Martha and I dive the Fish Camp Rocks with Evan Lozada
Evan Lozada is Martha's favorite yoga instructor at LA Fitness. He is going on a trip to Cartagena Columbia and may spend two days diving there. He says that he is certified, but it was 10 years ago so he would like a brushup dive before he goes. We fit him for gear yesterday and invited him to come along this morning.
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| French Grunt (Haemulon flavolineatum) |
He met us at the apartment this morning. We loaded the truck and drove to Tower 17. My favorite parking spot was taken, but that car left as we were gearing up so I moved back into the spot I wanted. We finished gearing up and headed for the water.
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| Spotted Trunkfish (Lactophrys bicaudalis) |
We waded out to the sandbar and finned up. Evan's alternate air source began free flow and he lost a few hundred psi before I got it stopped.
Then we swam past the buoy line to descend. Evan had a little trouble descending but finally managed to get down.
At first, Evan swam with his head up, but he got more horizontal as we went along. Also waved his arms a bit, but made an effort to stop that and rely on his breathing to establish and control his buoyancy..
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| Bluestriped Grunt (Haemulon sciurus) |
We headed East, but got set to the North by the current. I didn't recognize anything until we got to the Perpendicular Rocks, but from there we turned North and swam past the Swept Rock to the Big Coral Knoll. We continued North to the top of the Knoll, turned East to the edge of the Knoll then headed South along the coral.
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| Midnight Parrotfish (Scarus coelestinus) |
There were very few fish, so we continued heading South to the Fish Camp Rocks, where we found a number of Grunts, Snappers and a single Midnight Parrotfish. (to the left). I got lots of pictures, but no rare species and no Turtles.
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| Two fighting White Grunts (Haemulon plumierii) |
Did get one shot of two White Grunts fighting, but the strobe broke it up (on the right).
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| Spanish Grunt (Haemulon macrostomum) |
Evan was cold, wearing only a 2 mm shorty wet suit. He did well on his air consumption. We turned the dive when he got to 1500 psi and we were at the Fish Camp Rocks. We headed up to the Gray Mid-way Rock and then down the gun sight. We surfaced just West of the buoy line when he was down to 400 psi.
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| Juvenile Queen Angelfish (Holacanthus ciliaris) |
Being cold, he raced into the beach. Martha and I swam more slowly and Evan was easily 10 minutes ahead of us when we finally exited the water.
The dive time was 75 minutes, maximum depth was 19.8 feet, and bottom temperature was 75.2 degrees. My SAC was 21.14 psi/minute and the RMV was 0.55 cubic feet per minute.
My pictures of the dive are available at the following link: 31 March 2019_Fish Camp Rocks
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