Venice Beach

You never saw a fish on the wall with its mouth shut. ~ Sally Berger

I always have a good time with Cindy...we drink wine, we talk, we drink wine, we shop, we drink wine, and most importantly we dive...... and then we drink more wine.... hey ...... dont be a hater....


Cindy flew in from PA on Friday night and at 5:30AM on Saturday we were loading up the car for a trip to Venice Beach to sharktooth dive. We could have taken the afternoon boat but there were other things to fit in the day along with our diving...... and so off we went, coffee in hand, heading for the marina in Venice Beach.

This was to be Cindy's first time sharktooth hunting, and while I had been several times before I am by no means a "shark tooth afficianado".

The sun was making its way up in the sky, white puffs of clouds taking shape above us and the air working its way up the thermometer to its hot and humid summertime temperature.

It is a short trip out to the underwater river beds and the mate gives a quick lesson in underwater fossils 101 and then we are gearing up to slide beneath the warm blue waters (87F warm) and hunt us some fossils.

Now we should be outstanding fossil hunters, after all we are world class shoppers and fossil hunting is much like shopping. You have to take your time and look at everything and sort through the junk to find the real bargains and treasures. But alas we are oft times distracted by the glam and glitter of the ocean floor.

We find several whale bones and manatee ribs, some teeth shaped like rocks and many rocks shaped like teeth. There are tiny starfish and , herds of sea urchins rolling like tumbleweed across the sand, sponges grasping onto the sandy bottom trying desperately not to be swept off with the currents, and eels dug into their sandy little caves, curious at our approach but not fond of the company. We have been given a compass heading to follow and Cindy diligently leads as I straggle behind poking and prodding and picking along the black sandy streams of sand looking for whole teeth.

Cindy's forte is shells....she knows them all and can pick up the teeniest of shells out of what looks like rubble, but it is abolutely perfect and a treasure and she can tell you all manner of information about it..... I on the other hand am easily distracted by the cunner hovering inches from my mask so curious about us and our search, the large oysters sitting upright in the sand.... they open their shells to let the water and food filter through but shut so tight when you poke..... you cant coax them open, I know, I tried. And hermit crabs.... they are like little shy playmates with short memories, I can spend hours just messing with them.

Two hours later, at dives end, I have bone in all shapes and sizes, shells I need names put to, a hand full of small teeth and one small meg. Not bad. I am not disappointed.

Unfortunately, as with any group, you have "those" divers without a clue. I had stood aside when boarding and loading and gearing up and let them spread out and thrash about but as we approached the dive platform in the current there on the tagline was one diver, long out of the water and just in swim trunks hanging on the tagline buoy and swimming it out from the boat and drifting back on it oblivious to divers surfacing and in need of a line to hang on while removing their fins and waiting their turn on the ladder.

I tangle myself in the slack flagline as I wind it in and swim it over to my divebuddy for a quick helping hand before climbing back onboard. It is a quick surface interval and we are back in the water a short distance from our last dive but this time all eyes are on me to man the compass. They must be joking..... so far my compass usage has been banging it on the oyster shells and failing to get them open..... hmmmmm.

The viz is slightly less here than the first dive just 5 or 6 feet but more than enough for our task at hand and there seem to be less teeth in this area, again a small hand full is all I get but I note there are less bones here and searching is harder. I find a toadfish hiding in a sandy hole and I spend some time hanging small shells off of the sea urchins scattered across the gulfs bottom. There were shades of black ones and red ones and bright purple ones which look quite pretty with small pink shells dangling from their spines. There were some with gold colored soft spines and several ran away when I tried to play with them.... humphhh the nerve..... I was simply givig them some bling for their saturday night date..... no appreciation those little urchins...but it is funny to see them do their own little version of scurrying along.

I find my way out and back as my dive buddy floats in the current following behind me, sorting through the fine sand in search of teeth. We dont have a huge haul but there is enough to impress the kiddies if necessary and we pack up as we anticipate getting ashore and heading out to a good lunch, a cold drink and some searching, sorting and collecting of a different nature...all those little shops along the boulevard.... sweet......

Now I See It

...And the sea cucumber turns to the mollusk and says, "With fronds like these, who needs aneomes."

Marlin ~ Finding Nemo

The following day Becky got called into work and I went out once again. This time a young doctor from Germany was looking to get in some diving while visiting and I was tour guide.

On our trip out a pod of dolphins played in our wake and the captain slowly circled for a few minutes making a small arean of wake behind the boat for the dolphins to frolic in while we watched from the deck and drank our morning coffee. As they tired of their fun and moved off we continued on our way.

We were again hitting the City of Washington, and this time I was seeing her from stem to stern. I stepped off the dive platform with my usual grace and form and slowly slid beneath the bright blue water. As I led out we looked around. I followed the slowly deteriorating sides of the ship. Low lying metal walls with distinct breaks showing where she broke apart as they tried to raise her.

There were low jagged walls and what appear to be encrusted bits of debris or machinery with not as many hidey holes as I am used to. Fish swam freely in and out and corals and sponges were taking hold where they please.

While fish abounded, no artifacts were to be found. I fanned for a minute to see if coal lay under the sand but none showed. I would have thought I was on a Jersey wreck if not for the 45 feet of viz and 83F water temps!

And yes. With my good ole Jersey training, I followed the outline of the ship from bow to stern and back, arriving at the anchorline just as I should be.

Our second dive was on a deeper reef called the Minnows. The reef fared better inthe deeper waters and while not in full bloom it was rich in colors and wore a healthy suppy of soft corals and sponges.

Barrel sponges and stagshorn corals were interspersed with brain corals sporting red and green christmas tree worms which love to be poked. really...they told me. Purple sea urchins were nestled in and several "quality" lobster were snuggled against the ledges. Alas there is a season for lobster here and this is not it. I pulled them out anyway...just for practice.

There were swimthroughs in the coral and portions reaching up in the water like towers of a castle dissappearing in the sunlight.

Peppermint shrimp with their longlegs crawled about and queen angelfish swam past. A crayon box of fish small and large skittered about. But alas still no eels. No octopus either. The summer is still young. We will see.

Memorial Day Almost on the City of Washington

Poor is the nation that has no heroes.
Shameful is the nation that has them and forgets.

It is Memorial Day Weekend and while visions of Bar B Q and watermelon, hot days and clear blue water, nekkid ocean diving and good friends danced in my head, I also took time to remember. Remember those who served and those who are serving, those who returned to their homes and families and those who did not. There is a plaque on a monument..... in Tennessee I believe.... it reads....."Poor is the nation that has no heroes. Shameful is the nation that has them and forgets." I believe in that......and I believe in good times and good friends and so I plan to round out my weekend with the latter.... in Key Largo.

Becky is a good friend..... she opens her home, with its two young boys and 3lb dog to me and my 90lb shedding wonder whenever I call.... without question..... good friends are a blessing. She is also almost as good at directions as I am, but more about that later.

I arrive in the evening, a jumble of clothes, dive gear, soda and chips and we awaken the next day to clear blue skies and warm air. I told Becky I wanted to see one of the Keys wrecks.... reefs abound down there but I am missing my Jersey diving. She obliges me with plans to dive the City of Washington for me and a reef for the others. Life is good. Sometimes......

We head out with Garden Cove Divers onto flat seas and light breezes, a day filled with promise and adventure. It's always an adventure when we two get together.

Just to show how truly small the world is, there is a new captain and crew on the boat this trip and they are from NJ, Atlantic Divers I think they said. A small taste of home which I am missing. We talk Jersey diving and divers and soon we are there.

The City of Washington was an iron hulled, masted brigantine ship launched in 1877 and aquired by the Ward Lines for passenger and trade hauling between New York and Cuba.

On February 15, 1898, she was moored in Havana Harbor near the USS Maine when the Maine exploded. The City of Washington suffered some minor damage but sent out its lifeboats to rescue the crew of the Maine. The captain and crew of the Washington testified at a Naval Court Inquiry which concluded the USS Maine was destroyed by a submarine mine which was attributed to Spain and shortly after Congress declared war and thus began the Spanish American War.

She was immediately chartered by the US Army for use as a transport ship for the invasion of Cuba, and paid $450 per day, our tax dollars at work.

In late 1898, the ship returned to passenger service between New York and Cuba and was retired in 1908. She was purchased by the Luckenbach Steamship Line and refitted as a coal barge and on July 10, 1917, the City of Washington and another barge, the Seneca, were being towed by the Luckenbach 4 when all three vessels ran aground near Key Largo, Florida. The other two vessels were refloated but the City of Washington broke up and was not recovered. She now sits in approximately 40fsw, laying in a north south direction off of Key Largo and we were about to dive her.....maybe.

Becky lives and dives in the Keys, a year round wonder of warm clear tropical waters and crayola colored corals and fish. She also has a GPS and a sense of direction akin to mine. With that in mind and the vision in your head of two women who are not yet done with their conversation, giant striding off the back of the boat, you see us entering the water laughing and talking without missing a beat. We slip beneath the water still laughing and signaling as we end our conversation and begin our dive. Becks is in the lead and as I stop to peek and poke I begin to fall behind and swim to catch up. Here lies the anchor chain, still leaning propped upon the metal walls of the wreckage which is broken into groupings of low lying walls and coral groupings.

I give the chain a moment of my time and motor to catch up passing by the most gi-normous conch shell I have ever seen. The size of a basketball..... this little beauty would have given one of Barts moonsnails a run for its money in the ring. I only poked it a little....it was pretty big.

Soon the sides begin to give way to more coral and I wonder why they have been covered so much more here. Actually encased compared to the first pieces we saw. I catch up with Becky and she taps her gauges. We are in water a bit deeper than we should be and she signals up.

We are about 150 yards off the stern of the boat....we should be about 100 yards off of the bow. Hmmmm........ I tell her I am not following her anymore! She is like a bad GPS...... and we can barely stay afloat laughing. But we have plenty of gas and a compass..... Becky has her compass...and takes a heading. I wish there were mussels in Florida.... I wish we had taken her compas and smashed open the mussels and fed the fish. We should have ran a wreck reel. We would have been better off.

Becky is worse at directions than I am if that is at all possible. We looked about on the reefs, taking notice of any damage done by the winters cold spell, seeking out the inhabitants in all their color. As for the reefs, they are recovering slowly. The purples seem to be the color returning first, they are the most abundant. The fish are about, no eels and no shrimp or sea urchins but small colorful fish and the beginnings of soft corals and sponges. BUT.... the water is still getting deeper....

We once again surface and we are now about 400 yards off the stern of the boat, the boat a small dinghy in the distance. Channel markers are nearby, as are fishing boats, no doubtably bait in the water. I search the waterline for signs of a fin while I rattle off my opinion of her navigational skills..... she pees in her wetsuit she is laughing so hard. I wonder if that draws sharks too.

Let me just say.... I have NEVER once in my diving career missed the anchorline. Never once deployed my SMB. Never once had the captain begin S&R for me. I surely was taught better. And here I sit, heading for Cuba, bobbing on the surface in gamefish waters with little Miss GPS. And I pull out my marker and begin to inflate.

We turn on our backs and begin to kick towards the boat, markers flying high. By the time the boat reached us we are once again talking and laughing just as we had been when we first stepped off the dive platform. One big circle from start to finish.

Since Becky works for the dive shop, the captain and crew are convinced we did this on purpose. A test of sorts to see how they would react. How they would handle a diver emergency. We told them no..... it wasn't... but they didnt believe us and we just shook our heads and laughed as we headed out to our next stop, the Fingers just off Elbow Reef.

The Fingers are a series of linear reefs, one after the other, in rows, like fingers of a hand and you follow them like the outline of a glove from one end to the other, up one side and down the other. I led.

And for a third dive we hit a shallow reef not far from there.... and I led again....

Great day on the water, great friends, great adventures..... gotta love it. And someday.... I may even see a wreck out here..... maybe even the City of Washington.