Cold Water Dive
05 December 2012 | Only with a Dry Suit
Capt Rich
The last time I cleaned our propellar or the boat bottom we were anchord in La Paz in prepartion for the bash back to California. I can faintly remember that life, but today I was given a cold hard reminder when I slid over the side of our dingy into the icy brine. Wearing sweats and wool socks beneith my dry suit, I could still feel the cold water and when my face hit the water, I had to bite down on my mouth piece to keep my teeth from chattering. I could barely see my fins through the green murk as I bumpped blindly into what was once a propeller. The Illegal immigrant barnacles that I smuggled in from Mexico took about all my strength and 2000 psi from my dive tank to knock off my propeller and send to the bay sand 30ft below our boat. With a clean propeller and bottom, we are now ready to make our first real move next week to Morro Bay.
Living Aboard on a mooring in Port San Luis has actually been easier than Lori and I thought it would be, but the first small storm of the season also confirned that this is no place you want to be during a SE storm. My love of estuary anchorages is well known and the Morro Bay Estuary provides great protection from swell and seas during a storm, so next week we will ready our 100lb Manson anchor and make for the calm protected waters of Morro Bay, where we plan to stay for Christmas. Mooring and Slip spaces are hard to come by in the small sleepy town of Morro Bay and at this point we just plan to anchor. Since we have basically lived at anchor for the last 4yrs, that really isn't a big deal and the price will of course be right up our alley! The plan is to bounce back and forth between our Port San Luis mooring and the Morro Bay anchorage based on the storm forecasts.