Archivos de diario de septiembre 2020

10 de septiembre de 2020

Anacapa Island - The Landing

What a treat – a trip out to Anacapa Island -Labor Day weekend 2020 and the whole dive crew was in on the trip, my wife Barbara along with our sons Trevor and Spencer. The previous summer Spencer and I spent three days camping on Anacapa – with kayaks? We did not bring any dive gear??

On the Wednesday that we were out there camping/kayaking the National Park Service came to the island in their big boat. The purpose of their visit was to conduct their weekly live dive telecast, an educational program for elementary schools located on the mainland. On an Island with no electricity or running water the live dive telecast was of extremely high entertainment value. The Park Service crew were very engaging and happy to share their dive experiences at this location. The bottom-line consensus of the Park Services divers - the Anacapa Landing offers some of the very best diving in the Channel Islands. It has taken me a year to get back here for the diving.

Labor Day weekend 2020 set record high temperatures throughout the State of California. On the day that we were on Anacapa a 104-degree temperature was predicted for Avalon over on Catalina Island. We traveled to Anacapa from Ventura Harbor by way of the Island Packers charter service, a 1-hour boat ride over calm ocean water. After disembarking we immediately suited up and got ready for our first dive. The landing is physically located approximately 10 to 12 feet over the water, that calls for one giant step. It was a beautiful sunny Southern California morning; the air temperature was already getting warm and the water temperature was refreshing and very pleasant when we entered the water around noontime.

On the boat ride over to the Island the boat captain gives a bit of nature talk about the Island over the boat’s intercom. He explained that Anacapa Island Is a volcanic island, not like Hawaii, but rather shaped by plate tectonics. The result of the action of those plate tectonics is that this tiny little Island is nothing more than sheer rock cliffs coming out of the ocean. On our first dive, after the giant step, we left the cove and headed to the right. We spent the entire dive on a sheer rock wall that I estimate to be between 30 to 40 feet tall. On the Second dive we headed to the left to be immersed in an incredibly thick kelp forest. The diving was spectacular with viability at 40 to 50 feet. Check out the accompanying photographs.

As an added bonus, we encountered a humpback whale on the way back to the harbor.

Publicado el septiembre 10, 2020 04:15 MAÑANA por darrellsdives darrellsdives | 27 observaciones | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

Fisherman's Cove

From South to North Fisherman’s Cove is the second of four very popular dive sites located in quick succession north of the main street beach and just north of Heisler Park in the seaside town of Laguna Beach, California. I have been to this site many times and I was back with my son, Spencer, on September 7th, 2020. The skies were thickly overcast, and it very briefly rained, the air was a bit humid, but the air temperature was pleasant. Our dive was shallow with the deepest point of our 53-minute dive about 25 feet.

This was the Monday of Labor Day weekend and we were just coming off two great dives at Anacapa Island, see my journal post of September 9, 2020: Anacapa Island – The Landing. Spencer and I were of the same mindset, we love diving, we always want to go diving, but this dive was going to be a letdown after the great trip out to Anacapa just two days prior. Wow! We could not have been more wrong. For only the second time in my approximately 200 dives in Southern California we saw a sea turtle!! Very, very exciting. Check out the pictures associated with this journal post.

This dive turned out to be significant for a second, totally unexpected reason. In the associated pictures you can see that I took a photo of an orange mass. What is this orange mass? I thoroughly enjoy posting my photographs to the INaturalist website. However, I don’t like it when my contribution is left in the status of “Needs ID”. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why I dislike the “Needs ID” status, but most basically I feel like I am being ignored, somebody out there knows what it is but just won’t take the time to tell me. I also feel like something is being left undone. I must also acknowledge that I have suffered from a lifelong need for validation.

With all of this in mind, and with Spencer’s help, we looked over the INaturalist website to identify the orange mass through simple comparisons. After some searching and comparing, I settled on “Chain Tunicate” as the best identification. I reached out to a frequent identifier and asked for confirmation of my ID. The response was noncommittal but, in her estimation, my proposed identification “appeared correct.” Still left in the status of “Needs ID” I reached out to a second identifier who gave a very technical response with a suggested identification of “mushroom tunicate”, his suggested identification came with a second suggestion which was to reach out to a third identifier. Admittedly I was out of my league with respect to understanding the technical explanation that was given to me but I was certainly persuaded that “mushroom tunicate” was the correct ID and I thus agreed with the suggested ID of mushroom tunicate. My agreement brought my photograph of the orange mass out of the lowly depths of “Needs ID” to the venerated status of “research grade”.

Naturally I agreed to the “mushroom tunicate” suggested identification before hearing back from the third identifier, who naturally disagreed with the suggested ID of “mushroom tunicate”. Most importantly, and where this saga really begins, is that the third identifier politely scolded me for agreeing with the suggested ID of “mushroom tunicate” when I admittedly had no idea of what I was talking about.

Wow – now what? Questions, questions. How can I become a more responsible participant and contributor to the INaturalist website? How do I “up my game” to be technically competent? And most alarmingly, how do I get comfortable with the status of “needs ID”? I mean after all, this quest started when the image on my photograph needed ID. Now I as whole being am in “Needs ID” status. Answers to these questions will be a work in progress -- yes more journal posts in the future.

Be sure of one thing, the green sea turtle, if that is what it really was, was very cool.

Publicado el septiembre 10, 2020 06:12 TARDE por darrellsdives darrellsdives | 17 observaciones | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

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