Beach Dive off Tower 17

Ryan O'Connor, who lives across the street from Tower 17, was kind enough to invite me over to dive the Big Coral Knoll and the Fish Camp Rocks this morning. I got to his apartment 30 minutes early. I might have been a little eager.

We geared up and got in the water. He dives with a snorkel and still puts his fins on before he gets in the water, even when he is not carrying lobster gear, just as the PADI video demonstrates. As we were headed East up the gunsight, I spotted a Nudibranch out for a walk and pointed it out to Ryan. I don't think he was impressed. They are very small, but they are also pretty rare. We swam all the way to the one-sided coral head, which means we got set to the South by the current. We swam back on bearing and went through the Fish Camp Rocks where we spotted a number of lobster. We continued on to the Eastern Ledge. Nice drop to 35 feet and we headed North for a bit. Ryan had some trouble kicking up sand and waving his arms, but his buoyancy was much better. We came up on top of the Ledge and back-tracked to the finger coral, then headed West to the Big Coral Knoll. Had some trouble getting him to follow me. I had spotted several lobsters in the rocks on the SW corner of the Knoll, but he was nowhere in sight, so I swam back. I spotted him near the surface and I thought he spotted me, but he didn't follow. So I went back and let him see me again, but same result. Third time was the charm. Then we swam over to the Perpendicular Rocks and then headed SW to the Cigar Rock and West to the blocks then to the beach.

Dive time was 87 minutes; consumption rate was 25.41 psi/minute at an average depth of 19 feet; SAC rate was 16.13 psi/minute on an 80 ft3 aluminum tank; RMV was 0.42 ft3/minute.