would expect, rust everywhere.  Jim offered to tumble the tank and see if the damage isn’t as bad as we though, so we’ve taken him up on the offer.  Cross your fingers!

So…now the question is what to do?  It seems very likely this gear was involved in some kind of incident at Monastery, what are my responsibilities by recovering the tank?  If the tank ends up being good, who does the tank belong too?  This is an interesting situation, I’m sure I’ll be keeping you updated.  Pics to follow.

-chad

Simply put, this light rocks :-D.  After weeks of nervous anticipation I finally got this light wet this past weekend, and wow, what a great light!  Pre-dive prep was simple, i threw the light on the charger when i got home from work on Friday night and the light was green ~9:30.  Insert battery in canister, pack everything up for the car ride, and get back to my beer :-).

Due to it being Matt’s first cold water dive of the year, we elected for a day of diving at the Breakwater.  Now, while the BW isn’t a spectacular dive site, it is consistently a good one.  After the normal excitement of getting to the dive site minus essential gear, Matt and I were all set to get wet around 10.

The Salvo Havoc series in unique from other canister lights in that the ballast is remote…it isn’t built into the light-head.  This is a nice feature because the light-head is noticeably smaller, and it makes clipping it off on the chest d-ring a little easier.  The only negative of a remote ballast is it takes up space in your canister, taking away from your battery, and therefore the rated burn-time is reduced.  This is where the lithium batteries really shine and I get away with having my cake and eating it too :-).

The Anderson connectors on the battery/ballast interface don’t feel incredibly reliable, but they work for the moment.  I have a feeling I’ll be upgrading to something else in the near future.

As I finished suiting up I noticed I had to be more careful than normal; I definitely don’t want to be banging up the bulb.  The canister disappears quite nicely on the harness…i couldn’t even feel it standing on the beach. Getting used to the extra cable really wasn’t too bad, and in short order we were wading through some ankle-biters on our way out.

Alright, lets see what this things got!  As soon as I began to descend i reached back and flipped the switch…and was greeted by a little sliver of light, how can this be?!  Within about 10 seconds the beam began to quickly gain intensity until I had a mini light saber in front of me, not bad!  I looked over to Matt ( who was using my Salvo Rat backup ), and off we went to the wall.

This light is seriously bright.  Even in the chunky 10 feet of “visibility”, this beam cut right through it.  The beam has a nice tinge of blue to it, and the hot spot is intensely bright.  Using a light with a goodman handle is a nice treat, the ability to effortlessly move the light beam around, while at the same time having your fingers free is a nice touch.  The cable was a nice length for my 6 foot frame…I never felt like i was constricted, but not a lot of slack.

Overall, I’m very impressed with this light.  When I look at the 21 watt HID from Salvo, I really see the pinnacle of the HID canister light evolution…aside from upping the wattage, i don’t know how you improve this class of light.  While i have no doubt the future of canister lighting is LED’s, for the next 2-3 years HIDs will be king….and it’s hard to imagine a better HID than this 21 watt Salvo.

-chad

After what feels like months of waiting ( in reality 3 weeks ) my Salvo canister light is here!  I’ve decided to break my review of this light into two parts.  Part 1 will cover purchasing, condition of the light upon receipt, overall build quality, and finally, pre-dive preparation. I will write part 2 after I actually dive the light this weekend to report on its usability.  Here we go….

I’ve been wanting to get a canister light every since my GUE-F class back in April, but as we all know, quality lights can get a little pricey.  That money pays for a lot of functionality though.  Lights are pretty important when you’re diving; water absorbs color from light surprisingly quickly.  This color loss makes fish, kelp, and coral all appear bland at 30 feet or deeper….that’s all the stuff I’m down there to see!  Bringing a light shows off all that vibrant color instantly, it’s amazing what a light can show you underwater.  In addition, as I went through fundies training I was taught that a light is a prime method of rapid communication underwater.

So why a canister light instead of a normal hand held torch?  The battery canister allows you to bring enough juice along to power an impressive light source ( in this case a 21W HID ), while not burdening your arm to carry a heavy battery pack.

The goodman handle on the light keeps both hands free to work at all times.  Finally…chicks dig them

Unpacking the light from the box I was pleasantly surprised to find everything had been tightly packed, all components in perfect condition.  It is slightly unnerving the light doesn’t come with an instruction manual of any kind, but thankfully the Salvo site has a detailed FAQ on it.

I decided to go with a Lithium Ion battery for this light, instead of the more traditional NIMH chemistry.  Lithium offers a much greater energy density than NIMH, which allows for a smaller canister ( or longer burn-times, depending on your goals ) than a comparable NIMH.  Lithium chemistries are much easier to charge than NIMH, false-charges are supposedly a thing of the past.  Finally, Lithium batteries have an extremely low self-discharge rate, so a fully charged battery tonight still holds a majority of its charge in two weeks.  However, Lithium chemistries do offer a couple of negatives:

1. tend to explode when mixed with water
2. $$$$$

Let’s hope that canister lid works :-).

In preparation for my diving this weekend I’ll charge up the battery Friday afternoon, and have it packed up before I head to bed.  I’ll also be verifying the lid o-ring is in good shape ( in know it’s brand new…but it’s never bad to start good habits ).  I will NOT be connecting the battery to the ballast in the evening, instead saving that chore for the beach….these babies can eventually melt themselves if left on too long out of water.

So thats it for now!  I can’t wait to get this thing in the water…and with 5 hours of rated burn time on the battery, I don’t have to worry about it all weekend!  Only bad news?  Reported vis in Monterey is very, very bad

-chad

Well, I know mylast post said I was Big Sur bound this weekend, but due to a small planning glitch ( the boat was reserved ) we didn’t make it.  However, just as we were getting this bad news an email from Susan popped up, were any BAUE members interested in a boat charter this weekend?  giggidy-giggidy!!

So thats how I found myself on the Escapapde this Sunday with Doug, Susan, Mike, Jim, and a few other BAUE members…boat felt empty.  Getting to the boat was almost as exciting as the diving…Doug, Mike and I left a little bit late, then had to wait for nitrox fills at Aquarius, Doug was not happy :-).  Conditions on the drive in didn’t look that great, plus Doug and Mike were talking about the unfavorable wave conditions in the bay, so I thought we were gonna be stuck with some so-so diving.  When we get to the boat Jim confirms that the weather is looking iffy, so it’s doubtful we can make it to Carmel….damn!  We arrive to our first site, Ballbuster ( which I’ve never dove ), gear up, and hop in.

Hmm…water’s kinda warm, not bad :-).  Waters murkey and green….shitty.  We descend about 25 feet and burst through into something amazing.  The visibility opens up to at least 70 feet, and the water drops to HOLY-CRAP cold.  We could see the entire site as we descended from 25 to the reef at 70 feet.  Once we were there we swam around until Mike hit his bottom pressure ( hehe, i beat him on gas consumption….AL80 vs. HP100 ).  Our ascent was kinda all over the place, Mike was above me, Doug below.  Mike ended up getting uncomfortable with his remaining gas at 10 feet and bailed on the last stop.  What a great dive!  I haven’t seen vis that nice in Monterey in a long time.  It was worth the cold.

Back on the boat I was absolutely frozen, as you would expect.  Susan  took the opportunity to remind me that I need to buy a dry-suit…how sweet of her!  If only I could find someone to buy it for me :-(.  For our 2nd dive Jim changed sites so we were just off the Monterey Bay Aquarium.   Mike decided he didn’t want to do this dive, and offered to let me borrow his canister light!  I’ve just recently ordered a Salvo 21w HID and I’m EAGERLY awaiting it’s deliver, so an offer to try one out was awesome!

The conditions at the second site were vary similar to Ballbuster..murkey top layer with a cold and clear bottom.  Having the light was very nice, it’s signaling power alone makes it worth the huge $$$.  Unfortunatly, I think the goodman handle was too loose for me.  When Doug and I went to do our basic 5 I wasn’t able to get things figured out.  I obviously have some practice to do.

-chad

Ugg….Mondays.  To take my mind off the fact its another week at work I thought I’d write a quick post to tell you about all the updates I put in place, and what I’ll be working on for the rest of the week.  So. without further ado….

1.  Finally chose a theme for the site, and did some overall work on the layout.  Thankfully wordpress seems to have been designed for people like me.  There are a ton of available themes, and the overall site is pretty polished.

2.  I’ve added a scuba log tracker…although its a complete pain in the ass to setup it actually works quite well.  I’ve only logged like 15 or so dives; when I have a little more time I’ll throw up another 40 or so.

3.  Pictures!!!  I’ve created an image galley and begun to upload some content.  If all goes according to plan I should have a majority of my recent images up by the end of the week…maybe some college stuff by the weekend.  I’m going to work on getting some video up as well…that’s a bit more long term.

Finally, on to the good stuff!  Just got off the phone with Doug, it looks like we’re going to try and do a Big Sur dive trip this weekend.  Big Sur is located about 2 hours south of Monterey harbor…I’ve never been, but it’s supposed to be some of the best diving off California.  Big Sur is known for its pristine, cold waters.  Vis can rival the Caribbean….it’s just a little colder :-)  We’re looking to do a three tank trip aboard the Cypress Sea…I can’t wait!!!!

-chad

Hey everyone, welcome to my blog :-).  As you’ve probably already noticed, the main topic of this blog will be SCUBA diving; and more specifically, training to become a technical diver.  Now, as you know, the journey through technical training can be a long one, so I plan to use this blog as a journal of the high ( and low ) points.

A little bit about me:  I’m a 25 year old guy living in the Bay Area ( Northern California ).  I’ve been diving for about 8 years, but regularly for the last year or so.  Aside from a few warm water vacations, most of my diving experience is cold water in Monterey.  While the cold can be nasty at times….diving Monterey is amazing for me.  The kelp forests are spectacular, and the abundance of life is amazing.

I’ll be updating this site in the next few days with links to my local dive shops as well as local bloggers….hopefully some pictures and videos in the next week.

-chad