Report from Josh Massie (josh@massie.org) to www.diver.net/bbs

OK, so I was supposed to go to Catalina this weekend, but due to a hotel error, we ended up on the GE instead. BTW, don't ever book reservations at the Seacrest Inn, or at least call every month to make sure they didn't get the wrong dates.

Anyway, there were only 16 divers aboard, which made for a great relaxing, spread out time. First jump: Palawan. Second: Avalon. Third: PV Kelp.

Palawan: Since the wreck is a bit deep (for us), we decided to limit BT to 8 minutes, no penetration. Got down, and the camera didn't work. Button was jammed. Oh well, no documentation. About 3 minutes in my wife went shooting upwards, and was desparately trying to fin down. Luckily I managed to grab her. We both dumped all air from our BCs, and stabalized. One of the pockets from her weight integrated BC had fallen out. It was laying on the sand in 116 fsw. We both swam down, and retrieved it. Sometime during the excitement she dropped her light (never recovered), but managed to keep ahold of the camera. I shoved the pouch in her BC pocket, and we aborted the dive. Did three minutes at 20 fsw, and two minutes at 10 fsw as safety stops. I was able to maintain a somewhat horizontal stop, although I stayed off the anchor line due to crowding. It was really nice to be able to somewhat maintain a stop without having to cling to the line. Thanks John! I'm definitely going back to the Palawan. Three minutes isn't enough time to even really look around, and what I saw was *AWESOME*.

Dive 2: Avalon. This was an interesting dive, as the hook ended up being about 30 feet from the bow, and several diver's didn't find the wreck (it was, of course, exactly where Tim told us it was. Amazingly, more than one team read their compass wrong, and headed off 180 degrees from where it was. And of course, they surfaced a ways downcurrent. The swim was insult to injury!). We came up on the bow, which is all that's left intact. Very cool. The rest of the wreck is just steel plates and rubble, but it's still a great dive. Saw several large cabbies, a small ling, and a couple of sheephead. I also saw a brass fitting sitting on a flange. I was shocked it was still there (and yes folks, it's still there today. At least until someone else sees it ;-). Returned along the hull, and ascended a nearby kelp stalk. Did three minutes at 20 fsw, and one minute at 10 fsw safety stops. Surfaced about 20 meters from the stern. A great dive. Also on the "must return to" list.

Dive three was after lunch. The word of the day was GARLIC. Being a huge fan, I was in hog heaven. We had spaghetti with garlic-enhanced sauce, and garlic bread.

We anchored somewhere off the coast of PV, and messed around in the kelp. I took down a goody bag to take some scallops, but ended up just bringing up trash instead. The highlights of my cleaning excercise were a fully intact large gunny-sack, and a fiberglass polespear. A little cleanup, and the pole-spear will be good as new (new elastic, of course. And someone else stole the tip, but were nice enough to leave the pole). Mother ocean giveth, and taketh away. Saw lots of opaleye, a few sheeps, and lots of perch and senioritas. The macro life was decent, and the kelp rooms very enjoyable to swim through. A bit of surge, but nothing major. Ended the dive at around 20 fsw, and had a bit of a swim back to the boat. Definite drag difference between being clean, and dragging around a goody bag full of trash.

Overall, a great day. Divemaster Art was on top of his game, Rhonda kept setting out great grub, and Tim and the crew were bending over backwards for everyone. I got some more practice in (still can't do the horizontal ascent right) and had a lovely set of dives with my wife. We should be getting the pictures back tomorrow, I can't wait to see them.

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