Cordova Dive Blog

Monday, 15 April 2019

Nicole's first dive to the Eastern Ledge off Tower 17


Walked Mia and made coffee for the thermos. Martha and I then loaded the truck and headed to the beach at 7:00 am. The guy in my favorite space moved as we arrived and I got my spot. Nicole arrived right at 7:30 am. We geared up and got in the water. We walked into the surf to weight Nicole. Put 14 lbs on her and she sat on the bottom. Martha joined us and we descended in 6 ft of water and headed East along the sloping sand.

About 10 minutes into the dive we spotted a young Green Sea Turtle, who swam South across our path. I followed the turtle and Nicole and Martha followed me, but we soon lost the turtle in the poor visibility so near the beach.

We continued swimming East and found several small groups of French then Grey Angelfish. Martha spotted a young Nurse Shark under a small coral head and came and got Nicole and me to see him.  Nicole was less than thrilled. We continued to the Eastern Ledge and dropped down to 33 ft. She seemed to have no trouble equalizing her ears and was not having trouble staying down.

She was down to 1500 psi, however, so I turned the dive and we headed West to the beach.  As we swam up the ledge from 33 feet to 23 feet, Nicole became a little too light. I handed her a rock, but she did not understand that I wanted her to carry the rock and correct her positive buoyancy. Once I convinced her to carry the rock, Nicole maintained good trim and buoyancy.

We spotted a Purple-mouth Moray Eel and a Smooth Trunkfish along the way to the beach. We surfaced just past the buoy line and South of the Tower, but a surface current sent us to the North. We all exited without incident.

Our dive time was 76 minutes, our maximum depth was 32.8 feet and the bottom temperature was 77 degrees. My Surface Air Consumption rate was 18.99 psi/minute and the Residual Minute Volume was0.49 cubic feet per minute. No one took pictures.