Chapters Bookstores has recently approved California Diver Magazine for distribution in their network of stores throughout Canada. Chapters is the “Barnes & Noble of Canada”, with locations throughout the country.

In August 2001 Indigo merged with Chapters Inc., and the company expanded their bookstore locations to all ten provinces and one territory in Canada. Indigo is now Canada’s largest book retailer and the third largest in North America. As at December 26, 2009, Indigo operated 249 stores including 96 superstores under the banners Indigo, Chapters and the World’s Biggest Bookstore, and 151 small format stores under the banners Coles, Indigo, IndigoSpirit, SmithBooks and The Book Company. The Company also offers the popular online site, chapters.indigo.ca, which offers a choice of more than one million products including books, CDs, DVDs, toys and more.

California Diver Magazine is very excited to be dramatically increasing our distribution across North America with this new partnership, and proud be able to promote diving to a much larger audience. California Diver Magazine advertisers will also benefit from a greatly increased readership.

Chapters can be found online at www.chapters.indigo.ca.

Westbound diving is an exciting new 6-pack boat, and currently the only Coast Guard certified SCUBA charter operating out of Marina Del Rey.

Centrally located,  Westbound is an ideal choice for the wrecks of Palos Verdes and Santa Monica and with a cruising speed of 16kts other locations such as San Pedro, and both the front and backside of Catalina Island are easily in reach. Trips can also be arranged to more remote destinations, such as Santa Barbara or San Clemente Islands, as well as multi-day options.

The boat is a 33 foot Crystaliner, a generous aft deck for gearing up, and a completely enclosed cabin area to protect passengers from the elements. Her 11 foot beam makes her stable in the water for gearing up, as well as when moving through large swells on the trips between Islands.

Westbound has been heavily modified specifically for SCUBA diving, with the latest electronics (including 3D Sonar), and an excellent gearing up platform on the back deck that allows 2 divers to easily gear up simultaneously, while allowing ample storage for extras such as large cameras, scooters and decompression tanks etc.

Her owner, and primary captain Christian Norman is an avid and active local technical diver, and is also cave certified. Christian’s experience as a highly trained diver greatly benefits the Westbound diving experience, right from locating and hooking up to the wreck, through helping customers getting geared up and in the water, right through to handling any contingencies that may occur. Christian is also certified as an emergency first responder instructor, Oxygen/AED provider, and a First aid for hazardous marine injuries provider, as well as being a PADI dive master.

Christian is also aided by Co-Captain Mike Craig, who has a 100-ton license, with a 20 year perfect safety record and is also EFR/CRP trained.

PADI Instructors Tim Balcomb and Stewart Tanner also work on the boat from time to time. Both are very active local recreational and technical divers.

In addition to dive charters, Westbound can also be chartered for whale watching, coastal charters, TV/Movie filming, and scattering of ashes.

The boats location and speed mean that a number of local wrecks are located less than 45 minutes away: Palawan, Avalon, Star of Scotland, Redondo Barge, Landing Craft. The reefs of Palos Verdes are also easily accessible, allowing easy access to parts of these beautiful reefs that are often not easily accessible from shore. The wrecks of San Pedro are still easily within range (2 hours), and offer a large selection of recreational dives (Olympic II, Fog Wreck, African Queen, Radio Tower) as well as wrecks in the technical diving range (Caissons, Moody, Santa Clara, UB88 etc).

From San Pedro, it’s just a short hop over to the stunning diving off of the Oil Rigs (Eureka, Ellen/Elly) where visibility exceeding 60 feet is not uncommon. Their offshore location, combined with the stunning artificial reefs formed by the structure of the oil rigs themselves, this can often be the best of local diving conditions, and often feels like a reef and wreck dive, all wrapped into one.

Westbound also provides diving at a variety of spots on Catalina Island, including Ship rock, which many charters are sometimes reluctant to take divers to, due to advanced conditions. Trips can also be provided to locations on the backside of Catalina Island, such as Farnsworth banks.

Divers are free to dive recreational, or technical profiles, as long as they have the appropriate training, and still/video cameras and Scooters (DPVs) are also welcome.

Its size, speed and flexibility also make Westbound ideal for diving classes and training. Whatever targets that are needed for training are easily available, from 20 feet of sand, to a deep reef or wreck, and if conditions are poor, a backup location is usually easily within range. Her low costs also keep down the price for class students, while still providing a full range of amenities (Hot food/soup between dives, a customized swimstep, hot deck showers, O2 analyzer provided, as well as pre-orderd nitrox fills, and AL80 tanks for rental)

My trip on Westbound was a single-day of diving to the wrecks of the Palawan (in approx 120 feet of water) and the Avalon (60-80 feet of water)

Loading up the boat was extremely easy, thanks to plenty of close parking and the boat-provided dock carts to help hauling the miscellaneous equipment.

It only seemed minutes after we had left the dock that we pulled up to the wreck of the Palawan, and Christian was maneuvering the Westbound into position and dropping the anchor. Gearing up was easy, even though we were all using double-tanks and scooters. Westbound provides drop-lines to allow the scooters and decompression bottles to be hung off the back of the boat in the water, before we got into our doubles, reducing the amount of gear we had to manage on a potentially moving deck.

The Palawan is an artificial reef, sunk off of Palos Verdes in 1977. Being over 400 feet long and almost 60 feet wide, there is scope for plenty of diving, whether swimming or scootering. There are also a large number of cutouts in the ship, making easy swim-throughs. This includes a “corridor” that has been cut virtually the entire length of the ship, in the keel area, allowing divers to swim from bow to stern, with short overhead sections interspersed with roofless sections to allow for easy access to the surface. There are also a number of cutouts linking cargo holds, which can make sun swim/scooter-throughs. The Palawan is covered in life, from the ship itself which is thickly coated in metridiums and nudibranchs, to the ling cod, crabs and sometimes rays that frequent the wreck. For the more advanced diver, there are also a few places for real penetration, and in some places permanent line has been left to guide the way.

There are some challenges though. This wreck has a maximum depth of around 130 feet, with the top decks being around 105 feet. This means that for recreational divers, time is very limited, and extra care must be taken with air reserves, checking air, and monitoring time and depth to avoid incurring a decompression obligation. For technical divers, the wreck is shallow enough to allow an extended dive with relatively simple decompression, and can be a great training site. Care must be taken whether scootering or swimming though as this is a popular fishing spot, and has a significant amount of monofilament.

Our dive was fairly straightforward, with 20-30 feet of visibility. We circled the wreck, taking in the bow section, some of the cargo compartments, as well as some remains of the masts still present. Our ascent was smooth, and we encountered a school of jellyfish at our 20 foot stop to liven things up a little bit.

We surfaced to a nice sunny day, and loaded ourselves and our gear back onto the boat, before tucking into a hot bowl of soup (always welcome after a dive, even if the sun is out). During the surface interval, Christian slowly motored the boat over to the wreck of the Avalon, so that everything was all set up for our second dive.

The Avalon sits in around 60-80 feet, so it makes for an ideal second dive after the Palawan. This wreck is pretty broken up in places, and in parts more a rubble field than actual wreck. Given its spread out nature, it can provide a number of interesting kick-dives, but also lends itself well to scootering. We descended into a murky 15 feet or so of vis, and dropped down onto an area of the wreck that has a crane strut lying on its side. This section of the wreck also has quite a bit of structure that stands up 8-10 feet off the bottom, and has some nice chances for photography. Having explored that section, we scootered through the middle of the wreck, which consists of mostly rubble, until we found ourselves at one of the largest remaining pieces of the wreck. This is probably 50 or so feet across, and sits up to 30 feet from the bottom. There are plenty of openings here that allow us to look inside the parts of the wreck, but not enough for any penetration. The wreck has a covering of life, and plenty of nudibranchs have made this their home. We circled this section of the wreck a couple of times, slowly ascending to the top, where the surge was quite apparent. We then deployed the scooters to make our way back to the anchor line, making twists, turns and loops through the mangled wreckage. About halfway back to the boat, we spotted a good-sized bat ray in the sand, but our scooters were no match for  this perfectly-adapted creature on its home territory, so it soon left us in the dust.

We performed a nice slow ascent, surfacing very close to the boat, in the late-afternoon sun. Back on board, we treated ourselves to yet more hot soup, before pulling anchor, getting out of our drysuits and back into the shorts and T-shirts that were a much better fit for the weather. During the short trip back to the Marina Del Rey harbor, we were fortunate enough to see a large Mola-mola lazing on the surface, gently sunning itself. A perfect end to an awesome day of diving.

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Words and Photos by Nick Ambrose

This article appeared in California Diver
Magazine’s November/December 2011 issue.

Subscribe today  to our print magazine and read
many more features like this in each issue!

Known as one of the Bay Area’s largest dive centers, Wallin’s has certified more than 10,000 divers. Their facility includes a heated indoor pool, 2 large classrooms, a full service department, and a complete rental  department. They are a PADI 5-star dive center, and also the home of the Kelptomaniacs Dive Club.

Wallin’s Dive Center will be holding a clearance sale Saturday, February 11th starting at 9am.

They are located at 1119 Industrial Road in San Carlos, CA 94070, and their phone number is (650) 591-5641. For the most recent news, visit their website at http://www.wallins.com.

It’s nice to see there are still big bugs like this in the water. Post your comments below!
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In California, it is illegal to buy or sell sport-caught abalone, or any other fish or wildlife, because it leads to the over-harvest of the resource. There is no commercial abalone harvest from California’s coast.

“The arrests remove another threat to California’s precious abalone resource,” said Captain Bob Farrell of the Department of Fish and Games (DFG) Law Enforcement Division. “The illegal harvest and commercialization of our abalone resource can devastate the abalone population if left unchecked.”

In August 2011, wardens observed Nuanrat Musser, 44, of Cotati purchase sport-caught abalone at a Cotati massage parlor. Wardens maintained surveillance on the business and observed Musser make several more abalone purchases. In September, wardens observed her as she resold the abalone contraband to Helen B. Macariola, 55, and Kritkaew McCulley, 65, both of Sacramento.

All three women were arrested this morning and booked into Sonoma County Jail. The case was filed with the Sonoma County District Attorneys Office, where each defendant will face three poaching-related misdemeanor charges.

Honest anglers and members of the public can help wardens stop poaching by reporting poaching crimes to California Department of Fish and Games CalTIP line at 1-888-334-2258.

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Note: This e-mail account is used to distribute information to the public. Do not reply to this e-mail; instead, direct questions or comments regarding the information contained in this e-mail to the Department staff listed as points of contact for this subject – thank you.

Report cards are due for sturgeon, abalone, spiny lobster and north coast salmon fisheries, as well as the steelhead fishery. Please note that although steelhead report card information can now be submitted online, DFG still requires salmon, sturgeon, lobster and abalone cards to be returned via mail or in person at a DFG counter.

DFG requests that cardholders review their cards carefully and complete the information as accurately as possible. More information about report cards can be found at www.dfg.ca.gov/licensing/fishing/sportfishingfaqs.html (see Validations and Report Cards).

The cards can be dropped off at any DFG license sales office (see list at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/licensing/officelocation.html) or mailed to the following address:

Sturgeon Report Cards should be mailed to:
DFG – Sturgeon Report Card
P.O. Box 944209
Sacramento, CA  94244-2090

Abalone Report Cards should be mailed to:
DFG – Abalone Report Card
32330 N. Harbor Dr.
Fort Bragg, CA 95437

Lobster Report Cards should be mailed to:
DFG – Lobster Report Card
3883 Ruffin Road
San Diego, CA 92123

North Coast Salmon Report Cards should be mailed to:
DFG – Klamath River Project
5341 Ericson Way
Arcata, CA  95521-9269

You are required to report your catch even if you lost your card or you did not fish. If you did not fish, write “did not fish” across your report card and return it to the address specified.  If you lost your report card, write a note to DFG explaining the loss. Include your name, address, telephone number, GO ID (from your sport fishing license) and to the best of your recollection, the harvest/catch effort information that was on your report card.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 13, 2012

Contacts:
Glenn Underwood, DFG License and Revenue Branch, (916) 928-5841
Kirsten Macintyre, DFG Communications, (916) 322-8988

2012 T-shirt Logo Design by Vic Rodriguez

In years’ past they have had over 500 divers who had a great time retrieving trash and lost items from the harbor as well as celebrating the event. There are numerous parties around town on both Friday and Saturday nights as divers revel in the warm friendly atmosphere of Catalina Island. Several dive clubs also have made this event one of their premier social events of the year.

The proceeds of the Avalon Harbor Underwater Cleanup benefit the Catalina Conservancy Divers Given Fund for Ocean Conservation established in the name of Dr. Robert Given and the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. Catalina Conservancy Divers is a support group of the Catalina Island Conservancy. The Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber is a life support recompressions chamber on Catalina that serves thousands of divers who frequent the Catalina waters.

For more information on this great event, visit the Catalina Island Conservancy website here.

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