Georgia/palawan with some out of town guests

I was looking for some dives to do to exercise my "New Found" CCR skills
after our mCCR 2 class, and gain some more experience, so it seems
perfect that Rob, Allison and Clinton were going to be in town for the
weekend, and Justin Daniels was also planning to do some diving while in
the LA area.

We booked the Island Diver out of Rocky Point/Redondo for the day, as
the boat is fast, well run and close to some nice dive sites.

We planned for 3 dives, the Georgia, the Palawan and Star of Scotland.
Rumors were that conditions had been awesome recently, so we were all hopeful of some excellent dives.

I started to get a little concerned as we loaded the boat, that the wind
was picking up, and sure enough even though most of it was due to a
fog-bank rolling by, conditions on the surface weren't all that could be
hoped for.

We set the shot line on the Retriever, vis looked good, and the surface
was flat, if a little stirred up. Rob, Allison and Clinton splashed
first, as Jame, Justin and I geared up.

Just as I surfaced from my back-roll, I saw a SMB surface right next to the shot, which definitely wasn't good news.

Turns out the current was stronger than expected, and that coupled with
the wind was dragging the shot across the bottom, and the wreck was
nowhere in sight.

We now had a choice to either all get back on the boat, de-kit and
reset, or have the boat reset the shot and tow us to the marker. We
ended up getting towed, which I was assured was the "lesser of two
evils" but my arm and shoulder still aren't quite convinced.

We all dropped in on go, before the shot had time to get dragged off the
wreck, and give us another sand dive. The current was moving on
descent, but swimmable, and actually gave us some clear water

I have never dived/doven the Georgia before, so I wasn't sure what to
expect. I had heard it was just a rubble field from some, but also that
there was 10-15 feet of structure there.
I was also interested to see how much remained since the California
Wreck divers page
(http://www.cawreckdivers.org/Wrecks/Geo&Retri.htm) reports that she
was mistakenly identified as the Retriever initially

We had clear but dark conditions, and Jamie soon took the lead, as the flashes from our 6 strobes lit up the water.

This is definitely partly a rubble field, but there is also some nice
structure to be found (although was some of that structure is, I'm
sometimes not sure !)




Jamie



Justin, looking for the wolf eel thats supposed to live here ?



Looks like part of a drive shaft...



Rob had is camera too (as well as Clinton)



The top of (part of) the wreck was covered in some nice gorgonians...



I thought maybe the wolf eel lived here, but no sign of him




this sort of looks like it could be some kind of bow but I am not convinved



the wreck appears to be in two main sections which appear to be upside down. I think.
Between the two sections was indeed a rubble filled, with a lot of fish life.

Toward one end, there were some ribs standing up (I think Clinton got a good shot) and again, and amazing amount of fish life.

This was my first time shooting stills on the CCR, and it actually went a lot better than I had imagined.

We had an uneventful ascent wherein i was way better than any of my
previous CCR ascents, but still move a little too slowly. This was
worlds better though.

for the second dive, we planned to scooter the Palawan.

We descended through some pretty snotty water as we passed 40 (above 40
was no current and the bluest water I have seen for a long time)

Vis was probably 10ish feet on the wreck and pretty milky.
We had fun scootering down the wreck (except apparently I was a bit too close to the deck and clunked Jammers around a bit)

Unfortunately due to a human charging error (2 scooter batts one
charger) Justins scooter ran out of juice, and we had to kick our way
300 feet back into the current, hiding behind the walls of the wreck as
much as possible.

Current was decent on ascent until 40 feet when it mellowed out and we had a much easier time.

Due to conditions, and how late it was, we bagged the third dive on Star
of Scotland and motored over to the Avalon where Dick figured (based on
how quickly the shot line went out to sea) that there was a 3kt current
running, so we decided against it and headed home.

Thanks to all for the excellent day of diving!