Oil Rigs Dive
The day started early for me. Awoke at 4am, it was so early that my dog wouldn’t even get up until I fed him, then fell right back down on the floor. I left my house in Claremont at 430am to meet Woody in Oceanside for our trip up to Port’s of Call in San Pedro for our Oil Rigs dive.
The drive up to San Pedro was uneventful and we pulled into Port’s of Call at around sunrise. Woody was telling me on the way up how nice this area was and when we pulled into the parking lot it looked like a ticker-tape parade had taken place just before we got there. I gave Woody a questioning look and he just shrugged and said it was cleaner last time he used this boat.
A group of about 20 flying trash cans, aka seagulls, we fighting over who got to eat out of one of the trash dumpsters as we parked the truck near the boat slip. Before I get flamed for comparing the Ports of Call parking lot to a post-war Beirut; I should point out that they had a legion of guys and equipment cleaning it up and it’s actually a very nice marina with lots of nice shops; though for some reason it is built in the style of a New England fishing village.
Our boat today was the Second Stage, a 42ft-sportfisher that has been customized for diving and caters to technical divers. They run regular trips to Catalina and the oil rigs off of LA. We had thought we chartered the whole boat to go to the Oil Rig, Eureka but when we showed up we had 3 people we didn’t know and one with a rebreather. Our gang consisted of Scott Brooks, Mark, Chris, Woody and my self and as the Aussie say, “No worries mate”. The boat was big enough for all 8 of us, the captain and the crew of one.
We left San Pedro at around 730ish and arrived at our dive site about 50 mins later. For those completely unaware, clueless or just plain ignorant, there are a number of oil rigs off Orange, LA and Ventura counties, but they are far off enough, and thanks to smog, you can’t see them. But they are there, like trailer parks in some hidden canyon, waiting to be discovered.
The oil rig Eureka, sets in deep water; I’ve heard 600, 700 and 900 feet. Let’s just say, it’s deep, real deep. The team of Scott, Woody and I planned on a 200 foot dive with 25 mins of bottom dive, with 5 mins of that as travel time to the “bottom”. We were diving 18/45 (18% oxygen, 45% helium, balance nitrogen) with 50% Oxygen and 100% Oxygen stage bottles for decompression. These are standard GUE mixes; we worked out our deco plan on a combination of deco programs with some deep stops to give us a safe dive with a lot of conservatism. 18/45 gives you roughly the same narcosis as 70 feet on air.
We let the first two teams go before we hoped in the water; we planned on only doing one long dive and we wanted everyone out of the way considering all our gear. We entered the water, did our bubble/safety check and descended. I was talking to the captain before we got in the water and he explained that the rigs were in operation and I should look out for the water inlet pipe as it was big enough and strong enough to suck a diver in. But he didn’t know where it was or how deep it was, but “you should watch out for that.”
Elevator going down.
We descended into what can only be described as a giant jungle gym of vertical and horizontal pipes. We simply swam underneath and center of the rigs and did our best sky-diver position and let gravity due the work on the way down. The first 40 feet was murky, but as we got deeper the vis opened up to about 70 feet with a little bit of current. The legs and cross members are covered with life, it’s loaded with scallops and mussels on tons of fish. Every 80 feet or so the cross members form a horizontal X over the middle but it’s so big you don’t need to worry about it getting in your way.
At about 150 or huge metridiums take over, they are tall and pure white and look like a Dr Seuss palm tree. I looked at my gauge again and we were at 170, and about 30 feet below us was a cross member X formation, it was a perfect “bottom” for us. We stopped and had a look around, below us the dark water stretched on forever, glowing with metridiums in our HID lights. It was spooky but impressive.
We did a tour around the edge and thru the tall columns supporting the weight of the superstructure above us. The columns were about 4 feet apart once you got out of the middle and gave the area a forest like feeling. Large cabezons, starfish and metriduims crowded the former empty space forming a reef teeming with life. Brittle stars swarm over the beams and move with the current, which had changed directions the deeper we got. Clouds of small fish hovered around their home, which happens to be a steel cross member instead of a rock or reef.
The natural light from above was very dim at this depth and our HID lights were the only bright spots, like car head lights on a cold deserted country road. At this point, I should point out that I had a small leak in my dry suit that I patched with duct tape, the duct tape has come off like a prom dress and I now have a small leak in my dry suit leg. The water is pretty cold at 200 feet and with the added pressure is slowly forcing water into my leg. It hits my crouch like a bullet and gives me a nice pick me up.
I need a new suit, but that’s not going to help me right now. Thankfully, we were at the end of our bottom time and it was time to rejoin the land of the air breathers.
We slowly started our accent and drifted upwards. Our bottom dive is over but now the decompression means we will not leave the water for another 45 mins. We did “deep stops”, switched to 50% at 70 feet and 100% at 20 feet. The deco was very interesting because the current keep changing directions but we still had lots of life to look at; it is very much like a reef wall dive. At 30 feet we hit a thermocline, it was warmer now but as we reached our 20 foot stop an upwelling began which bobbed us up and down like a po-go stick; it was a lot of fun, now I know what laundry feels like.
Sea lions love the oil rigs.
A colony of them lay on the lower section of the rig, occasionally diving off the gangplank thru 10 feet of air, to hit the water, which a couple of bulls did now as we held our 20 foot stop. I hear a loud noise underwater that sounds alien, I am thinking,
“Oh shit. Where is that water inlet valve? I am I going to be sucked in, digested by this big oil platform and then little parts of me are going to end up in gallon of gas in an SUV?”
I turn around to see this big bull sea lion hovering about 10 feet above and behind me. He makes eye contact with me for about ½ a nano-second and flies off. Woody looks over at me with a look that just says, “What the hell is going on with you?” He didn’t see the sea lion and I think he forgot about the water inlet valve.
The sea lion dive bombed me about 4 times; each time blowing bubbles but not making that strange sound again. As Scott and I swam thru the columns, to the exit side of the rig, a sea lion appeared out of no-where, coming straight at us, mouth open, effectively scaring the shit out of us.
We made it back on the boat ok and about 45 mins later on our way back to the dock, Scott whipped out the Doppler. We all read pretty clean with the exception of Woody’s arm which for some unexplained reason had class 2 bubbling, nothing serious but it was an anomaly because Scott and I had virtually no bubbling.
We were back on the dock by 1130am and I was home in San Diego by 230pm. Very cool dive, I need to go back with my video camera.