Scuba Diving club,
Southern California
San Clemente Island Diving the
Westerly
On March 5th 2004
By Dan King
As
originally scheduled the trip was to take us out to San Nicholas Island. Very Beautiful and Majestic dive location
located 78 nautical miles off the California coast.
As luck would have it, the weather
leading up to the dive date was less than perfect, Rain, cold temperatures,
snow in the local mountains and of course wind but that blew the wrong
direction as well.
I arrived at the boat not knowing
if we were to make the 6 plus hour trip to san Nicholas or if we would be
diving at the ever popular Santa Catalina Island.
I waited for other divers as the
time passed Walter showed up; I asked if we had a full boat, his reply was
simply “we are Light”.
After an hour or so of catching up
with friend and talking about how nice it will be to make San Nicholas, since
most of us have not been put to the island for about 6 years. I decided to cal
it and evening.
Not quite sure what time Jim
pulled out of the Marina. But we soon hit the open channel, and a little rough
water. Great I thought as we motored across the channel, all the bad weather
mad conditions lees than perfect.
I awoke the next morning to find
that Walter was right in saying we are a little Light. We only had 10 divers,
and tons of room to spare.
We also found out very early that
the island next to us was San Clemente.
The water conditions were absolute
pristine, calm surface, No wind, No Current, unbelievable visibility.
Our first dive was at Sun Point a
reef structure that stared at 45 foot and dropped below 100 foot.
My highlight of the dive was the
seeing Green Albs growing in several areas and from the looks very large and
healthy. Wow I almost forgot,
visibility was well beyond the 50 foot range. No rain run off.
Our second dive took us to Sunset
Reef, again an amazing dive location and much like the first dive the array of
life was beyond belief.
Our third and fourth spots again
some of the best diving I have done in a long time. The conditions were
unbelievable and there was no current, no winds, no lack of visibility, noting
just a great day on the water.
Game, well we did go looking for
lobster and yes we found them, lots of them, short, small, and generally out of
reach. But the fish * bass – that was a different story ranging form 3 to 6+
pounds several lunkers were brought aboard. Of coarse I still need to work on
my hunting skills. Not a one did I take.
After lunch and stowing all the
gear most of us settled down for a nice nap home. I sleep for a while and
became restless. So I venture back topside and saw two dolphin’s jump next to
the boat. Well to my surprise as I went to the front of the boat to see if they
were swimming along with us. Noticed
Denise also looking over the rail and when looked over to my surprise there was
at least 30 or more dolphins riding along the front and as form both side of
the boat more gathered and took there turn. Dolphins,
Everywhere. There had to
be hundreds, even Denise made the comment that was the larges Pod she’s ever
seen.
Denise also comments to me on
seeing several whales off the back of Catalina Island.
What a wonder trip, for those who
made it, may you memories last forever.
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Posted March 19, 2004