Tales from the Logbook--The Ocean Skin Dive

We met at Hendry’s Beach (also known as Arroyo Burro beach) on a Saturday morning to complete a skin dive--the first of the required three ocean dives.  The gearing up was a bit more complicated than at the pool because for the first time we entered the water wearing the wetsuit and weight belt.  We geared up on the beach, walked to the damp sand and put on our fins.

Dave emphasized the importance of shuffling backward while wearing the fins into the water.  He cautioned us to always be aware of the size and timing of the waves.

“You do not want to be caught in breaking surf, you could get knocked down and hurt,” he warned. “Either get through the surf quickly or exit and wait for the next lull in the waves.  Once you commit to entering, do not dawdle.” 

Shuffling backward in fins with gear on is a skill we had practiced on the pool deck.  It is completely different in the ocean environment.  But, we all managed to get through the light surf with no major problems.

Steve brought a dive buoy, essentially an inner tube with a canvass cover with a dive flag and anchor attached.  After he secured the anchor on the bottom, this buoy became our support and rendezvous point. 

We all gathered around the buoy.  Dave immediately brought our attention to a pod of approaching dolphins.  The circled two or three times below the group before taking off for parts unknown.  They may not have found us to be all that interesting but the class was shouting with delight.  If this was what we experienced on our first practice session in the ocean, imagine what real dives would be like!

At the buoy, Dave checked make sure we were correctly weighted for neutral buoyance.  One at a time, he had us grab the bouy, get vertical in the water, release all the air from our b.c., and exhale completely.  If we sunk to eye level, we were neutrally buoyant.  Based on the result of the test, Dave would tell us to add or subtract whatever weight we needed to achieve neutral buoyancy.  If a diver was underweight, Dave would add the place the trim weight in the b.c.’s pocket from extra weights he had placed in the float.  If a diver was overweight, they would need to remove that weight from the belt for the ocean scuba dives.

Most of the divers were weighted correctly or needed a marginal correction of a pound or two.

In our briefings, Dave had told us that the signal for “I’m OK” was the hands clasped in a semicircle over our heads.  The signal for “I need help” or “something’s wrong” was waving one or both arms overhead.

One diver felt queasy in the swell and started waving his hand to get Dave’s attention.  Almost immediately the County ocean lifeguard on duty started to respond.  Dave was able to wave him off before he got to the water’s edge. Dave was not too happy with the diver who started apologizing profusely.

Properly weighted, we moved on to the skin dive.  Dave directed each of us to do a pike or feet-first surface dive to get below the surface, equalize as we descended to the bottom, grab a hand full of sand and return to the surface.  We repeated the exercise until we had each brought a handful of sand to the surface clutching it as if was sunken treasure. 

With the exercise completed, we headed back into the beach, reversing the technique that we had been taught to enter, ever mindful of the waves.  

One nice feature about the beach in that era was the showers thatwecould use to wash off the salt water and sand off ourselves and our gear.  While we throughly rinsed everything back at the shop, it was nice to get a head start with the fresh water rinse,  Additional ammeninites included plentiful parking and a resturant with outdoor seating.