Catalina Report 3.8.09

[Mike Morgan]

Got back from round 2 of Cat last night and 5 beautiful days on the water. Literally got home from the Sand Dollar trip, took a shower, lightened my gear load and headed back out with Joe Whit and Gerry. We blazed out to the west end at about 10:30pm in Gerry's beautiful 23' Sea Pro with really nice conditions and moored up around Long Point @ 12pm. The evening conditions were beautiful and a near full moon? had everything lit up with that nice blue moonlight I was exhausted from my previous endeavor so decided to scratch the bug hunting and rest up for the next days endeavor...but shortly after i woke up and found Gerry and Joe sharing a blanket broke back stylie Just kidding Joe.

Anyhow heres the short report

Location- Catalina various spots around the West end
Time- 6am-5pm
Viz- 15-60Ft Hazy - Gin Clear
Depth- 5-70ft
Temp- Front Side 56-57ish Backside 54-55 Cold but comfy in a 7mm
Surge- very minimal
Swell - 1ft
Game spotted- Big Calicos up to 9lbs, Reef Fish, Schools of Zebras, Goats, Short Lobsters, 1 Juvenile WSB
Game Taken - Stringer of 18-20" Calicos


Long Report:

Pulled Anchor around 6am and headed around the backside with flat sea's and promising conditions. Complete contrast of conditions from Saturday with Captain Ron. Saturday had decent size swells and lots of wind making for a bumpy ride, Sunday was lake pacific.

Arrived at our first spot, which is a deep bed on the backside North of Cat Harbor. Dove the high tide looking for ghosts with no luck. The bed was big, deep and void of life. For some reason I just love swimming through those big erie beds My legs were on a different program then my mind and just didnt want to break the 40' mark no matter how hard i kicked. I guess 4 days straight of non-stop diving will do that for you. Fiberglass blades here I come!

Anyhow, the only highlight or shall we say low light from that dive was on my swim back to the boat I as using my new 55" mori and decided to target practice on a nice sized calico hiding behind some kelp. Well i take the shot and miss (thank god!) and just watch as my shaft and new hi-viz shooting line (thanks MikeLB) go whizzing off into the darkness!!! ***** I had a major brain fart and didnt hook my floatline to the break-away and instead just had it clipped to my inline loop. So i watch the unattached shaft and slip tip sail away to the bottom! At least I took a good mental note of which direction and angle it was heading and after a few dives we pulled it off the bottom in 70'. At the very least we were able to practice safe diving ethics and took turns spotting each other at those depths. A tank would have been very nice and if i was by myself I wouldnt have felt very safe making those dives with legs as tired as mine.

After that, we pulled anchor and looked for a bit of shelter from some North wind that was picking up. Settled for a nice little spot around Kelp Bay. Favorite dive of the day. Since i shamefully didnt put any fish on the sand dollar i figured I needed to make up for it so my girlfriend would believe where i was for 5 days and took out the Rob Allen for some Calico bonding experiences. Had fun diving shallow with a max depth of 30' put a few fish on the boat and found some great lobster spots, but the only bugs i could pull kept coming up short. Between the two spots had a small sandy beach, but no halibut. 100's of small rays where hanging out in the sand and i wish i would have gone back and grabbed the camera, because it would have been some really cool footage. Spent about 3-4 hours in the water there and kicked rocks to the next spot.

Westend Cove and Eagle Rock had the day boats on it around 1:30ish, so we kept moving and decided to head back to Johnsons for one last dive. Joe missed a shot on a small WSB and I saw nothing and heard nothing, but was able to get some target practice in with my new gun and managed to keep the shaft this time

All in all a gorgeous day on the water with two good buddies. The time change is really helping out those weekend days and you couldn't help but feel that summer is right around the corner. Made it back to Alamitos by about 7 and in bed by 10:30.

Hopefully Joe and Gerry can chime in with a few things i missed. Joe and I shot a decent amount of video footage and I took a few pics. I also have some really nice scuba footage from the sand dollar especially the night time bug hunting which I am sure people will enjoy. I'll try to get those up ASAP or as soon as I stop rocking

Cheers guys!