Weather report, Traffic report, Chamber Day report & more

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Batten down the hatches . . .

RAIN IS COMING - The prediction is for over two inches on Monday & Tuesday combined. It looks like the rain should start overnight, around 4-5AM Monday morning, and continues into early AM Wednesday morning. (There will be some breaks on Tuesday.) It'll be a little windy over Los Angeles (up to 15mph) but the big story is over the water where wind gusts may reach 35mph. A Gale Warming goes into effect starting at 4AM and continues for 24 hours, with seas expected to reach 7-9 feet between the mainland and Catalina. The express has already cancelled boats for Monday and, based on the NWS forecast, my guess is things look iffy for Tuesday and Wednesday as well. Things should start calming down a bit on Thursday when the current forecast calls for "only" 4-6 foot seas. Yikes!!! Sounds like a good week to stay home and hunker down.

WE MADE IT TO AVALON THIS PAST WEDNESDAY - It was a bit lumpy going over (but nice coming back) and conditions in the U/W Park were fairly good with water temps just above 60º and viz around 40-50 feet. The water was very nicely blue. But there was a pretty good current going left-to-right on the first dive. No Giant Sea Bass were sighted (wrong time of the year for them) but we did spot two fairly good-sized abalone. Nice to see them back in the Park. I wanted to give some TLC to the Cousteau plaque (see additional story below) and have a set of brushes that I brought with me for the task. As you can see from the pix below, a Garibaldi provided supervision. (Pix courtesy of Kathy Kalohi.) But we also discovered that Kathy's computer was on its last legs, as we're pretty sure we weren't diving to 242 feet within the Park boundaries.

110/HARBOR BOULEVARD EXIT ISSUES - If you're going to San Pedro down the 110 freeway and use the Harbor Blvd/Vincent Thomas bridge exit, don't make the same mistake I did. They're re-doing the on- and off-ramps there and the Harbor Blvd. exit is closed off. There's a sign prior that says "Use Channel Street" and that's what you should do. But I was running late, it looked like the exit was open, so I forged ahead. Ooops. Turns out the exit IS open if you want to go over the bridge. The exit for Harbor Blvd. itself is blocked off with K-rail. So I had to go over the bridge, loop back around onto Ferry Street and go under to get back on the bridge, come back across and then could get off at Harbor to get to the Express. Wasn't fun. At the end of the day, you'll get on Harbor and go under the bridge and a little further north (200 yards) to the new entrance ramp to get on the 110 going north.

COUSTEAU PLAQUE UPDATE - The original plaque was installed in 1997. It deteriorated significantly over the years. In 2020, we commissioned a replacement plaque and, through the skills of some of the divers at Signature Scuba, we installed the new plaque over the old. But despite our being told that the new plaque was designed to be corrosion-resistant in salt water, that's not the case. Although the text is holding up, the upper right corner is a small square with a bas-relief image of Jacques. It has deteriorated significantly to the point that he looks like a skeletal zombie (which he was not). One of the issues seems to be that the replacement 2020 plaque had some zinc in it and that leaches away when exposed to salt water, explaining why Jacques looks so bad. When I was at the Park on Wednesday, James McMullin (owner of Signature Scuba) happened to also be there and we briefly discussed the idea of getting yet another "new" plaque made (this time without zinc) to replace the deteriorating one. We'll keep you posted.

CHAMBER DAY 2026 IS COMING - The actual event date is Wednesday, May 6, but the website will open for business on March 1. Once again this year, we'll have options for Day, Eve, and Chamber Challenge. This is THE major fund-raiser for the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber and hopefully we'll be able to talk you into participating and giving whatever you can. More to follow.

FLIRTATIOUS CUTTLEFISH - Turns out that cuttlefish can flirt with one another. They can't see color, but they do see the polarization of light and use that to give the cuttlefish equivalent of, "How YOU doin'???" You can read more about this salacious behavior here: CUTTLEFISH CUTIES.

And that’ll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!

- Ken