Night Diving off Catamaran Beach then with Marianna Richardson after sunrise

I put a new battery in the camera and made sure the strobe battery was charged then left the apartment without the camera or strobe. So no pictures. Not that I expected that there would be much to photograph, but I had wanted to bring it and photograph some Banded Tube Dwelling Anemones. Once the light hits them, they start to curl into themselves and I don't have a lot of time to get a good shot.

I headed East from the swim buoy and then edged along to the North of the Staghorn Coral to the Swiss Cheese reef with coral heads. Lots of fish and me with no camera. I kept going East looking for the Plow Anchor, but I never found it though there are a couple of sand corridors that fit my recollection, but I never saw the anchor. I came up at 60 minutes to find I was due East of Catamaran Beach, so I should have been in the right spot.

Bottom temperature 78 degrees; dive time 61 minutes; consumption was 30.20 psi/minute at an average depth of 16 feet and my SAC rate was 20.34 psi/minute on an aluminum 80.


After a 5 minute surface interval it was twilight headed to sunrise. I descended to about 20 feet and headed South going to go find the Danforth anchor I dropped near the swim buoy off Tower 3. I had to surface a couple of times to locate the buoy and I was low on air when I finally got there. I thought it would be easy to find the anchor with the chain rode coated in white plastic, but I didn't see it on my first sweep. I started running a U-Shaped pattern going East-West from the buoy pin, but I didn't find it that way, either, and I was running out of air. I abandoned the search and headed back to the beach off Tower 4.

Bottom temperature was 78 degrees; dive time was 62 minutes; consumption was 24.37 psi/minute at an average depth of 14 feet and my SAC rate was 17.11 psi/minute on an aluminum 80.

Once I got back to the truck and out of my gear, I called Marianna and let her know I would be coming to pick her up, except I wanted to run by the apartment first and pick up my camera. I got the camera and I picked up Marianna and got back to the beach around 9:00 am. I even got the first parking spot again.

We geared up and I carried Marianna's gear to the beach for her, which was not how I intended to do things, but it just worked out that way. I had intended to leave my gear at the truck, take her gear to the beach and then go back for mine and get my camera. That didn't happen. So another dive sans camera. We swam on the surface to the swim buoy to descend, then headed NE through the ledge and past the staghorn coral and to the interesting reef filled with fish. I think Marianna was impressed. It was a nice dive. We turned the dive when she hit 1500 psi and headed SW to the beach. Came up in 6 feet of water to control the flagline.

Bottom temperature was 78 degrees; dive time was 72 minutes; consumption rate was 22.89 psi/minute at an average depth of 15 feet and my SAC rate was 15.74 on an aluminum 80.