Fifteen divers, six planes, two dive boats, two countries and over a metric ton of dive kit; this was to be the most complicated logistic expedition ever mounted by the High Wycombe branch of BSAC. It was also the first club trip organized to the Pacific Ocean . In the space of four years the club has visited every ocean with the exception of the southern and artic oceans. The trip was in two parts, the leading group would fly out to Los Angeles four days ahead of the rest of the party to spend a few days diving the Californian kelp forests off the shores of Catalina Island , thirty miles offshore from Los Angeles .
The major part of the trip was to be a live aboard in the Sea of Cortez , Mexico . Trying to fit two full days of diving in at Catalina meant a very early start to catch the first ferry to Avalon, where we would be met by the dive boat. We had not even been in the USA for twenty-four hours when we discovered that contrary to popular belief, not everything is bigger in the land of plenty. The first was that pints of beer are not pints of beer, but more like 83% of a pint, so we just had to have a few more. A bigger problem was trying to fit six divers into a mini van at five in the morning, complete with lots, and I mean lots, of dive bags. We are all used to travelling to the Red Sea and trying, mostly failing, to fit all the dive kit under 25kg, on this trip, the baggage allowance was 65kg EACH! Needless to say we all went a little bit overboard, most people taking dry and wet suits, and spares of everything. After several attempts at trying to fill the vans boot (sorry trunk) with bags, the taxi driver gave up and ordered another van which would arrive in an hour making us miss the ferry to Catalina. While he was trying to arrange this we just piled all the rest of the bags into the main part of the van and dived on top, slamming the door behind us. The driver looked a bit shocked and then told us we all had to buckle up and set off. As the seat belt buckles were under about seven tonnes of dive kit we just told the driver that we had done, and off to the ferry terminal we went.
As the ferry headed out of the harbour of Long Beach , we passed the ocean liner Queen Mary. She was an impressive sight, but in the tradition of all divers we started to wonder what she would be like as a wreck, better than the Salsette that is for sure. The water in the harbour was, well brown at best, and we were a bit dubious about how clear the water would be just thirty miles offshore of one of the biggest cities in the US . But as soon as we got to the natural anchorage of Avalon in the Channel Islands the water was crystal clear, fish and giant kelp could be clearly seen from the surface. The waters off the Californian Channel Islands are not only famous for giant kelp but also Garibaldi, sadly for the gannets amongst us these turned out to be an orange fish, not biscuits. After a slight delay of three hours we boarded the King Neptune, which was to be our dive boat for the next two days. Compared to most UK day boats the King Neptune was in a class of its own, spacious and well laid out, from what we could see she was the perfect dive boat, even hot coffee and donuts laid on.
The dive guide and skipper gave us a comprehensive dive briefing about the site, what we could expect to see and what we had to do. The bit we had to do could be summed as follows:-
1. Get kitted up.
2. Get in water.
3. Go diving.
4. Get out of water.
As we were sharing the boat with a few American divers who were a bit worried about diving the cold water (about 19oC, cold for the US but lovely for us hardy BSAC divers), we were determined to put on a good show, kit up swiftly and have perfect dives. So we took the four simple steps listed about and totally messed every one up.
The root of all our problems was weight, we are all used to diving in metric so weights being marked in pounds was a bit strange, even worse was aluminium tanks which get light at the end of the dive. Most of us guessed/worked out what we needed strapped it on and jumped off the boat. Approximately half our party sank without trace; the other half did a good attempt at trying to bob out of the water. Extra weight was added to the floaty half of our group, and in our buddy pairs we started the dive.