One topic of conversation that always seems to come up, is making our first trip to California and getting to see the ocean, all its life, and the many different settings that only the ocean can offer. My buddy Danny and I started talking about what we should do with our salt water dives. I spent hours and hours researching dive sites on the Internet. Hundreds of texts and phone calls to Bill asking his advice and about his past experiences. Bill always had the info we needed and steered us in the right direction of dives we could do at our skill level. With all the info we had gathered Danny and I decided on a location and a reason for going there. We had always talked about diving for lobsters and knew that lobster season opened up in a few weeks. So this was our plan. We would drive to laguna beach in a month, book a room and dive for lobsters all weekend. We did tons of research on the sites in that area. We watched quite a few youtube videos showing people almost effortlessly grabbing juicy lobsters out of the rocks and stuffing them in their bags. We thought we knew exactly what we had to do and it would be only a matter of time before we were cooking up some tails for the whole neighborhood and eating ourselves sick. We couldn't wait.
We set a date for November 12th and 13th. We had also rounded up a pretty good group of experienced divers to go with us and show us the ropes. The group would include of course Bill, and the rest of his tribe. Marcia, Dubby, Sara, Chadster, Danny and I. The weeks leading up to the trip were packed with texts back and forth, video sharing, ideas for storing the lobsters until the feast would begin, and lots of talk of how we were gonna take the beach by storm . Danny and I were just as excited as the first day we strapped on tanks for the first time. On the friday of our departure I did not have to work. April and I had the car loaded with our gear and just had to wait till Danny was home from work. We picked up Danny around five pm and hit I-15 heading south. There was no red bull needed in this car We were riding pretty high with anticipation.
Reflecting back on these moments reminds me of how hobbies like diving, racing dirt bikes, rodeo road trips, and other group activities can bring together amazing groups of like minded people. There is just something about being to share excitement and adventure with great friends and family that really brings out the best in people. Some of my best memories are long car trips with people like this conversing and laughing and listening to music. Even if we had no real destination the drives alone would be a great experience. The miles flew by without and notice and we were getting close to orange county. The rain had begun to fall pretty hard. If only we had been able to predict weather a month in advance when we booked our room and planned the trip. We checked in to the hotel and went across the street and for some dinner and a couple cocktails before calling it a night. When we woke up in the morning it looked like the rain had stopped and the weather was gonna be ok after all. We packed up the car and drove down to the coast and looked for the dive shop where Danny needed to rent a few pieces of dive gear. As we got a little closer to the coast we started to see just exactly what the ocean had in store for us on this morning. The sea was anything but calm and was exploding in front of us. Maybe the storm was not quite as over as we thought. But we were still confident we could handle the surf and snag all the lobsters like we had planned. Everyone met up at the shop. Shaws cove, the place we had decided to dive was directly behind the shop. We drove down the street and found ample parking along the street just across from the stairs heading down the the beach. Danny and I decided we would go down to the beach and take a look at the conditions before gearing up. The sky had begun to cloud up again and was hiding the sun. We walked down the long stairway between all the multi million dollar mansions and walked out onto the sand. What we saw was 6-10 breakers smashing the beach with no breaks between the sets. I gotta be honest. I was a little intimidated. Neither one of us really said much about it but the look we gave each other spoke for itself. We hiked back up the stairs to meet up with the rest of our group and report the conditions. On the top of the stairs a new group of local divers was headed down to take a look at the conditions. We discussed the waves with our buddies and we all decided it would be a challenge but worth the fight. We also had another one of Bills buddies show up. He was introduced as bee keeper Daniel. We all got our gear out of the carts and began suiting up. Danny was super pumped because he had just got a pretty good deal on a bad a$$ dive knife. When we were all tanked up we started our walk down to the beach. By this time the local divers had come back up. They did not gear up. They hopped back in their cars and drove off. I was beginning understand why they were looking at us a little funny.
We grabbed all our stuff and lumbered down the stairs. We gathered on the sand and talked about our plan. Bill went through the entry plan with us one more time. We would all meet up about 300 feet off shore and wait for everyone to get together before we went down and started our dive. I waved to Danny and asked him if he was ready. He said yup lets do this and we walked into the ocean. For all of you that have been in the ocean before, you can picture whats it is like to dodge and dip under the waves when empty handed on a warm summer day or dive under with a surf board and paddle out. Well things don't work that way when you have 150 lbs of gear on your back and fins on your feet. You look and feel like a wounded duck that had just been dropped on it head and is wondering into the ocean. Its not pretty. About the third wave that rocked me over it began to become clear that this was not gonna be like the videos I had watched on youtube. Maybe I was not as good of a diver as I thought I was. Maybe I should have got quite a few more dives under my belt before tackling the stormy angry ocean. I think it was at this moment that I felt about as alive as a person can feel. I could either call it a day and sit on the beach or figure out the situation. I sacked up and plowed into the next wave that broke on me. I started swimming as hard as I could and took another wave head on. I could see that if I could get past one more breaker I would be out of the surf. I ducked my head and closed my eyes and plowed the waves one more time. This one was the worst of the three. It partially removed my mask and ripped my regulator out of my mouth. My heart raced as I tried to continue swimming out while straightening out my mask and regulator situation. When I calmed down a second later and realized I was out of the breakers I inflated my vest a little more and started my swim out towards the buoys. I had not felt it yet but I was completely exhausted. My legs and arms were completely gassed out. As i closed my eyes again and layed on my back to swim further out it became clear where the huge breaking waves were coming from. The swells out off shore were huge. I felt like a stupid little bobber on the end of a fishing pole. I looked around for my buddy Danny. He had entered the waves right next to me and shouldn't be to far from me. I looked in all directions. I was all alone. The swells were so big that I could only see the houses on the shore when I was on top of a swell. On the down side of the swell everything in the direction of the shore disappeared and black cloudy sky was all I could see. With this being my first time this far from shore in rough seas, it was pretty hard for me to stay calm and think straight. From all the rough tide and surge the water had become very murky. I tried looking down towards the bottom but could not see more than six or seven feet. I had no idea what was down there or around me in the water. After about ten minutes I saw a body in the water that had made it past the break. As he got a little closer we signaled each other and started swimming towards each other. As i got closer I could see that it was bee keeper Danny whom I had just briefly met.
I told him I was super stoked to have someone out with me. I asked him if he had seen my partner and he said " umm if he was the guy entering next to you I think he might have gotten tossed for a loop. A wave caught him pretty good and smashed him around a couple of times" With the waves breaking as high as they were at the shore we could not see any of the other divers. We could not tell if they were all down under us or laid out on the beach like the normandy invasion lol. The bee keeper and I bobbed in the swells and fought the rip curl for about 35 minutes. We had finally agreed that we would head back to shore and check on everyone. We also both agreed to descend to the bottom and ride the surge on the bottom right back into the beach to avoid the surf as long as possible. I let the air out of my bcd and sank below the surface. My heart was racing. I had pictured so many things when I had thought about what it would look like at the bottom. Slowly i could start to make out what I thought was the bottom. There was no rocks, no kelp, no great white sharks waiting to eat me like my mind and so many movies had made me think. Just plain white sand. I had not even been out far enough out to see any of the underwater rock structure. We both gave each other the ok signal and began swimming in towards the surface. This is the first time I had ever had to swim in water that had a surge to it. We would kick and dig in to the sand when the under toe was pulling us out and then the forward surge would rocket us forward a few feet. About half way back to shore we spooked to small rays out of the sand. That was cool. The closer we got to the shore I could start to see the waves above us. I had always wanted to see what a wave looked like from underneath them. It was amazing. Totally breathtaking. It looked so pretty and relaxing. It was quiet and orchestrated. Nothing like the angry mess I had seen on my way in. When I got to about 5 feet of water I took my fins off and inflated my vest. I popped out of the water and was immediately smashed from behind by a wave. Once again I was a ragdoll at the mercy of the water. By this time a couple of divers in our group ran out and helped me to my feet and out of the water. I looked around and there was gear laying everywhere. Danny was laying in the ice plants recovering and the girls were taking pictures and laughing it up. Bill and Chad had gone out for another attempt. Right about that time I heard sirens and horns from up above the houses behind us. I rescue swimmer and several coast guard guys with radios came running down the steps and the rescue diver ran out into the surf. Right at this time Bill was returning from his short little dive. I was a little confused as to why the coast guard had showed up. The diver walked out to Bill and soon discovered that Bill was totally fine and no one needed saving there. The head guy with the radio said that a home owner had watched us enter the huge surf and thought we were in trouble and so called 911 because they were scared for us. The coast guard said the beach was now closed and there would be no more diving there on that day.
I was super excited. I had came out there with visions of sunny beaches and bags full of lobsters, in calm glassy seas with pretty fish all around me. I had found something completely the opposite. I had found a challenge and a chance to conquer some fears of the unknown. I felt extremely proud that I had pushed my fears aside and pushed myself to figure the situation out and see it through even though it was not what I had came there for. As it turned out I had jumped in the ocean at just the right time. Danny just a few steps behind me took the second chance to go in and got slammed by several huge waves. He had continued to get up and fight the waves but there was no break. He got rag dolled and beat up till he could not stand up any more. And to top it all off the rough ocean robbed him of his brand new dive knife. We headed up to the cars and swapped stories of what all happened to each of us. We had to give Bill the hardest time for almost needing to be rescued. We had also decided that we had not had our fill of diving yet for the day. We checked the weather report and saw that it might be better conditions down south in la jolla. We did drive down there and get in the water which is a whole other story in itself.
The next day I woke up pretty early which was a surprise cause we had stayed out all night on the town. I texted Bill to see what he was doing and if he wanted to sneak another dive in while everyone else was still sleeping off the nights activities. He gave the usual response. "sweeetttt''. The weather had completely left the area. The ocean was a sunny and calm. We walked right in and did an awesome 30 minute dive. I got to see all kinds of fish and rock structure. I was stoked.
Although we had planned for a certain kind of trip and different outcomes, everything seemed to work out in the end. We may not have been enjoying some homemade lobster bisque but this trip in my eyes was far from a bust. We got to enjoy the company of our amazing friends. I was able to push myself farther than I ever have before. We were able to open our eyes to new situations. I learned so much about myself that weekend. I was happy. And most important we were all safe.
There is a certain amount of satisfaction with being faced with uncomfortable and frightful situations and having the mental toughness to get through these obstacles. It is in these obstacles that I get the most gratification. It is in these hard situations I feel more alive than ever. I am thankful for everything I have and for the people that help me get where I am going.
Trav
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