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Hey all, I thought it would be fun to take out my gavin (short-body HDPE) for a romp in the kelp beds here in monterey to see what it was like in an environment a little different than what the gavins are normally used in. I wrote up the report on our local lists and several members suggested it would be nice to forward to the larger lists. So here it is: --- Executive summary: Despite the bad weather and wave forecasts, it was really good! Vis 60-70', very little swells, virtually no wind chop at all, undetectable surge. Beto and I were diving Pt Lobos from the shore with our gavin scooters. We started at the ramp, pointed the scooters out to bluer waters and hit the trigger. The next 40 minutes was pure bliss. We were zooming in-and-out of the kelp beds, criss-crossing each other's paths, doing barrel rolls, zipping in-and-out of pinnacles and other rock formations. I couldn't help but laugh most of the time. We did the "beto dive", which is a dive we've done a number of times in the past. This involves heading out at about 330 degrees following the reefs and pinnacles to about the 130FSW range, turn around and come back. Normally we kick on the surface a *long* ways, drop down at about the 60FSW contour, head out along the reefs, come back, switch to deco bottle at 70FSW and do our deco as we work our way towards shore. Normal runtime is about 2 hours. This time we started right at the ramp, hit the 60FSW contour in about 6 minutes, hit the 130FSW contour in an additional 5 minutes, zoomed around the big pinnacle there for a while, headed back to the kelp and pinnacles around 70FSW and did lots of circles around the kelp and rocks, zoomed into the cove and zoomed around with some harbor seals for a while. Total run-time 40 minutes and no deco at all!?! Doing a straight out-and-back we could've done it in 20 minutes. This compared to the 2 hours it normally takes (plus the long surface swim!) No deco! And this was with the pitch on the props only set to 6. It was such an amazing experience flying along like a seal or fish, effortlessly flying through the water, weaving through the kelp. Words can't describe it. As Sami says, "Something that fun *must* be illegal!" And the vis was so good, especially compared to yesterday (5'). It's astounding what one day will do. I'm so glad I decided to head down despite the forecasts. I'm still glowing (even as I stand here looking at all the gear I have to clean :-) ). -Dave -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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