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April 30th, 2006, 01:48 AM
| #1 (permalink) |
| New Member  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 708
  | Olympic II April 23rd, 2006 On Sunday April 23rd, 5 lucky divers got to explore the wreck of the Olympic II in San Pedro harbor near Los Angeles, CA. The Olympic (Originally the Star of France) was sunk in a collision with the Japanese freighter, Sakito Maru in the early hours of the morning of September 4, 1940. http://http://www.cawreckdivers.org/Wrecks/Olympic.htm The wreck lies in about 100 feet of water, and was thus considered a hazard to shipping, and so was sunsequently blown up. However, some of the structure is still intact. We did two dives total, on 32% nitrox with a bottom time of 30 mins on each dive. Since we were five, we split up into two teams, one of 3 and one of two, but all following the same dive plan. I had a bad feeling at first, as we had just had a rather mediocre dive on the oil rig Eureka not too far away, where the vis had been relatively poor and a pretty strong current was present. The vis-killing red-tide has also made a recent appearance, which kills the vis down to a couple of feet. The captain of the boat had a tip-preserving "Well, you might be surprised how much it will clear up when you hit the bottom" comment, which didn't reassure me too much. But boy, did it. We had more than 50 feet of visibility on each dive. We dropped in, right into an almost zero-vis layer of red tide, but luckily once we hit fifty feet, the temperature started to drop, and the vis cleared up. By the time we hit 90 feet and made our way to the wreck, I knew it was going to be an awesome dive. Unfortunately, I was running video, so the only photos I have are stills from the camera. The structure at the bow and the stern of the boat rise up 30 or so feet into the air, and were spectacular, and at times swarming with fish. We dove this wreck on Feb, and I had thought the vis was good back then, but this was a different level -- a huge section of the ship could be taken in at one go. Unfortunately I didn't get to see any of the huge ling cod that lurk inside the ship, but the schools of fish swarming around the wreck in the distance more than made up for it. I didn't want to leave the bottom on either dive, but eventually we had to. This is a really cool wreck, and we've had great vis both times we've dived it. |
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April 30th, 2006, 08:37 AM
| #2 (permalink) |
| Moderator  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Fleet, Hants
Posts: 1,964
 | Excellent report. Nice to see that poor vis is available all the way around the world 
__________________ Gareth Images of Life Photography DIR Team Foxturd Travels Underwater and Further Afar If you don't have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it? - Stephen King |
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May 1st, 2006, 03:19 AM
| #3 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 708
| Quote: (Originally Posted by GLOC) Excellent report. Nice to see that poor vis is available all the way around the world Ha, this is actually excellent vis for us! The photos just look really green as I was shooting video with ambient light only. I want to go back and get some good still images but I highly doubt the vis will cooperate 3 times in a row. |
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May 1st, 2006, 09:35 AM
| #4 (permalink) |
| Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Fleet, Hants
Posts: 1,964
| I can see the bottom was nice from the shots, I was referring to the top layer  Someone should invent a video camera that doesn't cost a million that you can get decent stills from...would save those 'I wish I had my stills/video (delete as applicable) with me rather than this camera!'
__________________ Gareth Images of Life Photography DIR Team Foxturd Travels Underwater and Further Afar If you don't have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it? - Stephen King |
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May 1st, 2006, 06:21 PM
| #5 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 708
| Quote: (Originally Posted by GLOC) I can see the bottom was nice from the shots, I was referring to the top layer Yah, the top layer will be cruddy on and off all summer now I expect.Someone should invent a video camera that doesn't cost a million that you can get decent stills from...would save those 'I wish I had my stills/video (delete as applicable) with me rather than this camera!' In theory my video cam can take 3Mpixel stills, but the shutter lag is pretty long and I usually end up leaving it in video mode. Maybe i will play with getting the stills working. i guess if I had progressive mode the stills would come out better. Also, I'm videoing in 16:9 and it's hard to get much height in the shots that way. |
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May 1st, 2006, 08:32 PM
| #6 (permalink) |
| Strokey Dokily Doo  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: London
Posts: 1,202
| Nice shots. Looks like a terrific Nitrox dive. I love the international feel to this board - it's great to be able to see what people are up to on the other side of the world and vice versa. All the best
__________________ The Foxturd Chimp |
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May 1st, 2006, 08:36 PM
| #7 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 708
| Quote: (Originally Posted by Howard Payne) Nice shots. Looks like a terrific Nitrox dive. I love the international feel to this board - it's great to be able to see what people are up to on the other side of the world and vice versa. All the best Yeah, it's perfect for 32%. Hopefully if I ever get T1 passed, we can do a more aggressive dive and get some more bottom time.I like reading all the UK wreck diving reports too. Maybe someday I will cart my gear over there for some dives! |
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